The Beautiful Feet

Birthdays, Christmas, and New Year's

2012-01-04T20:41:00.008-06:00

The two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year's are just plain crazy around our house. Josiah's birthday is the 21st of December and Zoe's is the 3rd of January (today). Add in there a Pastor/Church Planter Papa, ten kids, and a ministry house with 6 young adults and it's mind boggling!

Josiah loves traditions and his birthday tradition is one of the family favorites. We all go to Bentleyville. This is the huge light display on the Duluth waterfront. It is huge, you walk through it, get cocoa and cookies, roast marshmallows, eat popcorn, visit Santa and Mrs. Clause, take pictures with snowmen, reindeer and all manner of large Christmas characters. There is even a large skating area kind of like in New York. It's great. Afterward we go home via Olive Garden and pick up Zuppa, Salad, and bread sticks. Dinner, presents, cake, and a viewing of his birthday video. It's a great way to celebrate.

Christmas this year was nuts. This was our first Christmas with a full time Pastor Papa on duty. We had no idea what that would look like or all that was involved. We were doing a service on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning. We experienced in full force why many churches don't do a Christmas service...the Pastor and his family don't actually get to celebrate Christmas. We will always do a Christmas morning service though, even when it doesn't fall on a Sunday. It's Jesus birthday we are celebrating and we want that to be the main focus of the day. Gathering with family, exchanging gifts, having a large meal...all of these things are good and add to the celebration, but especially in our materialistic culture they can easily take the spot light. This year it was eye opening for us as we seemed to be always behind the ball, too much to do, not enough time, many of the people who we normally lean on are gone visiting family, kids are home from school and want to spend time with us, our families want to celebrate with us as well. We took it in stride (for the most part) and realized that next year we will need to structure things differently. We've begun the process of talking through that, and I am eager to see what new "traditions" we work out to put Jesus back as the center and enjoy the celebration with joy and peace.

We spent the afternoon at Tom and Pat's on Christmas Eve and some of our young adults joined us. Before we left the young adults gave the kids their Christmas present...a long huge brightly colored caterpillar! They love it, it's named Richard. The kids opened presents and were once again blown away by the generosity of relatives. The older three got kindles. I can think of a better gift for them with all the book readying they do. They go through books like water. This way the books are cheaper and they can easily share them. The younger kids got all manner of leap pad, leapster electronics, and cute clothes. We went to church for our Christmas Eve service. It was somewhat sparse, but nice. We did a candle lit reading of the Christmas story with some carols, then went caroling around the neighborhood afterward.

Christmas Day we had service in the morning and got to worship Jesus on the day of His birth. After church we gathered at our house and exchanged gifts among the kids. Cheryl (my mom) brought over some yummy German Christmas coffee cake before church that kept with my childhood traditions. It was long, but fun day.

The day after Christmas we went to Gramz and Grampz's farm for another celebration. It was great to see my sister's family and spend some more time together. New Year's Eve was a low key event for us. We took the kids to Tin Tin (a movie) and then home to watch some TV and play some puzzles. It was a good way to close out the year.

Zoe's birthday celebration ended up spanning two days as her actual birthday happened to be the kids first day back at school. So we took them all swimming and out to lunch on Monday to celebrate. We had a party Tuesday at home once school was done. Video, dinner, gifts, cake...it was great. Zoe seemed to have a great time and really enjoyed her birthday. It's hard to watch the video and see her life flash before me in less the ten minutes. It was just yesterday that I brought her home wasn't it? My precious little baby has grown up so much. They all keep growing faster and faster. I want to slow down our lives and just enjoy them!

Someone asked me if I was excited that the kids were going back to school soon. My response, "No". I feel like with the birthday sandwiching two major holidays (working holidays none the less) we barely got a chance to spend any time with our kids. I pondered ways to keep them home, pull them from school and home school again. I would talk myself up, convincing myself I could manage it, only to have Dave shake his head and show me the reality that homeschooling ten kiddos, a handful of which need special help, was not possible or beneficial for me or them.

So sadly we began the school thing again this week. The nice bit about it is the the routine that it forces us into. We are back into the 5am alarm clock, 5:30 Bible study with the older kids, the hour and half mad dash to get everyone dressed, fed, lunched, and out the door, and the sad twinge in my heart as I watch them drive away. I told Debbie the other day that I think being a parent is an on going exercise in letting go. I want to let them go like a person lets loose a dove, and then stand back and watch it soar. I'm not saying we are there yet, but I pray that when God does call us to turn loose, they will arise on his wind.

19 and Counting!

2011-12-05T11:13:00.002-06:00

Last time I blogged I introduced some of the young adults who now live with us. It started with Garrett moving in as a "nanny" almost two years ago. Since then God has brought us a number of young people in need of a place to call "home". We never set out to have our house packed with young adults (not until our own kids were at that age anyway!) Yet God seems to be leading us once again in a direction we could have never guessed or imagined!

It began with Garrett, a year or so later came Oliver, few months after that Debbie and her 3 year old daughter Allison moved in. This is where we were when we planted ARISE in the end of October. Over the past month however, God has asked us to reconfigure our house and lives to follow his call in this new work. God has brought to ARISE a much larger number of young adults then we ever even thought lived in this area! Many of them are in need of a home and a family. Some are needing to press into community, other to begin to stand on their own two feet as adults.

We spent the afternoon moving new people into the house, moving furniture around and creating the Man Cave. The Man Cave was Ollie's apartment in the basement, it now houses Oliver, Spencer, and Dustin. Another guy might be joining them in January too. I never thought the "gym" we'd built would be used for so many different things! Dave had Versimark in that space for six months, and now it's home for some pretty neat guys. Dave's only regret he said is that he didn't put in an exhaust fan when we built it. His exact quote was "that's a whole lot of man stink in one space"!! The basement also houses the two locker rooms, laundry facilities, storage & utility rooms and what used to be our media room. That room is now being remodeled by Dusty. He's making in into a studio apartment for him and Debbie once they are married in a few weeks. They are hoping to save up for the down payment on a house of their own. Alyssa moved into one of the third floor bedrooms across from Debbie's room, next to the twins & Allie and down the hall from our older girls.

God is so amazing! Even as I write this I am once again overwhelmed at what He did for us and what He directs us to do in response. Last night we had our first "house meeting" of what we've deemed The Contented Acres Ministry House. (The farm and vineyard were already named Contented Acres, but we had no idea that would one day include a ministry house!) We sat down all the young adults and our children (Lacy on up) to go over the Covenant, expectations, and divide up the chores. It was a good chance to set up some structure to the house and teach each member about how a family should function. It was so good! We were so blessed by the eager response of each member to pitch in and help with chores and responsibilities. Jill (who doesn't live here) was also in the meeting since she was over. When everyone was calling out what chores they wanted she even volunteered to wash the windows! It was so funny!

As Dave and I have prayed and wrestled with what God was calling us to, He has confirmed over and over that this is in fact where He is leading. We are so glad to have that confirmation, because we have begun to endure some pretty fierce opposition. We've grown numbingly accustom to people disagreeing with our uninhibited obedience to God. Our lives do not look anything like "normal" and it is far from easy. We have learned and now hold dear, often through painful tears, that "good" is not the same as "easy". What God promises is good, and he has not ever disappointed. So as he has put this new call on our lives and the opposition has begun, we press in deeper to the one who directs our steps. We hold tight to his promises, ready our weapons, and lift our shields to withstand the attack.

On one hand it's hard for us to understand why so many believers and non believers alike are threatened by us. We have faced direct accusations and harbored opinions...Everything from us being foolish and dumb to outright calling us a cult, not true believers, wolves, and worse. It get hard to hear and wearying to the soul to be continually, actively hated. It's hard to, because a number of the loudest naysayers are other believers. They are used to seeing life function in a certain way, their way. Anything that threatens that is met with a vengeance. It's also hard because we know what it "looks like" to the outside world. We've got eleven kids and eight adults all living under one roof...that's just crazy. But in the end we don't care what it "looks like". That's fear of man. Sure Christian will quote the "don't give an appearance of evil" verse (which is actually not what the verse says 1 Thess. 5:22) but they forget that Jesus was called a glutton and a drunkard. They forget that it's not our jobs to be the morality police or to do the Holy Spirit's job of convicting people of sin. Our job is to live out the overwhelming, all encompassing, scandalous grace of Jesus Christ. No, we don't compromise truth. No, we don't give license to immoral behavior, or sin. There is no cheap grace here...that's because it was actually very costly, just one perfect life.

We are called instead to go and make disciples. Baptize people. Lead, teach, train in righteousness. Prepare them for the ministry God has for them and the life they are to lead. Love, nurture, pray over, pour into. One question I have gotten a bunch and I have even asked myself (repeatedly) is "why". Why are we doing this? It hit me the other night as I was really struggling with being the object of so much hate. Melissa and I were out for dinner and I joked that we should just switch houses. She's had training leading and living with multiple young adults. She had worked on the campus of a Christian college for many years and with in various other young adult ministries. Her and Mike could move into our and we'd take our kids and move into hers. I joked saying our kids would fit in her basement family room. She grabbed my hand and look hard into my eyes and calmly said "I know Juli. I know they'll fit down there because at one point we'd measured and planed it out. Remember?" That did it to me. It all hit me like a flood and I "got it". Why do we do this you ask? Because it is what we would want others to do for us. Because it's a tiny tangible taste of what God has done for us. How could we possibly do anything less? When our lives were collapsing and we weren't sure we'd have a place to stay, people offered us a place, a home.

God is abundant in his grace and scandalous in his generosity. We should follow his example and live lives that reflect Him. Our grace should make the religious nervous and our generosity should shock the unbeliever. That is our great joy.

Happy Birthday Lacy!

2011-11-29T14:28:00.003-06:00

Monday was Lacy's sixth birthday! We actually celebrated it on Sunday afternoon because Dave had to go to San Diego again this week. We gathered the family (including Garrett!) and had a regular ol' party. We got Lacy this Barbie cake...she was super surprised! I love the fact that they can make her black, just like our own beauty.

We opened gifts in the living room and Lacy was thrilled with her gifts. Grandma and Grandpa got her some clothes. Gramz and Grampz got her a doll from Ethiopia. (They gave her their gift before they left for Thanksgiving).

Her brothers and sisters gave her some dress up clothes and jewelry. She also got a couple of games.

Papa and I are going to take her to The Sound of Music and dinner for her birthday present from us. We have so many toys and things we decided to do something special instead of by something this year.
I made Lacy a DVD movie of all the pictures since she came home. It was fun to watch how much she's grown since she came home. We told "Lacy stories" in the living room and talked about all our favorite times with her. She used to be so very naughty when she first came here. She was more then a handful and tried our patience at every turn. She has grown so much and while she has her moments of relapse, overall she's quite the joy. I love how close her and Zoe have become. I envision the day when they are best friends.

On her birthday I can't help but think her mother. I wonder if she's still alive, if she's missing Lacy today, saying a prayer for her baby girl. We are still in utter shock that God would choose us to get the privilege of calling Lacy our daughter. She is so beautiful, so creative, such a amazing gift from God. Her smile lights up the room. We are blessed beyond belief by our precious Selassie Selah!

Deck the Halls!

