Drivethru Life

Because 100% of Americans spend 90% of their lives in the drivethru. Or at least, that's what I feel suspicious about nowadays. I find myself parking and going inside just to defy the lifestyle. Or maybe it was being stuck in line for 45 minutes one horrible mistake of a day. I learned my lesson after listening to 6 songs on the radio and getting a luke-warm cinnamin dolce latte. Yupp, I'll just go inside next time! But while I was waiting, I had the thrill of seeing this little sparrow peeping around in some pretty little wildflowers. Just thinking about how God cares for me and that little sparrow changed the whole experience. In fact, it made my day.

A Glimpse of Autumn Glory

Most of Oklahoma City is still green and defiant of the upcoming cold, but this particular road is lined with trees who have taken a bold approach to the holiday air. I was stunned by their brilliant scarlet beauty beginning to appear. What perfection! If only the trees could speak, what would these say of the chilly nights and frosty mornings?

Sunsets on the Heartland

These are real photographs from different nights that I've taken with my camera while driving around the countryside southwest of Oklahoma City. I've been singing to the bedridden at a nursing home there all summer long, and I love that ministry. It does my soul good to see their smiles and the joy in their precious, feeble eyes. While I drive back and forth, I have been captivated by the beautiful countryside. The vast fields of corn and wheat are landmarked by silent giants, the oil rigs moving up and down in timeless rhythm. Almost every week, I pull the car off the busy 70-mile-and-hour highway and turn into a random field where I can sit among the thistles and wild black-eyed susan flowers and watch the fiery sun kiss the fearless horizon. It's breathtaking. The peace in the air, silent and still, far from the pressure of every day life in the city, is such a wonder for me, a girl who was raised in the heart of a teeming multi-million person metropolis. I hope these pictures help convey the beauty that graces Oklahoma just before twilight wraps it into slumber.  What an unprecedented artist is the Creator of this world, to effortlessly spread his masterpiece across the wide western sky with such ease and splendor.

Snapshots

I've been taking pictures of the pretty countryside here in Oklahoma but haven't had the time to sit down and upload them to my computer and go find internet to upload them to my blog! But I am excited to share some lovely photos I've been able to capture since returning here. The weather has been so nice. Most of the time, I spend life on the go and a lot of time in traffic. So I decided I'm just going to carry my camera around in the empty passenger street and find the opportunities to practice my skills! I am blessed to have two crazy amazing photographers in my family, Molly Wood and Steven O'Brien. My photos don't compare but it is still a blissful pastime for me. =) Be expecting random posts as I practice my skills starting each weekend, but they will probably be on the weekends when I take a break and can find the time to download/edit/upload/publish.... yeah. It's more work than you might think.
Speaking of. I learned photoshop is going out. WHAT?! Someone send me donations so I can buy the software before it's no longer on the market!!!! lol

Dynamic Duo

Here's a shout out to another fantastic blog, Working in Faith! This blog covers the quiet labors of Steven and Nina O'Brien in Kharkov, Ukraine, in Faith Baptist Church under the ministries of my parents, John & Cathy O'Brien. They help with everything from interior renovations on the new building to exterior landscaping projects, run the youth group, head up activities, and actively evangelize that dark city for Christ. They have been working since their wedding last year and I've never heard them complain once! What a blessing and inspiration for so many young couple who are complete, 100% focused on themselves and their new lives together. I am so proud of my brother and sister-in-law and miss them very much! They were a big spiritual encouragement to me while I was home this summer. Check out their blog here. Their biggest need right now is PRAYER and SUPPORT. They need funds to eat, prepare for winter, and continue to serve overseas without a normal income. Please follow the blog and give! This is definitely a ministry to get behind!