2011-11-29T12:31:00.003-06:00

We had a great Thanksgiving time last week. The day started out with some homemade egg bake for our large "family". We took turns fighting with the oven however. The egg bake had to cook and so did some bacon. Debbie had pumpkin cheese cake to bake and we were making mashed potatoes. All of this was made much more difficult by the fact that the oven kept shutting itself off after 2 min. Augh!! On the bright side Dave was able to clean up and paint the new, old stove. It took five guys to carry it in, but they were able to get it into the kitchen on

Saturday! It still needs to be hooked up to the gas, but we are all eagerly awaiting the two ovens, pancake griddle and six burners! Plus the old stove will get fixed (if possible) and moved into Ollie's apartment in the basement, so we'll have that one available too. The double fridge also works! Hooray! Dave didn't have a chance to finish fixing it before he had to leave for San Diego this week so it's still in the garage. It seems that while it turns on and cools, there is a short in a wire somewhere and it shocks anyone who touches the metal!! I think that is soooo funny and the best diet plan ever! We are so thrilled to be blessed with these new appliances. They are especially timely as it appears three more young adults may be joining our clan within the next month!The rest of Thanksgiving day was spent at Tom and Pat's house having a delicious meal and some fun family time! Ollie and his mom were able to join us too!

We are truly thankful for all that God has blessed us with. In Dave's sermon last Sunday he talked about people having set their lives up like little snow globes...all perfect on the outside for everyone to see, yet isolated from really community. People living pretend lives running in vain after false idols that trap and destroy from the inside out. He challenged us to smash our snow globes, rub our eyes and see what God is calling us to. I am so thankful that God has blessed us with REAL community. It is so rare. Not that I don't try my hardest to construct my own snow globe of perfection...but when you are really live life so closely with others, it's pretty hard to fake much!

It amazes me that all these people see me for who I am (angry with the kids, no make up, dancing the kitchen, in my devotions and in my sin) and they are still here! My kids have found deep relationships with the young adults and each other. It's such a privilege to watch them all grow, seeing how God is so abundantly at work in young, young adult, and old (guess that's us) alike! When you live life so dependent on God for your very sanity, good council, peace, and provision it isn't hard to live thankfully!

Friday was the beginning of the Christmas decorating! We had a ton of family fun putting up the tree, making snow flakes, and dancing to Christmas music.

This year it was the twin's turn to put the angel on top. Dave hoisted them both on his shoulder and they did their best to reach the top. I was more then a bit nervous that it was all going to end in disaster, and almost did! They got it on the tree then both twins flopped over and Dave ended up holding them by their legs upside down as Trinity and I kept them from hitting the floor! We had fun putting the decorations on the tree too. We talked about why we decorate the tree, that each decoration reminds us of God's provision, the people He's placed in our lives, or the times we can talk about the amazing things He's done. This year we found of box of decorations that were from the tree that was at Versimark. It was bitter sweet. One was an old fashion looking red metal tube that said "Letters for Santa" on the outside. There was note rolled up inside. Trinity pulled it out excitedly and started unrolling it. Thankfully I quickly read it over her shoulder and was able to get it away before it was read aloud! One of Dave's employees...you know who you are (Nate Alvar!) had requested breast implants for Christmas...I don't think he's gonna bring that one!

The evening was great with just our kids.

Saturday was the decorating for the whole "family". The big boys hung lights outside (in the sleet) and the gals hung the snowflakes from the ceiling inside.

The kids made Christmas cookies, and after the kids went to bed we had a little house party. Fun!

Ollie and Jill came in nasty Christmas sweaters! It was hilarious, but not as funny as when they got too hot for their nasty sweaters and decided to put on more comfortable attire. Somehow in the mix Ollie ended up with a corn shirt that only can be described by the disbelieving shaking of ones head from side to side, and Jill's jeans! The Joe boys couldn't contain themselves at the thought of Ollie wearing Jill's pants. Jill found Ollie's silver running pants to complete the look!

We cranked the music and were introduced to how these "young'ns" dance. It was too funny! We had a white elephant gift exchange. Dusty is pictured with his treasured weapons! We ended the night exhausted and playing a game that involved trains (we lost). We really love our young adults that live with us, and their +1s. We are so blessed by them!

Kiddo Update!

2011-11-23T23:35:00.007-06:00

November has been full of fun for the kids in the Christensen house! We love fall and the coming holidays. These next few pictures show one of the kids favorite traditions....Christmas cups! I am usually able to find some kind of Christmas mug for under $2 at Walmart or Target each year. They are durable as you would expect a $2 mug to be and by February most are broken, but while they last they are fun. These are the hot chocolate mugs and can be found filled to the brim with creamy goodness, marshmallows, whip cream and fun.

We write their names on their mugs so they won't get confused. I don't know if you can read it or not but Asha's mug says "The Goobs"!

Grandma Pat found this cute bee costume on sale after Halloween! It's so cute on her. The wings have gold glitter which got everywhere...much to the girl's delight and the boy's annoyance.

A couple of the days at home the kids found a stack of plastic cups and began a cup stacking adventure! Josiah and Zoe stack these to the ceiling! Mara has also been doing a lot of painting. I walked into the living room and found her completely covered in paint, it was all over the table and paper. She looked up and with a huge smile said "Look Mama, I'm making a beautiful mess!"

Hosanna completed some school goals with Grandma and she took Hanna to a little store that sold all sorts of glass things. Hosanna picked out this birdie as her favorite prize! Way to go Hosanna!

Um...perhaps I should explain. The "adult" in the picture is Dusty. I'm not sure what exactly my boys are doing, but at one point I heard Josiah yell "You've got too good of a hold on your undies, I can't get a good wedge in!" Dusty is an MMA fighter (Mixed Martial Arts). He hung a punching bag in the basement and has been teaching the boys some moves. My boys love to wrestle and think they can get the best of Dusty if they team up...so far that has not happened!

This is the first snow! The kids were so excited to see the white stuff covering the ground before school. They all went out and had a snowball fight! Trinity made the first snow buddy of the year too!

Here is Zoe all geared up for the Christmas City of the North Parade! I am not sure why our eyes went all zombie like, must have been the lights on my iPhone when I took it. The parade was fun. The weather was warmer than last year and the kids had a blast.

So far November has been a great month. Dave has to be gone again next week, which stinks. But the holidays are fully upon us and we are going to make the best of them. We've got all sorts of Christmas decorating plans over the next few days after Thanksgiving. I hope to blog about it all in a few days!

Novemeber

2011-11-15T10:43:00.005-06:00

As I sit to blog this evening I am shocked that it is almost Thanksgiving. The month has seemingly flown by. It started in a flurry as the official launch of Arise was the 30th of October and my birthday was on the 7th.

The official launch of Arise went well. We are growing and learning how to pull off a public service and are excited to see what God is doing. We are amazed as God blessed us with a place to do nursery. We had been holding a make shift nursery in the hallway outside of the gym where we held service for lack of a better space. Right outside the gym's outside entrance however, is a small building that is also part of the community center. It was packed full of storage stuff that the fire department was using. We asked if there was anyway we could rent that space also. It didn't look like they would be open to the idea, but God moved and they agreed. The building is literally ten feet from the gym entrance and makes it easy to drop off and pick up kiddos. It has three large picture windows over looking the large grassy courtyard and play ground. It also has two bathrooms, a utility room, and is heated. It's perfect! Dave's new assistant, Dustin, organized a team to clean it out, picked up some carpet for the floor, hung white board, built a drop off area, furnished it with play pens, changing table, snacks, and toys. He even laid a stone patio between the sidewalk and the door to the building!

I wonder how many people picked up on the line "Dave's new assistant, Dustin". Yup! Praise God too! Dave has needed someone to help him shoulder the load for a long time and we are praising God for his provision. We couldn't be more excited about who He provided either. Dustin is amazing. Even as I write this my heart leaps inside as I think of all that God has done with Dustin in the past two months and I shake my head at the wondrous way He works. Dustin came to Arise with Alyssa (our worship leader) as an unbeliever. He was open and searching, but had it all backwards. One morning Alyssa called us and asked if we could meet him for breakfast and explain some things to him. What followed was what I fondly refer to as "the morning we met a man about a Savior. " Dustin met Jesus and we have been privileged to get front row seats! He has grown by leaps and bounds since and is hungry to be in the word. His face radiates joy and amazement as he discovers more and more who this God is that saved him.

My birthday was the week after we launched. In true church plant fashion we had a slight "hiccup" that week. The community center that we normally rent had already been booked for that week before we signed the lease. Seems some lady had a scrap booking event that day because it was also deer hunting opener. With no real other option we moved the church back in our living room for the day. It made us appreciate our new location so much more! After service Dave and I headed down to the cities for a night away for my birthday. It was wonderful, but not nearly long enough. We would have loved to have made it longer, but Dave had to fly out to the east coast Monday afternoon for a business trip. It was fun while it lasted though. He took me to a five course fancy meal at a historic inn. We've eaten there before and it had long been our favorite place. It had been years since we went and found the service and food to be less then we remembered. That got us thinking on how we seemingly went from "young" to "old" over night. Just five years ago I was 29 in Sierra Leone with six small children all under the age of six. People didn't hesitate to tell me how young I was to have that many children and to be doing the things I was doing. Now five years later (with four more kids too!) I've been referred to a "old" more times than I can count. And not by people trying to be mean or funny, just referring to us as they see us! While we sat in a pub in the cities and played cribbage Dave posted this comment on facebook: "People call babies and old couples "cute". Yet, it occurred to me today that when people call Juli and I "cute" they aren't referring to babies. Darn." Yeah, that about sums it up!

So Dave was gone the second week of November and he was home last week. Last week was an interesting one in the fact that the stove started acting up. There is something wrong with the computer in it and it won't stay on or stay the temp we want and when it decides it's done cooking for now it blinks an error message. We've been able to manage cooking on it, but it's been tricky. Dave set out to find us a new stove and instead found us an incredible deal! He found a six burner double oven with a pancake griddle stove AND a commercial size double fridge! He got them both for $300!! Now, neither of them work...yet. Dave has a knack for fixing anything. Even if we can only get one working, it'll still be cheaper then if we'd bought something new. Today we scrubbed the stove and tried to get all the grease off and Dave started painting it. It's gonna look so good when he's done with it! I'll take some pictures once it's all shiny!

I do want to put up a few pictures however of the "big kids" who live with us. It's been amazing to Dave and I what God has done with Arise and our lives as we have opened our hands and watched Him take us in a completely different direction than we ever thought. He has brought us a number of young adults, more and more seem to come each week. Some of these young people He has asked us to open our doors to and offer them a place to live. Some are starting out on their own, some are in transition, some came to be in Esko and close to the church, and all have become family.

Oliver moved in back in March. He lives in an a apartment in the basement.

Dusty is engaged to Debbie and is in the process of turning the other side of the basement into an apartment for them once they get married in Jan. They plan on living with us until they can find a house.

Debbie has lived with us since July and has a room on the third floor across from the twin's room where her daughter Allison also stays.

Dustin just moved in a month ago. He didn't have a stable place to stay as he just moved back to this area and hadn't found a job. We love the fact that he here with us because our "big boys" are able to pour into him and spur one another on deeper in their relationship with Jesus.

There are many other young adult who are often seen sleeping on the couches, over for movie nights, playing games, or just hanging out. We are so blessed by them all! We have also been struck by the large number of young men God has brought us who don't have Dads. It's almost epidemic. The other side of the coin is young women who were raised steeped in religion with no understanding of why they believe what they believe and are confused to realize that there is more to God than rules, hoops, and works bases acceptance. Being accepted for who they are, a daughter of the King, and being treated as such is completely foreign. We've watched them broken as they have sunk deep into the peace of the knowledge and understanding of who they truly are and how God sees them in Jesus. Then rejoice as they continue to grow, heal, and flourish as they run after them.

The best part of having all these young adults around is that I don't have to cook! They each have a night when they purchase the food and prepare a meal for the family and clean up afterward! It's wonderful!! I still do a few nights a week, but so very much enjoy the nights I don't have to worry about dinner.

We are so very blessed. Our kids, our church, our young adults, our friends. There is truly much to be Thankful for this year. God has poured out unique blessings, challenges, and opportunities upon us and we stand amazed.

October 31st

2011-11-02T16:39:00.007-05:00

I would have titled this post Halloween, but that is a pretty charged Holiday to some, so I (for once) went with a less controversial title. We were a bit random with Halloween this year. We normally don't have a problem with kids dressing up, with candy, or with visiting friends. We kept most of the kids home from school though. Not totally for the reasons you all assume however! We did keep Lacy home because they were watching a Halloween movie in her class. We kept most of the rest of them home so we could prepare for our family pictures. Some kids had hair cuts, others had braids that needed to be done. We worked hard to get it all in before Zlata came to take the pictures. The weather was nice and we were able to get some neat shots around our place. She was even able to grab a few of Dave and I...it was a bit like having engagement photos taken again! Fun! I'll post them once she gets done editing them. (I am sure it'll take a bunch of editing to get a family picture out of the lot!)

Here are a few crazy shots of Dusty dressed up. I am not sure what he is exactly, but it was too funny not to post! Dusty is Debbie's fiance. They are getting married in Jan. He is also buddies with Ollie. He basically part of the "family" since he's around so much!

Oliver made dinner for us, which was really nice. Dave led the kids in making caramel apples. Josiah put on some horrid outfit that consisted of Elisha's wig and his underwear. He thought it was hilarious (and so did we!) But I am sure he won't feel the same way when this photo shows up at his graduation or wedding!

After we ate we had the kids put on dress up clothes and the adults and older kids went to their rooms with bags of candy. The little ones went trick or treating through the house! It was great fun and the kids were full of candy and hyperactivity. We got an awesome video of Goobs dancing to some Halloween music!

Bedtime was crazy as I am sure you can imagine. I read to the kids and we tucked the in. Goobs didn't do so well at night however. She woke at 2 ish and cried and screamed until she finally fell asleep in my arms at 4:30...stink! Too much candy for her!

ARISE Pig Roast!

2011-11-02T15:30:00.008-05:00

This was our 2nd annual Pig Roast for ARISE Church. It was neat to see all the people who came, get to have redemptive conversations, build new relationships, and look back at all that God has done over the last year.

This time last year we were in the praying phase of building a core team and getting ready to go to Acts29 Assessment. The Pig Roast last year was our first attempt to meet our neighbors and reach out into the community. It was huge success last year and another great event this year.

This year we roasted the pig ourselves! Thanks to the hard work of Grill-master Mike! Lori did all the planning and preparing this year. We are so blessed to have so many dedicated people! They jump in, commit to a project and faithfully see it through....so blessed!

October!

2011-11-02T13:42:00.005-05:00

The month of October found us once again packed full of events. The middle of the month the kids had two days off of school for a teacher's conference. The day before their mini vacation they had a Grandparent's Day concert. This year's theme was a tribute to the veterans and service men and women in our community and school. They had a neat slide show that had pictures of many of the veterans related to students.

October also found Asha getting sick. She came down with a horrible croup cough, runny nose, and high fever. We spent one scary night of her struggling to breath. I sat up with her and either held her or rubbed her back the whole night. We had the shower and the hot air humidifier running to try to help her get more comfortable. The next day I took her in to the doctor. They did a bunch of blood work and took chest x-rays. The diagnosis was pneumonia and bronchitis! She was put on an antibiotic.
Papa felt bad for his baby girl and got her this caterpillar for her crib! She's since recovered from that sickness just in time to catch the virus that seems to be going around our house. We seem to be passing it back and forth to each other. I guess that is too be expected when you have as many people living in our house as we do!

Family Fun

2011-10-08T20:47:00.001-05:00

Today we took the kids to a carnival at the Pike Lake Elementary School. It was a lot of fun! They had a bunch of activities, even a hay ride!

There were plenty of bouncy, blow up things to climb and slide on too!

After a fun morning at the carnival, the kids made a huge pile of leaves. They made it into a fort of sort! Pretty cool!

"Tank You!", "I stuck!" & "Goo Bye!"

2011-10-08T08:32:00.003-05:00

Asha is really growing up! The past two weeks or so she has found a number of words and they make me smile every time they come out of her mouth! "Tank You!" is said readily and with much fervor! "Goo Bye" is another common utterance that is usually accompanied by a short wave. After which she can be seen buggying away. She'll often stop and look back to see if you are still watching her! Earlier this week she was in the playpen and started to yell "I stuck. Of course once she was pulled from the pen she responded with a "Tank You". It's so stinking cute!

She is so much fun! This week was a bit more difficult than normal. Garrett is now gone for most of the week, but he come Thursday for date night to watch the kids and Friday during the day so I can go grocery shopping. I am not sure what we would do without him! Oliver was around and very helpful however. Dave was gone this week in San Diego again. He left Monday morning bright and early and got home this afternoon just a few hours before our new member's class we have at the house.

It was a challenge getting all ten kids up (and a few times I had Allie too), dressed, fed, chores done, and dropped at school on time. Monday through Wednesday I picked Melissa's twins up from Lori too and had them during school hours. They are also growing up fast! This week one of them almost made it up the whole flight of stairs on her own...scared me to death! They are walking now a few steps at a time and climbing on everything!

One of the days Lori and I took the girl's to the park to play. They loved climbing and scooting around on everything. Asha loved the slides. Zayma, Mara, and Allie also enjoyed playing off some of their energy. They figured out how to play tag and played longer then we expected three year olds to play. They also found nasty candy smashed on the ground and tried to eat it, but hey.

The weather this week was absolutely breathtaking. It was bright, sunny, and warm the whole week and the leaves were in full color. I spent a good amount of time just marveling at God's masterpiece painted on this world. We are blessed beyond measure to get to see these amazing displays of God's creativity!

With so many little girl's running around I had Ollie bring the dress up chest down to the living room. They dug through it like it was Christmas and have excitedly asked each morning if they can play dress up! Goobs got in on the action too.

Thursday Trinity had her first Knowledge Bowl meet on the Iron Range. Thankfully Tom and Pat got to go and watch her. I would have loved to go, but with the little ones and no Garrett it would not have been fun for anyone if I had brought them! Lacy had her first pajama day at school. She thought it was so silly to wear her pjs to class.

Thursday night I did get to go out with some ladies from Arise for a girl's night out. It was great to be able to fellowship and chat with these amazing women God has brought together. Some of the college girl's invited me to go to Cru with them at UMD afterward. I went, but it was odd being there. I was by far the oldest person save the staff members. It reminded me of my college days at Intervarsity when I was at UMD. Funny how not much has changed.

Today Dave came home. Thanks to Oliver and Garrett I was able to sit in on a bible study that Lori is leading at the coffee shop in Esko. She is doing an amazing job. The fact that Lori is leading a bible study is testimony in itself of God's spirit at work! I was also able to get the groceries for next week and get the house picked up, and a shower in before he got home. We had our new member's class tonight too...Da Fool-aid Class!

This was a good week, but we had our rough patches. I am learning to in order for me to get up at 5:00 each morning I have to make sure I go to bed on time and get a nap on the weekend and on Wednesday or I am not very nice on Thursday! The kids seemed to be struggling on Thursday too. I think we were all missing Papa a great deal by then. Even though Dave was in San Diego this week he was still able to make some headway on the stuff for the public launch in three weeks. The artwork and promotional stuff is looking great and I think we found a drum set! It is super amazing to see all that God is doing with Arise. We love our church. This has not been an easy thing God has asked us to do, in fact it's been one of the most difficult things. Yet, He's been faithful, when others are faithless, He's gone before us, while we drag behind. He is moving powerfully in Esko and the surrounding area and we are excited to watch Him work in and among us.

A Walk in the Park

2011-10-06T10:55:00.007-05:00

Sunday was our first service in our new location!!! Needless to say I was thrilled at the idea of NOT doing service in our living room. We were pleased to be able to provide Arise with a place to worship during the summer as we were getting going and practicing. Now that we are approaching our public launch and growing. Our living room just isn't big enough anymore. So this Sunday was our "public practice" service. We fully expected many things to go wrong and have to rework, rethink, and redo a bunch. God surprised us however, and we had a pretty good service with only a few details to nail down.

After service we took to the kids to Mexican Lindo for lunch...a fun treat. After eating we packed the kids back in the bus and headed to Jay Cooke State Park. Garrett wanted to go for a walk there for his birthday and it was about time we got to celebrate. We met his family and another family they are close with, the Stephenson's.You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. The sun was shining and warm, the leaves were in full color...it was breath taking.

We took advantage of picturesque scenery and the good friends and took a bunch of pictures!

I told the boys this one was for the Men of Arise calendar!

We took a hike down a steep path that lead to the river. It was fun, but hot and tiring!

By the time we got back to the top we were all hot and tired. We found a cool spot in the grass to lounge after raiding the only drinking fountain we could find!

Onna was able to snap a few shots of Dave and I too!

It was a fun family afternoon. We were excited to celebrate with Garrett and his family. It was bittersweet however, Loren would have loved it.

A Beach Breakfast!

2011-10-04T13:17:00.006-05:00

The Saturday after Loren's death and the day of the funeral we really wanted to spend to quality family time. I think the passing of someone so close to us has made us embrace our kids and our time with them all the more. With sobering clarity we realize we have just a few more years with them all as kids and that is something we don't want to waste. So Friday night Dave decided to plan out a super awesome surprise for the kids in the morning!

He packed the bus the night before and woke them up in the morning. We told them to get dressed in play clothes and get into the bus. They were excited and rushed around talking and trying to guess what Papa had planned. We loaded them all up, grabbed some stuff from the kitchen and headed out of town.

We drove to Superior, Wisconsin (about 30min away) and down Wisconsin Point beaches, over by the Superior entryway. In Wisconsin it is legal to have a fire on the beach where is isn't in Minnesota. We parked the bus and the kids piled out and began running around exploring everything. We called them back and loaded them up with the supplies. We explained we were going to have a beach breakfast.

They all worked together (along with Oliver) and carried the stuff to an old tree stump on the beach. Papa and I worked together to make some eggs in a dutch oven (boy scout style) and tried to minimize the amount of sand making it's way into the meal!

The kid played, explored, and ran all over the place enjoying the unusual breakfast scenery. Dave even taught some of them how to make a fire on the beach of their own. (I'm not sure that was the wisest idea!)