Autumn

Happy first day of autumn! My favorite season, finally arrived. As Panera and Starbucks compete to draw in customers with tantalizing pumpkin-inspired holiday treats, the air is growing nippy early at night and early in the morning. When I walk around the lake at night to pray and enjoy the moonlit waters, the air is no longer full and sultry with summer's embrace. Now I can smell the fullness of herbs, the crispness of the leaves, and the briskness of the breeze. This has been one very long, but very fast year. I was thinking about the verse where God talks about making everything beautiful in His time. From the very dawn of creation, he was inspired to craft seasons, shifting solar patterns, and the standard movement of time. In heaven, there will be no time. No seasons, really. It's just this wonderful, special gift God has given to us, now. As I watch the holidays pull near, I am so thankful to God that he is giving more time to reach out to others, to make a change in this weary, hopeless world. What are you doing with your time this autumn? Make it count! =)

Her Name is Margarita

 There is something magical about a girl and a puppy. I miss my miniature dachshunds, Zubi and Tekel. They were so tiny, so gentle, so sweet and just a tad spunky. Both of them died while I was ten thousand miles away in college, on the opposite side of the world. I miss them. Ever since December, all I've wanted is a puppy. A puppy, and to be home. My landlord wouldn't allow me to get a puppy when I graduated. And I finally got to go home, but just for a few brief weeks. And while I was there, I met a puppy.

Just a scrawny, fluffy, rolly-polly street puppy. Sweet, innocent, and with no pedigree. But so much potential. The very factors that move a Noelle. I fell immediately in love. Snezhok, Russian for Snowflake. But to call him white would be a stretch. He was half white, half grey from the ashen dirt of Kharkov streets. And when I saw him and his four multi-colored siblings rolling around across the street, I wasn't tired and lost anymore. I was just a little girl again, with a whole big world somewhere outside the rotten streets of a third world country. And I stopped work on the construction to go outside and scoop them up and laugh as they wriggled playfully right out of my arms.

All except Snezhok.

He nuzzled up to me and rolled over so I could stroke his milk-filled warm little belly, and then he curled up and pushed his nose under my arm, happy and calm. I brushed his dirty fur, and fingered his precious little pink paws, and I was in heaven.

Well, these street puppies are closely watched over by two little girls next store, Margarita and Nastya. They came running out to see what I was doing with their puppies. Children and I are... an interesting story. Sometimes we jive, more than often we do not. But the little girls crossed their arms and stared at me, and I smiled back at them warily, and the five puppies ran circles around us, urging us to be friends. None of our neighbors let their little girls come to our church to learn about the Bible. They've never heard the story of the ark, about David and Goliath, about Jesus walking on the water. Thank God for puppies.

It was just a little thing. We shared the puppies and soon the girls were waving and running to see me when I came by. It felt so odd, but it made me smile. Who says God can't use anyone he wants to?

Just when this door was opening, Margarita's mom came to talk to us. She worked all day, and her littlest daughter had been bit by a cat while playing out on the street. Now her girl, six years old, was badly infected and lying in the hospital. Had we seen the cat?

Talking to Lilia, she confided that she was worried about Margarita. She left the house bright and early to go to work, and from work to be at the hospital with her baby girl. In my country, they don't provide food to anyone in the hospital, even a child. So it was imperative that Lilia go and feed her sick child, bathe her, and change her bedding each day. While she was gone, Margarita was left to fend for herself. She had forgotten how to use the stove, Lilia told us, and spent the day before unable to cook food. (No box dinners in Kharkov. No plethora of instant cereal at Walmart.) But what could she do? Her husband had just passed away during the cold winter months, and being a member of the Jehovah's Witness cult, none of the neighbors would come near her or Margarita to help.

I thought of Joyce, back in Oklahoma City. I thought of all the people in the world who need help, who need someone to care. Someone to hand a blanket to them on a street corner, or bring them food when their mom is gone for seventeen hours a day.

It was pizza night, and Mom and Nina and I made real, scratch, American pizza and brought some over to Margarita. Who knows if she would have opened the door? But she knew me. The girl who was crazy about the puppies. And she couldn't believe the pizza. Neither could her mom, when she got home that night.
Before I flew out, Margarita came over to say goodbye. I gave her one of my stuffed teddy bears, and she promised she wouldn't forget me. How many Americans would she meet in her life? Probably none. I knew she would never forget me.

And on the long, quiet, lonely plan ride back to Oklahoma City... I knew I wouldn't forget them either. Margarita and Snezhok would be in my heart and my prayers.