We enjoyed a great family breakfast and a fun time. The kids were pretty impressed by their father's beach cooking abilities and decided these were the best eggs ever (even with the sand!)

A Hard Goodbye

2011-10-03T12:16:00.005-05:00

It's been about two weeks, yet I had to check the calendar to make sure...time seems to loose all significance when tragedy strikes. I thought my next blog would be celebrating Garrett's 26th birthday. His special day is the 19th of September. He was planning to spend that evening with his family at their house, a rare treat to celebrate with his parents...but God had other plans.

Sunday afternoon Garrett went to his folk's house while we took the kids to Tom and Pat's for a family birthday party for Great Grandma Betty. We got home and put on Mars Needs Moms as a family movie. Dave and I were planning on going out to fellowship with some friends, the husband had just returned from six weeks of military duty. Garrett was going to watch the kids for us. He texted me to see what time we needed him. Then 30 min later he called to say his Dad was feeling ill and he needed to stay and help out. We knew Loren had been feeling under the weather lately, so we didn't really think too much about it. Garrett is the oldest of eight, four of whom still live at home. The youngest two are 5 & 6. We had a few girl's from the church come over instead.

We put our kids to bed. I just left the twin's room and told them to stop jumping on the bed when I heard a crash, scream and Mara came running with blood everywhere. Jill had arrived in the nick of time. I took one look at the deep gash in her chin and knew we were headed to the ER. Dave and I were less then thrilled as we drove the ten minuets to Cloquet Memorial Hospital. I tried to encourage him saying perhaps there was someone at the Hospital we are supposed to talk to, looking for a divine purpose.

We got in and found Garrett there with Pastor Duncan Ross from our previous church. Loren had collapsed at home and had seizures. They brought him to the ER, did some tests and were preparing to send him to Duluth to a bigger hospital. Dave stayed with us until we were in a room and then went to join Garrett and Duncan in Duluth. They were there until late into the night. The long and short of it is that Loren had an aneurysm and was in a coma. His brain had a number of concerning spots and the plan was to send him down to the cities where a procedure could be performed that would fix the spots and hopefully the brain damage caused from the brain bleeding would be minimal.

We prayed for the fog to lift so the helicopter could land and in the end he was taken by fixed wing airplane. The pilot called Dave around 2:00 am when they landed to let us know. Monday was a day of waiting to see what would happen. The procedure was unsuccessful. Loren had had a brain aneurysm 13 years prior that he had self diagnosised and gotten treatment for before it burst. The treatment was blocking this new procedure from working. The news was not good and kept getting more grim. Dave came in the house Tuesday after spending much time in prayer and felt we needed to go down to the cities to be with Garrett and pray over Loren. The youngest two kids (Kent and Jeremy) were still up by us and needed to be brought down to be with the family encase things went badly. We made the arrangements and headed down. We were not prepared for what await us.

We thought we were helping out dear sweet friends by bringing their boys down and going to be support for Garrett who is much more like a brother or son to us then just a friend. When we got there it became clear that Loren was not going to walk out of this hospital. We prayed for a miracle. Stood over his bed, prayed and commanded him to get up...but Jesus was ready to call this amazingly faithful servant home.

Duncan was not able to stay in the cities with the Harrison's and that left Dave the only Pastoral figure. Talk about baptism by fire! Dave was so thankful for Duncan's words of council on the phone as we were quickly learning how to navigate these sorrowful waters. I have to say, he did an amazing job. He allowed God to use him to pray, sing, support, hug, and hold these shocked and devastated dear ones. Rachel (Garrett's sister) and I took the boys to a nearby house to spend the night while Dave stayed by Loren side to pray and encourage Vicki.

Wednesday was a long and hard day. There were family meetings, lots of tears, singing, and saying Goodbye. Loren's time on this earth was drawing to a close and we all knew it. We gathered around his bed and sang. We rocked that Neuro ICU ward! Loren never woke up, but while one of his favorite songs was played and the lyrics "If I weep, let me weep as a man who is longing for his home" was sung a tear rolled down his face. It was as if he was saying, "It's okay, let me go home. I'll wait for you there."

We brought Kent, Jeremy, and Jack (13) home that night. They stayed with us while the rest of the family traveled back home and started making all the plans for a Saturday funeral. That Saturday, less then a week since he collapsed we gathered at Mount of Olives church in Duluth to remember this good and faithful servant. The service was packed, a testimony to all the people this family has touched. Loren and Vicki were missionaries in Kenya at RVA. They had been for a home assignment break for the next six months, having just returned the end of July. A large group of RVA missionaries were also able to attend the service.

To try to sum up the depth of emotion, loss, and pain would be pointless...there are simply no words. Loren and Vicki were amazing influences in our lives, in fact our lives would look very different it they had not been a part. Years ago shortly after Dave and I were married I volunteered in a children's program at a community run Bible study and met this beautiful brown haired little girl. I came home and told Dave I wanted to have kids. I was sure my children would likewise have long brown hair. A few weeks later Dave and I tried out a new church for the first time. We sat behind this large family and in the middle of the service who should turn around and look at me but that same brown haired little girl! That was my first introduction to the Harrison's. The next year Vicki lead my Babes in Arms Bible study group (yep I was pregnant!) and we got to know each other better. A year or so later Rachel, their oldest girl, started baby sitting for us so we could attend a parenting class at church. Rachel was our first sitter ever, she was 11 (Trinity's age now!) Through the years we grew close to the Harrison family. Onna (the next oldest girl) and I became close as she took over for Rachel as our number one babysitter. Jack would come over to play with our kids as they were just a few years apart in age. Just a few weeks after Hosanna was born they had us over for dinner. We sat in their living room as Loren asked us what God was doing in our lives. We were honest and told them we both felt like God was about to do something big, if we would just follow him and we were reluctant to step out. We liked our little family and our easy life. We said we were afraid if we did what God was calling us too, life would never be the same...to which Loren exclaimed "Exactly!" with great enthusiasm and joy in his voice. Just a few months later we received a call to adopt. That call sent us on this wonderful, headlong adventure that has blessed us five times and taken us across the globe.

Because we watched Loren lead his family to Africa as missionaries repeatedly we had the courage and conviction that we weren't totally crazy when God called us to move our young children to Sierra Leone. Our children wouldn't be here without the influence and example of these faithful servants. Not only did they serve as amazing examples for us, they taught their children how to serve as well. When life seemed too much to handle Garrett moved in and blessed us beyond words with his selfless, sacrificial service to our family and Arise Church. Garrett has lived with us for about 18 months and is family now. We are so deeply blessed by this family.

Even more then the "big" things that everyone sees, the way Loren lead his family I think has had the greatest impact on us as parents. His fearlessness, and adventurous spirit was infectious and we caught it bad. We long have admired how he'd leave the chores, and instead spend time with his kids and his family...foregoing mowing the lawn for an afternoon at the beach. He had a way of treasuring our children as the little blessings that they are. He'd exclaim "Hey Beautiful!" when my girls would run up to him. As Vicki and I grew closer I'd marvel along side her at how steadfast his faith was. He didn't just say it would all work out, that God had it under control...he BELIEVED it. Such an amazing blessing to have had Loren in our lives.

Now he's gone. The hole he left is large, especially in the Harrison's lives. Garrett has moved out for the most part. He splits his time between his Mom's house, helping with his siblings, our place to help make Date Night still possible and help with some church things, and work. We miss him dearly and yet recognize that God has called him to serve this way. Lives will never be the same, that takes some time to adjust to. We are learning how to walk alongside and support them in this tragedy, being arms to hug, and ears to listen.

It struck me this week however that the way in which Loren and Vicki lived was an example to us, I bet our lives are being an example to others. That's sobering. I look at the impact they made in our lives directly and indirectly. It spurs us on to be faithful like Loren. Not sweat the small stuff (everything being small stuff!), being satisfied with a clean kitchen (it's as good as a clean house), hugging, wrestling, playing, encouraging, laughing, and living with our kids and others. Uninhibited obedience. Faithful, steadfast service. Deep, passionate love for Jesus and His people both here and to the nations.

Loren Harrison will be greatly missed. Thank you for living and loving well.

Garrett

2011-09-19T21:23:00.001-05:00

Last night and today have been very difficult. Today was supposed to be a day in which we rejoiced over the amazing guy Garrett is as we celebrate his 26th birthday. Unfortunately that is not what today brought. Yesterday evening Garrett while visiting his family, found his Dad comatose in the bathroom from a brain aneurysm. He called 911 and did everything they could to contain the damage. Garrett was supposed to be home that evening, and called to say his Dad was sick and he needed to stay there. We asked some gals from Arise to come over and watch the kids for us. Good thing we did because right after they arrived Mara jumped on her bed and fell off tearing open her chin. One look and we headed to the ER for stitches. We didn't know Garrett was already at the ER with his Dad. On the way their Dave and I knew God had a bigger plan in this.

After they got Mara registered we talked for a few minuets with Garrett and Duncan (the pastor from Mount of Olives Church). His dad was not doing well, still in a coma and having seizures. They transferred him to St. Mary's. They got us into a room and as we waited for the DoctorMara fell asleep.

Dave felt he needed to be with Garret and I agreed. He left to join him at St. Mary's and Alyssa came to be with me at the ER in Cloquet. Mara did fine and received six stitches and a talking to about no more jumping on the bed from the doctor.

Dave spent the rest of the evening with Garrett at St. Mary's while they drained the pressure off of Loren's brain and waited for a flight to the Twin Cities for a special brain surgery. Garrett came home for just a minute to grab a bag I'd packed for him to take with and a hug. Dave said he was being so brave and strong at the hospital. He is the oldest in his family, he feels the weight of being the next in line if something happens to his Dad. He has a younger sister 16, and brother that is 13 and two much younger, 6 & 5. Not to mention three other sisters.

As of tonight things don't look good for Loren. The latest report is that medical teams have done all they can and there is not much else they can do. It is firmly in God's hands...where it's been all along. Loren survived an aneurysm in 1999, but this time it's much worse. They say he is not responding at all on his left side and only a bit on his right. No one knows if he will ever come out of the coma and it is likely that if he does he will have suffered enough damage that he won't be the same Loren as before.

Tonight my heart and prayers go out to Garrett my "older boy" I love like a brother and to Vicki my mentor and my friend and to all the Harrison kids. Loren is such a neat, amazing guy. When people ask us why we obey Jesus so radically the way we do, it's because we watched Loren and Vicki set the example. They live life with no regrets, running hard after Jesus, loving him completely. Tonight they cling to Jesus, pleading for healing, but more so for His will. They can do that because throughout their lives he has proven over and over that His will is for their best and they can rejoice in Him. This life is so short, it can be over so quickly in our vantage point, but God knows the hour and the day. He's not surprised. I want to make sure I am following Loren's example and running hard after Jesus. Following him into uninhibited obedience, for his glory and my good.

Even in this God is so merciful. He orchestrated this to occur here in the States after they had just returned from Kenya where they are missionaries. They have the best medical teams available, family is close and can be near to sit with Loren and pray over him. Trinity asked me tonight if Mr. Loren was going to die. I told her yes...we all are. Death is something that is certain, God knows the time and until then we have a job to do. I don't know if God will call his faithful servant Loren home soon or allow him to serve on this earth for awhile longer. But when he does go home we can celebrate that Loren gets to experience life eternal with Jesus. Praise you Jesus for Loren...for Vicki...and for our dear sweet Garrett.

Friday Night Lights!

2011-09-17T22:19:00.005-05:00

Last Friday Zoe, Hosanna, and Elisha got to be Jr. Cheerleaders and cheer at halftime during a varsity Esko football game. They had practiced all week with the high school cheerleaders and were super excited to get a chance to take the field and strut their stuff!

Hosanna and Zoe got all dolled up with face paint and pompoms. Elisha went just as she was, but had cheerleader enthusiasm all over her face! She even had the head bop down pat!

Dave and I took Trinity with us and went to watch them cheer and enjoy a high school football game. It was a lot of fun. The air was crisp and cool, the band played some of my favorite band songs...it was like a trip down memory lane! Even some of the cheers the cheerleaders did were the same ones I had done when I was in school (well, that is actually a bit sad. They might need to get some new cheers!)
Dave and I have been swamped with Arise activities almost every night for the past few weeks. Even though Gospel Group was at our house Friday, Russ lead it and that gave us the opportunity to see the girls cheer. We didn't want to miss it! Plus getting a chance to watch a game, snuggle under a blanket and think back to when we met in high school was a lot of fun. We also want to thank Russ and Karen for leading group, and to all our Arise family for helping out at the house while we were gone. You guys are our cheerleaders! Your encouragement makes following God fun, even when it's hard.

Near Death Soccer!

2011-09-17T21:08:00.003-05:00

So I meant to blog last Monday when this happened, but just haven't had the chance...surprised? Monday Josiah had a soccer game after school in Superior. It looked like it might rain in Esko, but the weather report said it was nice in Superior so we loaded the kids up in the bus and headed off. Dave was at home working on church stuff, and Joseph was at a different soccer practice.
As we headed up I-35 on Thompson Hill the wind really picked up and made driving our huge vehicle through the one lane winding construction a bit tricky. But that turned out to be nothing. We started our decent into Duluth just past Spirit Mountain (still in construction) when the rain quickly turned to heavy rain, then to hail. It was hailing pretty hard too. The cars were all in a long line that snaked along with people trying to stop under the overpasses to avoid getting their cars damaged by the hail. With all the construction it was impossible to get off or to stop. I hate driving this anyway being so big and having such a tight lane (with concrete barriers on either side). I'm terrified I'm gonna get into an accident. The hail made everything way worse. We came to a number of dead stops as traffic backed up. Dave texted me and said to get off, but I couldn't. The off ramp to Wisconsin came up next so I took it. We were just about to get on the bridge when the hail became a down pour so strong I couldn't see. I was completely freaked out as semis went whizzing by and the Holy Spirit screamed for me to get off the bridge. Right in front of me was the last exit off and I took it...blind. Praise God there was no one in front of me, because even with my wipers going full it was raining so hard I couldn't even make out the road!

We stopped at the stop sign and pulled up under the ramp leading up to the bridge. A number of other cars were stopped there too waiting out the storm. It didn't take long and in a matter of a few minuets the worst of it was past and we could continue.

We swung around and got back on the bridge just in time to see the emergency vehicles racing past us. There had been a major accident on the bridge. My heart shook inside me as I knew we would have been right in the middle of that accident if we had stayed on the bridge and with a bus as big and tall as ours...I shudder to think.

We praised Jesus for keeping us safe and inched along the bridge in almost brilliant sunshine as the storm gave way to a sunny day. By this point we were very late to Josiah's game. We figured we were already half way there so we might as well go. Once we got over the bridge however, we got lost and despite my GPS were unable to find the field. The coach texted me some better directions and we finally arrived. Unfortunately Josiah only got there in time to play the last quarter.
To complete the day we got lost in all of the constructions on the way home too and ended up having to drive through Duluth and then again up past the mall to make it out! It took over an hour to get home and by that time we were all glad to get off the bus!

It was quite a day. Now almost a week later I am still amazed at how Jesus kept us safe. This has been a difficult week for us with certain things and yet looking back at the hand of God in our daily lives reassures me that he is present and active and very much a part of everything we are in the midst of.

A Trip to the Vineyard

2011-09-12T23:02:00.005-05:00

Sunday afternoon the family took a trip to Gramz and Grampz's farm, Star Farm and Vineyard. They invited us to come over after the kid's afternoon soccer games. We haven't gotten a chance to visit them in awhile so we jumped at the chance to get to spend some time together.

They wanted us to come over because their table grapes were ripe and ready to be picked. They had the hay wagon ready to take us on a ride around the vineyard and to the new winery they are building.

The kids loved picking the grapes and eating them. I was hoping to get enough to make jam, but after they gobbled them up there wasn't enough left!

After the tour we had a great dinner and chatted while the kids played in the yard. It was short, but nice. The vineyard is such a relaxing place, it was great. My parents have put in so much work getting it to where it's at. My dad is building a winery now, it's exciting to watch him run after a dream. Having an afternoon with the family was wonderful too. Thanks Gramz and Grampz!

Fighting for Joy

2011-09-12T11:56:00.008-05:00

I miss my kids so much now that they are back in school. However, I have found a bit more sanity and peace at home. While my schedule is still over booked and my time measured, not having my brain constantly available has been wonderful. I just put my twins, Melissa’s twins, and Asha down for naps and have a few “quiet” moments while I eat lunch to sit, blog, and reflect. From the kitchen table I can see the sun dancing off the abundant green foliage outside my windows as the wind tosses it around. So beautiful. It’s in these moments, when I slow down, sit down and just look that the Holy Spirit pulls up a chair and gives me the ability to see. As much as I love getting together with my girlfriends, I think the Holy Spirit is my most favorite coffee date.
The start of school has been busy. Getting myself up at 5:00 has been tough enough, but getting the kids up at 6:00 and everyone going has it’s challenges of its own. Don’t get me wrong, the kids are actually doing a pretty good job at it so far. Joseph had school patrol the first week too, so he had to be there extra early!

We are so proud of him! He is growing into such a great young man, serious about his responsibilities and caring toward the littler ones around him. My heart swells inside of me when I look at my son. God has done a miracle in his life and we got front row seats!! I am humbled and grateful. We are blessed beyond belief.

This year we sent seven kids to school. That’s a lot. Lacy started Kindergarten this year. She was very excited and seems to love her class. We are eager to see how she does. She still struggles to grasp some things, but has such a willing attitude. We have high hopes for her. It’s hard for me think much on the fact that she is in school already. She has only been here for just short of two years. These have been two pretty crazy years too. I feel like I was just getting to know her and now she’s gone. I am so excited for her, and so is she. How could I keep her home for my own selfishness? I miss her though. I have so many regrets when it comes to Lacy. I regret we didn’t have more time, that she had such a struggle with rules, attitudes, and obedience that building a relationship was difficult., that we had three more kids join us on top of her, she never got much one on one time, that she was almost four when she came home. Like with Joseph, I can’t answer her “What was I like as a baby?” or “Tell me the story of when I was born” questions. Yet, she is doing great. This is where my theology steps in to calm my emotions and the Holy Spirit breathes peace on my soul. God is sovereign. He loves Lacy more than I ever could. He saved her. He gave her to us and we are so very blessed by her. If he wanted us to have had more time with her, he would have given us that, but he didn’t. So we trust Him, that it is for His glory and our good this way.

With the kids at school I have had the ability to help out my dear sweet friend, Melissa. She had to return to work the week before school started. We get the privilege of watching her twins Monday thru Wednesday while my kids are at school and she’s at work. This is not a long term arrangement, but we are pleased to get to bless them this way. Elisha was so thrilled the little twins were here the week she was home. They seem to really like her. Elisha has longed to have a little kid lift up their arms to her. When Zayma and Zamara came home they wanted nothing to do with her and would actually slap her in the face when she came close! Asha is okay with her, but prefers Trinity over Elisha. Amina and Amira LOVE Elisha! When they lift their arms up to her, she beams from ear to ear…it almost radiates out of her. I choke back the tears as God whispers to me that as those little ones reach for her, they are actually healing a part of her heart. The part that still struggles with the loss of a Mama she’ll never know, not being wanted by her Grandmother and Father. To have a little life WANT her does something for her that I can’t and I praise Jesus that he provided this for her.

Labor day we took the kids to Gooseberry Falls. It was a family day and we all had a blast. Trinity took some pictures, so did Dave and I. We all went climbing around and splashing in the waterfall, it was so much fun. On the way home however Dave’s mood slipped. He sighed…he’s been doing that a lot more lately….and said how much fun he had. Then he asked “What did we do with the kids this summer?” We did get a chance to play with them some, but family days did happen often. In fact not much at all. We started discussing what we had done this summer. We spent a lot of the summer planting the church. Dave has always been very careful that the church would never come before the family. However, with a job, and ten kids there just isn’t a ton of time to go around. We have struggled this summer as events happened that had us basically “start over” with our core team. This forced us to pour more into the church than we had planned when we launched. Family still came first, but with fewer hands to do the work Dave and I poured out more than we even knew we had. Now the summer is over and we are once again exhausted.

One of the studies I am doing had us look at “joy killers” in our life. They listed five….Pouring out more than what’s poured in, being a “wonder junkie” (always looking for the spiritual high), when your talk exceeds your walk, being exhausted (physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally), and when you feel like you are alone (in relationships, or ministry). I have to confess that we have both struggled with joy this summer. This study helped us see clearly the reasons why. We have definitely poured out more than we’ve had poured in, we are both exhausted, and often feel alone. Satan has also been prowling around a bunch this summer and we have seen his footprints. We know that his choice weapon with Dave is discouragement, and with me is anger. We battle these often.

I just love when God teaches us something and then gives us a chance to practice it! He had Dave go through the armor of God this summer to equip and train our body and ourselves. Now we get to strap it on and apply it. With school starting it has become clear how little time we actually get with the kids now, how much work the church and job are requiring and how desperately we need our joy back. So my mighty man took a stand! (I get goose bumps just thinking about it!) He put on his armor, pulled his sword and fought Satan for his family and his church.

He drew boundaries around our family time, and set aside rest time for himself. He removed me (Wooohooo!) from tech team and Wednesday night worship practice. He has divided up the duties for pulling off service, Children’s ministry, Admin, and more. Many of these things had been covered earlier in the summer, but then ended up back on our shoulders. It’s so great to be able to hand them off again. I’m still getting to do some ministry by doing a few studies with the gals from church, and co-leading a marriage and new comers class with Dave. We are both starting to get some joy back as we get to minister in some areas instead of all areas, and as we get to plan out more family trips to Gooseberry, or Jay Cooke. Yesterday Dave preached an amazing, impassioned sermon. He woke up early, completely exhausted and totally drained. He woke me to pray over him for strength for the day. God answered our prayers and the Holy Spirit took over. Once again confirming He called Dave to preach, to plant his church in Esko. He reached down his hand and pulled Dave up again whispering “Arise Dave, Go and plant this church” ! It is such a privilege to get to once again be in the front row of God doing something awesome.

I have been taking a bunch of pictures, but haven’t had the time to blog or to post them on the day they were taken. So, join me is marveling at how abundantly we’ve been blessed to have such amazing little lives around us and such overwhelming beauty.

A Quiet Afternoon on the Patio!

2011-08-25T13:12:00.005-05:00

My Spirit longs to blog, funny but true. I think the need to tangibly spill forth praise on the page, attesting to His greatness, faithfulness, and wonder bubbles up from somewhere deep inside and I can't hold it back any longer. Not that I've been trying to hold it back, but the world steals away my time, or my ability to think. I've been able to find a bit of both this afternoon. That is actually an amazing testimony to God's grace given the day I've already had!

So here I sit on my back patio under the rainbow colored giant umbrella my father in law bought me last year. I love this umbrella because we had one just like it in Sierra Leone and it reminds me of there. God has not been far nor his lessons slow in coming these past few weeks. I blogged last about the amazing things he's been teaching, and have found a deep, rich communion with him that my soul just bathes in as I have actively, daily, intentionally tried to die to myself and live not by flesh but by the Spirit. To be completely honest, I'm not very good at it! But failing, recognizing I've failed and returning to him to repent and start over has become easier! And when I do manage to put myself to death I experience the most amazing, abundant life!

I've been doing a number of studies and reading a number of books. Mark Driscoll says (and Dave often quotes) "Leaders are Readers" and vice verse. I can tell why. God has done some pretty neat things with Arise, getting her ready for our public launch. As he moves and brings people I am made aware of my limitations in knowledge and understanding of how to minister in certain areas. But because God is deep like that, he has supplied me with resources that pour into me and equip me for the tasks at hand. I am (almost) to the point where I can actually count it all joy when various trials come because I know he will supply even more of His wisdom and teaching to handle the trial.

I've been doing a study on Galatians with a few other gals from Arise. I've done this one before and have been greatly blessed each time I've gone through it. Funny how I get new things from it each time too! It's totally true that God's word is living and active and you can always learn something new.

I've also been making my way through the study Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. This study has been super convicting and very practical. My only regret is that when I ordered it from Amazon I thought I'd ordered the book, but in fact had ordered the audio book! So much to my underlining frustration I have to listen to it, but that has allowed me to sneak some study in while folding laundry, making dinner, or driving the kids around.

The book Redemption by Mike Wilkerson is heart wrenchingly amazing. It is the book Mars Hill Church uses for their Redemption groups. I started in on it thinking this would be great info for use ministry. While that is true I've found much more. The Spirit has ached inside me as I have found deeper compassion than I knew I had for people suffering the damaging effects of sin. I've been convicted over and over of my own sin patterns and idolatry. Looking to use it with others, I've found myself to be the one at the front of the line for help.

Arise was thrown a bit of a curve ball earlier this summer. Of course the plans we had and the way we thought things were going to look have changed. One of the things that changed was our worship and tech team. The talent we thought we had in that area disappeared, so we've been scrambling to figure things out with little direction and much "on the job" training. We've been blessed with some excellent musical talent and more that will be joining us soon. That has left us with the need for the tech. side of worship, speakers, mixers, amps, cables and cords. We also have a nice video camera that we want to use to post the sermons on our website. Our tech. know-how also disappeared and we've found ourselves with a bunch of willing people with no skill in this area. God have provided once again though and even last night He brought people who are both skilled and willing to help us figure this out.

We had it set up for the first time last week (doing the best we can with the knowledge we have). We set it Friday when the equipment first arrived and Saturday morning we found the twins in the living room singing at the top of their lungs into the mics! It was so funny!

God decided to have us "start over" with our worship team which has given us the opportunity to make sure we are all on the "same page" as far as the deeper reasons behind worship and cultivate a leader and team that is thoroughly Biblical on the matter. Enter the book Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin. Once again I've been blessed to dive into what I expected to be a book for ministry purposes and found myself being ministered to!

God's been doing more than pouring into us with books, study, prayer and teaching. He's also blessed us with some great family time and opportunities to rejoice at the blessings our children are. The pictures at the top are of a family game of ultimate Frisbee. The soccer pictures are from Elisha's and Hosanna's last game. Dave has had to be gone a bunch this month, all of this week and a few day last week. As sad as it is when he is gone, that has allowed me to have some great one on one time with some kids. Josiah and I got to go to coffee last week and played bottle cap checkers. Joseph and I went on a date after one of his soccer games to Buffalo Wild Wings and watched the Little League World Series & Pro Soccer over nachos and wings. Earlier this week Elisha and I got to get some coffee together too.

We have been blessed indeed! It's been a wonderful afternoon blogging on the patio. The kids are up from naps now and running around me which is wonderful and yet breaks into my concentration. So with that I'll leave you these last few pictures of the twins on the horsey swing (newly installed)!

Summer Update

2011-08-16T13:52:00.006-05:00

So much has happened this summer, I wish I had been at a place where I could have blogged about it all. Suffice to say, that wasn't where God had me, so I'll take a bit to recap some of the neat things God's been doing now.

A few weeks ago Arise had a Family Softball Day at the Esko school and playground. It was pretty hot out, but fun was had by all. We had a good turn out and a pretty wild softball game.

In other news...Lacy lost her first tooth! She was super excited and even had a visit from the tooth fairy for the first time ever!

We took the whole clan to Family Camp with Rock Hill Church and Arise. It was wild wet weekend and we all had a blast. On Saturday it rained in the afternoon so the older kids and young adults played a messy, sloppy, muddy game of ultimate Frisbee. It was so much fun to watch them run and slide around! Later that afternoon Lacy came to the cabin and asked if she could go swimming. She was already soaked to the bone so I told her she could and to just swim in her clothes. She was so excited at the thought of swimming in her clothes that she ran off giggling and skipping every few feet. It was adorable to watch!

Church has been going pretty good this summer too. We have a few new people helping us with worship which is wonderful! Dave has had to dive head first into the world of musical electronics. Despite his gifting for technology, he was never the AV guy in high school. The world of amps, mics, mixer boards, monitors, and such is all new. Like always, he's a quick learner and we are hoping to have some new stuff soon to help aid in worship.

We've also had a bunch of new people and families come. Some have decided to join us, and some are still just checking us out. It is exciting to watch God move. We are fully confident that God will grow this church with people who can both serve and be served by Arise. Dave also just wrapped up his first sermon series on the Armor of God in Ephesians. It was a great series and we are looking expectantly to what he has in store for us next. As it looks right now we are targeting the end of Sept for our public launch. We are waiting expectantly on God to provide us a public place to meet for worship and the funds to do so. He is a big God and has always been faithful, He will be this time too and we can't wait to see how.

The kids have been doing well. The boys are enjoying their hammock beds and the girl's like having a bit more space in their room. The twins have been a handful, as only two three year old girls could. They are really pushing limits and testing boundaries. We love them so much and are so sad that due to their choices they spend a good amount of time on their beds in repeated time outs. Spanking doesn't seem to have much effect at all. I can look to the future with great hope for them however. Trinity was just as difficult and God has really done a work in her life. If they turn out like Trini the world will be very blessed to know them. Asha is growing like a weed too. She is making some of her own words and trying to communicate in her own way. She likes her routine and is still very much a snuggler. Garrett came home too! Hooray! We are so excited to have him back! He was greatly missed.

School is coming up fast, just a few weeks away. Soccer is in full swing and Papa is going to be gone on a number of business trips this month. It is a crazy final dash until the start of school it looks like! We are trying to enjoy every last minute of it!

I Don't Matter!

2011-08-10T13:14:00.003-05:00

So I haven't blogged in awhile, and unlike most of the times I take a break from blogging, this time it was intentional. The reason it's been intentional is due to some major things God has been asking me to walk through this past 6 weeks or so. I've been wrestling, pondering, praying, and applying a lot. I have always been a very transparent person. My emotions, my thoughts, my life has been an open book. I am not naturally a "closed" person. I don't fake things well and have never been able to tell a lie without it being totally obvious. I have embraced this part of me, wanting to redeem my struggles by working them out through blogging so the world can see what God is doing in me.

So with all that's been swirling around me, blogging though the emotions, the struggles, the prayers...that is how I normally would have processed through it all. The problem is, this is one of the things that God is working me through. Galatians 2:20 says "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." I've been doing a study called Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges during this time and one quote hit me squarely "When I complain about the hard circumstances in my life I defame God's sovereignty and goodness and temp others to do the same." These quotes and many more verses, songs, and spiritual words have been baptizing my soul for these past weeks.

The depth of emotions I have swam through has been deep, intense, and vast. I feel as if I have "felt" so much in such a short time that if I be given even one more emotion to bear I would be utterly destroyed. It was into this frame of mind that Jesus reached down and in a simultaneous act violently crushed me and began a much deeper, and richer work of restoring me then I have ever felt before. The truth of the verse in Galatians shot like a knife to the most treasured part of who I am and I began to see the deep implications for my life. The long and short of it is, He has asked me to die to myself...I don't matter. My emotions, despite how painful, how betrayed, how angry, they don't matter. My hopes, My dreams, My goals, My ideas for My life, My ministry, My family, My church, My children...NONE of that matters. Who I am at the core of my being doesn't matter. Now I am sure as these words hit you, you'll feel what I did...your flesh will begin to writhe with in you. Arguments will rise up in your mind as you begin to justify how we are entitled to our deep secret parts of us. As you're mind spins around what I've said, let me just suggest to you that you dig deep into scripture and see what Jesus has to say on the subject. Galatians 6:14, Ephesians 4:22-24, 1 Corinthians 7:13, 1 Corinthians 6:20, Revelation 5:9, and many more. Do you not believe that you were purchased from death and sin by Jesus through his death? If you truly believe that His dying breath has brought you life, than you will see how who you were must die. This is a life long process of dying, called sanctification. The goal is that we begin to look less and less like us and more and more like Jesus. Our hearts should long for us to fade and Him to shine. I love that this is not a new concept to me, but in the way that is so characteristically Jesus, he revealed this truth to me in a completely new and deeper way.

This has not been easy for me as the "me" of who I am has daily (sometimes hourly) to be striped away again. Like the scene in C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treasure, God scratches at the rough dead skin of the dragon and peels it away layer after layer exposing a pink, tender, small boy inside...It hurts, it stings, it is not easy....but it is not about me, that's the beautiful part. It's about what He is doing that matters. It's when I am utterly undone that I can begin to see, sometimes for the first time, the things He is asking of me. I can begin to be used in the ways he wants me to be used and for the things he is calling me to.

2 Corinthians 4:16 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."

Why am I most useful when I am so small and naked? Because he fills me with him! Such amazing and beautiful words, I sit here overwhelmed with tears of thanksgiving. He gives me His emotions as my heart breaks for the lost around me, weeps with the hurting, and rejoices with each new amazing thing he's done....His dreams and desires as I see how much more and better His plans are...His wisdom as I am able to understand so much more about who he is and vast deep love he has for his children....His Spirit as I am lead daily. This is the sweetest drink I've ever had, my heart longs to spend more and more time in his presence, digging into His word, conversing with His Spirit.

I never thought I would be a pastor's wife. I didn't think I had it in me...and the truth is, I don't. I have been fearful of the things He's been asking us to do, feeling unequipped to handle each new thing that arises. He hasn't given us any "easy" tasks either, each one has brought us to the end of ourselves, and it is there...where I am lacking that I have found Him. I can truly say "It is not I, but Christ who lives in me". I can dance with joy that it is not me!! This truth is so precious to me that I don't matter!!! WooHoo!!! My deep hurt and anger, my muddled best plans, failures and screw ups, all this crap, I can run to my Father, my Brother, my Savior and once again let him strip me clean and fill me with his amazing power!

This is the reason for my break from blogging, so that I can decrease and He can increase. So that I can be emptied of me. Through all of this He has taught me so much about being in public ministry. My role has become so much less about me and so much more about encouraging others toward Christ, helping them see who He is and the ways He is faithful, providing, instructing, and leading us. My blog from now on will be used to record the cool things God is doing with our family, our kids, and our church in an effort to cheer and spur us all on.

The Bed Shuffle

2011-07-21T22:45:00.004-05:00

So today we did the Bed Shuffle. We have a kind of big weekend coming up with a full Saturday work day, church Sunday and Mike and Melissa's open house Sunday afternoon. M & M are spending the night after G2 (Gospel Group) Friday so we can all get an early start Saturday morning. That meant they needed a place to sleep (since we gave Debbie the guest bed). Plus the boy's hammock beds arrived and they are itching to use them.

So after a fun morning at the park with some other gals from Arise we started the bed shuffle during naps. Trinity, the boys and I cleaned out the boy's old room, which is now Garrett's. We took a set of bunk beds out of the big room with all the kids and moved it into Garrett's room. This way we have a few extra beds if we need them, and Mike and Melissa have beds they can use(and a pack and play for the twins).

Next we moved the big room around. Zoe and Lacy got a turn on the top bunks, the two sets of bunk beds form an L in one corner of the room. Trini has her bed under a window on the other side of the room. Dave said he'll put up a partial room divider for her. This will allow her to have a bit more privacy, but still very much be sharing a room with her sisters. We moved things about and got that room picked up.

The last room was the boy's. We moved their things in and got them somewhat organized. After dinner tonight Dave hung their beds from the walls. He had to use huge bolts that went straight into the studs so they won't fall. Their bed are pretty high off the ground and look awesome in the green camo type room. They were super excited to climb in bed tonight. They have to climb on their desks to get in and out. We were going to get a rope ladder and hang it from the ceiling, but it would get in the way of the ceiling fan, so for right now we are using their desks. They filled the hammocks full with blankets, pillows and buddies and climbed in.

Josiah was a home in his little pod. Joseph's eyes were huge and it was obvious that he was more than a little nervous about this whole sleeping in the air thing. They both really wanted to have these, I'm just not sure they knew what they were getting into! Joseph got in and laid down immediately. His head was in the middle of the hammock with his feet going up one side. We told him he should switch positions or all the blood would run to his head, but he said he was fine. I think he was too freaked out to move! Josiah was in and out of his making sure he could do it without problem. The whole thing is freaky to me too. Dave was the picture of confidence of course, but I started to wonder how he was really feeling as he took the pillow shams off our bed and piled them and some stuffed animals under the hammocks! I pray we don't hear a crash in the middle of the night!

Popsicle Days

2011-07-20T23:04:00.004-05:00

It's been HOT here this week! Super hot! We are so extremely blessed to have A/C and say a prayer of thanksgiving every time we walk through the door and are greeted with a blast of cool air. The pictures in this post are of the girls enjoying some quickly melting Popsicles. Goobs had her first and LOVED it!

God has been super busy with us this week too. A few days ago a friend and her three year old daughter moved in with us. (Debbie and Allison). They are with us temporarily for now. We did a bit of room re-arranging to make them comfortable. Debbie got Garrett's old room, Garrett will be in the boy's old room, Allie is in with the twins in the Elmo room, and in the next day or so the boys will move out of the big room with all the kids and into what used to the be the guest room. We were at breakfast last Saturday talking over the needed changes and asked the boys what they thought about moving rooms. They said they would be fine moving rooms if they could get jungle tree hammock beds instead of their bunk beds. Dave said "sure" which totally surprised the boys. Josiah cried "We've got the best Dad ever!" And that sealed the deal with Dave! We decided I would paint their walls two shades of green with the woolly roller. I just finished it and it looks pretty good!

We are so thankful for the A/C but the kids can stay inside in the cool for only so long! So we took them swimming Monday at the Beach in Cloquet. Friends met us there and the kids all had fun. They have two little kiddie slides into the pool. The twins were brave enough to go down them this year and Asha gave it a try too. She would slid down with a huge smile on her face the whole time! She is such a water baby! I love watching their faces as they all enjoy the fun, simple things of childhood. This time is such a blessing...they are such a blessing!

Having 15 (soon to be 16 when Garrett returns!) people living here is a bit crazy, especially when it comes to meal time. Tuesday I went to the store before the kids got up. We are trying this new meal plan. Dave found it online. You pay $5 a month and get a menu & shopping list for the store of your choice. We are on the gluten free plan so the whole family can eat the same thing! This meal plan is fresher too, and healthier. So far we've had two meals and they've been pretty good. Of course I won't be able to please everyone, but most seem to like it so far. It's been fun trying new recipes. Tonight Elisha and I made bacon wrapped tenderloin, a slaw salad, and Brussels sprouts. She wanted to make a desert so I let her and Joseph make strawberry cupcakes (not gluten or dairy free). The dinner was a hit!

Today was one of those days...when it feels like the world is just trying to thwart your plans. This was my day home to try to get stuff done. I planned on painting the boy's room, I had finished the trim yesterday. Trini, Zoe, & Lacy went with me to the store to get the paint. My phone started acting up before we left, that should have been an indicator! The internet was out at the house, this has happened a few times before, that means Dave has to go to a coffee shop in Esko to work. I called him on the way to the store and told him I would take a picture of the paint and send it to him to make sure I was getting the right colors. We got to the store and I took the picture, but my phone wouldn't send it. I tried to call him, but the call wouldn't go through. I sent a text, and he got that. He was able to call me and it would connect for a few minutes and then drop. I figured my phone was breaking since Goobs had thrown it and cracked the screen. I picked the paint out and had the lady start mixing it when the power went out. The whole store was dark...the whole town was dark! Without power she couldn't shake the paint and it would take hours to try to stir it to the right color by hand, plus their registers were down with no power! I told her Dave would come pick it up later when the power was back. The girls and I drove home. The rest of the day had it's ups and downs. We are having a big open house for Mike and Melissa to welcome home their girls this Sunday. Having just lost two hours at the store got me wanting to accomplish something...but what. Everywhere I looked I felt like there was more and more mess. In reality the house was pretty picked up. The kids had done their chores and the boys had been super helpful since they knew I was spending extra time on their rooms. It was just one of those times when Satan's lies burrow in and nag at the back of my thoughts. The feeling of needing to control the external so the internal would calm too started to overwhelm me. I sent Dave another text telling him how I was feeling. He sent me tons of encouragement blasting through the lies Satan was trying to get me to believe. Oliver came home and got on the mower he mowed the yard and part of the fields, and he didn't break even one window! What great encouragers I live with. I just found that Oliver had written a super nice encouraging thing about me on the City (our church "facebook" kind of thing) too. I am overwhelmed by the blessings God has poured out on me. I stand drenched in his love, soaked in his blessings, saturated with his grace.

I love this life He's given me! I don't like the grass barren front yard, but I love the dear friend that'll mow it anyway. I don't like the messes in the house, but I love the hands that create, play, and dance the mess around. I don't like putting the kids to bed over and over and over again, but I love the arms that ring around my neck, the little bodies that snuggle into our bed at night, the cries in a bad dream for me...knowing somehow I can bring them comfort and help. I don't like being on public display for all to watch & judge me, but I love being used by God in my family and at Arise. I love this life He's given me. I things I don't like seem so small and inconsequential compared to vast and overwhelming blessings He's given me. The greatest being Jesus. Jesus, I love way everything that is uncertain & frustrating suddenly calms and makes sense when I am with you. You show me how silly I am to stress about such small things, how amazingly blessed I am. My heart breaks over the depth of my sin and the ramifications felt by my family. I am lost in the completeness of your forgiveness, totally laid out and bare. Gathered up in my tender condition by a safe, loving, protective, capable friend. Clothed and cared for, given healing and restoration. Praise you Jesus for your undeserved kindness to me, such a wretch that you should love me. My Hope, my Future, my Savior. Praise be to you!

It's Raining it's Pouring....

2011-07-14T22:18:00.005-05:00

Today was a wet day. A wet, yet fun day! This morning we met a bunch of friends at a park in Cloquet...the one with the three story high tube slide (yeah I know...totally awesome!!) There is a log like pavilion there also which came in super handy when it started to rain...hard.

The kids were all out on the playground and the adults were hiding in the shelter. We were all having great conversations and waited for the kids to come running back to the shelter wet, ready to go home...but they didn't! Instead they played and played in the rain...even Goobs!

They played soaking wet for about an hour and then came in wanting lunch. We had packed picnic lunches and figured they might as well eat them here even through they were soaked to the bone.

As they were finishing up however Asha started to shiver and shake she was so cold. It was past noon and I decided our crew had had enough of the wet and was ready for naps.

The pictures in this post are not actually from our day at the park today, but instead from a trip to the park from last week! I didn't take any today on account of the rain. Enjoy!

I Have Super Powers!!

2011-07-13T22:56:00.002-05:00

This week is only half over…oy, only half. It’s been quite a week already. The weather has been wonderful, which is great for a change. We wanted to make to most of the few weeks of summer that we get up here, so Monday we packed the bus up and headed to the beach. I picked Brighton Beach which is on the total other side of Duluth, a good 35+ min. drive. However, this beach is made out of smooth lake rock, big huge rocks that the waves have smoothed and formed. There are small warm little puddles everywhere perfect for Goobs and the twins to play in, and the best feature of all…no sand!!! No sand in the suit, on the shoes, in hair, in the bus or towels!

So the kids and I put on our suits and headed to the beach. We brought with our large deck umbrella and the heavy metal umbrella stand so we could have some shade. Lori and her kids joined us at the beach…it was great fun, very relaxing to sit and watch the kids play and have so much fun. Asha had a total blast splashing in the little puddles, she could have stayed there for days!

The rest of us however couldn’t stay for days and by 2:30ish we were packing up to head home. Trinity had practice and Zoe had a game that evening so we needed to get home and start on dinner. We loaded the bus up with sun kissed, beach tired kiddos and all our gear, said goodbye (or see you later) to our friends and headed home. Just as we were turning the corner from 26^th Ave East onto the I-35 freeway entrance the heavy metal umbrella stand that we had placed in the bus under a seat came loose and slid down the bus isle and out the door, shattering the glass door as it went! The sound of the six foot high glass door being blown out sounded like a bomb and scared us all. I pulled over right away shocked at what had just happened. Everyone was okay and thankfully no one was trying to get on the freeway in our lane. I put on the hazards, calmed the kids down and slowly back down the on ramp to where the stand was sitting in the road. I grabbed the stand and continued slowly backing up the on ramp and then into the Perkins Restaurant parking lot that is right next to the ramp. Lori called to see if we where okay as they had passed us backing up. We were all safe and I was parked so I took that time to fully loose it! I called Dave and freaked out. He was super supportive and helped me get a grip. The plan was to drive slowly home through town since getting on the freeway with no door wasn’t an option. I took a deep breath and started the drive home. After a mile or so I think God gave me the idea to use the large beach blanket we keep in the bus. I pulled over into a parking lot and wrapped the blanket around the door and then locked it shut. That held the blanket in place and kept any of the remaining glass from falling in the bus or on the road too. By this point I was back in full control of my emotions and realized that it could have been a much bigger deal if someone had been hurt, but no one had and it was just dumb luck that it had happened. By the time we got home Dave had already ordered replacement glass! For now we have nasty white plastic covering the door, but that is just so we can still use the bus for now.

Some of the kids (the white ones) had gotten nasty sunburns on their shoulders. I am not sure how that happened as we have applied lots of sunscreen, but nonetheless, they burned pretty bad and some even got a burn on the new layer. We aren’t taking any more chances now. I made the ones with bad burns wear shirts over their swimsuits and Monday night Dave and I ordered all of the white kids UV protection rash guard swim shirt (their all on clearance now!)

Tuesday promised to be a better day. I had an important, yet difficult meeting in the afternoon so I wanted to make sure the kids got a chance to get out in the morning. They did a great job getting their chores done and then we all headed to a nearby park. I needed to spend a few minutes going over my thoughts for the meeting while the kids ran around and played. Just as we were about to start packing up another mom and her kids showed up at the park. She commented on the bus (no doubt she saw the door!) and struck up a conversation. Turns out she lives very close to the park, has some kids the same ages as mine, goes to church in Esko along with a bunch of her cousins, but is looking for a different church that is a bit younger and has contemporary music. Trinity told her we were planting a church and all about Arise. She was super interested. As we talked she told me she now teaches dance, acting, and music at UMD, but once had been a Christian singer when she lived in New York and even had an album! She said her husband plays guitar too and they would love to play at church, but the one they go to does older style music and isn’t interested. I told her we just so happened to be in the process of putting together our worship team and would love it if they were interested. We exchanged information and said we’d call each other if we were going to that park again. Hopefully we’ll see them again. She said they might be interested in Arise, but you never know. Her hubby has been going to the other church his whole life and that might be a bigger issue than first realized too. Weather they come or not it was a neat meeting and just one more evidence that God is in control and he can bring whoever he wants to Arise. He is building his church and we can rest in that!

Wednesday, today…once again it started out well. The weather has turned cool now. It is really nice high 60s to low 70s, cool breeze. It’s not swimming weather, but with all the sunburns I am fine with that! Because of the cooler temps we decided to take the kids to the cheap seats movie this morning. We saw Hoodwinked 2 for $2 a ticket and $2 popcorn. The movie was super funny and the kids all enjoyed it. It was definitely worth $2! Once home I got them lunch and tasked the older ones to put the younger ones down for naps so I could jump on the mower. They all got to bed and I mowed the yard. I finished mowing by the bike shed and parked the machine. I went to pick up the toys that were on the driveway and pasted by Oliver’s car. That’s when I saw it…the back window to his outback station wagon was shattered!!! I give up!!!! How in the world had I shot a rock through his window? I hadn’t even mowed by that side!!! Who knows, but somehow I’d done it. With frustrated steps I climbed the stairs to Dave’s office and told him what I’d done. Feeling like a complete failure and super frustrated that I had single handedly busted two car windows in two days!!! Dave laughed!! He walked down to Oliver’s car with me and laughed again when we saw it. I told him I was done with cars and mowing. He told me I have a super power and that my awesomeness just cannot be contained and therefore shatters all the glass around me! I don’t feel like I have super powers, unless it’s to make a super mess. It did feel good to have Dave so supportive though. Oliver was really good about it too. He called his insurance and in the end the glass was covered on his insurance.

Wow! What a crazy past few days! I know that our lives run at an unreal pace and the totally off the wall things that happen to us would send most people over the edge. It would send us over the edge too, except that God is good, He is in control and he loves us so much. Because God is who he is we can rest and even find humor and joy in the little crazy things that happen in life. Has the past few day been nuts? Yup! But it’s also been good!

Dunk'n Day!

2011-07-12T00:19:00.005-05:00

Arise had their first baptism service last Sunday! We held it outside at Pike Lake at Dave's parents house. We had a pretty nice size crowd of people come to watch the baptisms.

Alyssa offered to lead worship for us. It was awesome!

Dave preached on the helmet of salvation, perfect for the day! Cool how God works that out!

Three people got baptized, Dan, Megan, and Josiah. They all gave their testimonies.

Dave baptized them in the lake.

After the service we had a church picnic. It was great! The gals hung out all afternoon watching the little kids swim, while the men and older boys went and played paintball for Joseph and Dylan's birthday. It was an amazing day!

We Are the Champions!

2011-07-09T23:02:00.004-05:00

So the boys had what we thought was their last baseball game last Wednesday. They played a great game, but lost in the end. We all thought they were supposed to get one more chance to bat, but the ump didn't think so. So we packed it up and headed home. Then yesterday Dave gets a text saying that the Little League rules weren't followed and our team is going to play in the Championship tourney today!

We got the kids up in time to shovel some cereal down them and toss them in the bus. Their first game was at nine. I am so glad we grabbed some plastic and the big umbrella off the porch because not long after the game started the rain came a pour'n down. The boys were troopers as them stood out in the field getting drenched. We all huddled in the umbrella and cheered them on. That first game last three hours! And after a bit the rain did let up.

They boys played great...better then they played all year! In the end they won that game and got the chance to play the undefeated team for the top spot. I don't know if it was the built in air conditioning from their soaked shirts, or the pizza from Eskomo Pies that Dave grabbed for the team, or if that first game was just batting practice, but they took the field for the second game and they were on fire! It was such an awesome game to watch. They played great! Joseph had his new glasses on and perhaps the fact that he could see clearly was making a difference. The other team was frustrated as we knocked them out far time and time again. As the game wore on however the fact that our boys had been play for about four and a half hours straight started to weigh in on them. Their pitchers were fresher and we started to miss a few here and there. We still had some great plays, Joseph even fielded a great double play! We were ahead the whole game 5-3 until the last inning. They got to bat last and pulled out three more runs to top us by one.

I don't think our boys cared much at all. The fact is they were second place and had a metal of their own and that was all that mattered. If we had managed to win that game, we would have had to play the exact same team right after for the Championship game and the outcome could have been the same....second place. I don't think the boys could have handled 7-9 hours of baseball...that's just too much for any 9-11 year old! Way to go Joe Boys!!!

Oh yeah... this picture is of Asha right after Dave fished the wireless mouse, and home phone out of the toilet! She has started this "throwing things in the toilet" phase. Oh Goobs!

Still Catch'n Up From Last Week...

2011-07-09T21:50:00.005-05:00

Today I was taking some pictures on my iphone camera and I noticed all of the pictures I took last week but never posted. Most of the pics go along with some pretty neat things that happened in the midst of the turmoil that definitely need to be told too! So here we go!

Last week while Dave was out of town we took on two more kiddos! We got the chance to watch Mike and Melissa's twins for an evening so they could go out on a date! We met up at playfront park in Duluth for the drop off and a bit of time to play. Oliver and the older kids had a blast playing "don't touch the ground tag" on the playground while Asha fit right in with her two best buddies.

Talk about double trouble! Two sets of twins! I wonder if the Doublemint commercials still need models!
Like most of the time in the Northland, it is much warmer away from the lake. That makes it hard when it's in the 80's in Esko and 60's with a cool wind in Duluth. I told the kids to grab jackets, but Mara didn't get the memo. She was freezing with her tank top and shorts on. The only thing we could find in the bus was Josiah's UMD sweatshirt. On her it looked like a dress! At one point after having gone to the bathroom she had the neck hole around her waist and was wearing it like a skirt! Silly goose!

Oliver and I got the kids home and started in on dinner. I lined Amina, Amira, and Asha up in three high chairs, mixed up some baby food and just went down the line spooning a bite into the next waiting open mouth! It was a riot! Oliver worked on dinner for the rest of us while I fed the little ones, got them ready for bed, put them down, and nursed Asha. By the time I came back downstairs Oliver looked a bit overwhelmed. His eyes were big and I'm pretty sure I saw little beads of sweat on his forehead. I asked him if he was frustrated as he pulled the burnt buns out of the oven. He said he just wasn't used to cooking for this many people. That's when I saw the ginormous bowl of pasta salad. It was heaping full. I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing and told him I thought he might have over done it on the salad. He rolled his eyes at me and I helped him get the rest of dinner on the table. This pic is of the remaining pasta salad trying to find a home in the fridge! While it is way more pasta salad them anyone could possibly eat, it actually worked out great to have something extra to bring to all of the cook outs over the fourth weekend. So "way to go Ollie!"

This picture is a bit more on the serious side. Last week Trinity spent the week at Church Camp. It wasn't for our church, but for a Covenant Church...she had won a week at camp from the Carlton County Fair last summer. She loved camp, but mid week I got a call saying she needed to have her leg x-rayed. She had slipped and fallen while playing on a raft in the lake and smacked her leg. They wanted an x-ray to make sure there was nothing broken. Gramz picked her up and met us at the ER in Cloquet. I went in with her to the exam room. The nurse came in and said Hi to me in that "I know who you are" kind of voice. I quickly snuck a peek at her name tag and played along the best I could. We chatted for a few minutes the whole time I was wracking my brain trying to remember how I knew her. She seemed to know so much about me! She mentioned something about Cloquet Christian Academy...thought I had her pegged, but no...she home schools. Then she said something about her son and Josiah being on the same soccer team last year...oh yeah, that's it...nope...I still didn't remember. Then Trinity (bless her heart) said "why do you two keep talking to each other like you know each other". She smiled at Trinity and said "Well, I remember you guys from a long time ago, but your Mom doesn't remember who we are"!!! Rats!!! She knew!!! Guess I can't fake it very well! Anyway, she went on to say that she had come to a garage sale I had (in my living room) years ago. She had come because her Uncle had used to live in our house when she was girl! Oh yeah, now I remember!! I knew a couple had lived here in the 80's and had put the second story on the house. She then asked if I was still home schooling and I told her we weren't, that we had put the kids in Esko school because we are in the process of planting a church in Esko. She stopped dead in her track and stared at me. I saw goose bumps rise up on her arms and thought "Good? Bad?" She said "No way, I've got goosebumps. My Uncle who lived in your house was the last person to plant a church in Esko!" Now isn't that totally way cool!!!! She went on to tell me that he planted the church, it did great and after a bit he got a call to be an assistant pastor down south. He left the church to a different couple and she wasn't sure what happened to it after that. She said her family goes to the Tab in Cloquet...a lot of people around here do. She said she wasn't thrilled with it so I told her when we are meeting and that it's in our living room for now. She said they might just come check out Arise.

That is a pretty awesome story and I thought it needed to get told! I just goes to show that God is so faithful and true. He told Dave he has gone before him, and he has...in fact the very ground where we gather weekly to seek God on behalf of the people of Esko, where we praise His name and fight against the dark forces here is the same ground that God's faithful people have been fighting for Esko on for years! That stuff doesn't just happen...that's God!

Okay the one above is just plain cute! That is what happened when I tried to make a "quick" run to WalMart with Asha and the twins. They were packed in tight!

You gotta love Lacy's hair! This is what it looked like right after I finished taking all of the braids out.

Joseph's Birthday!!

2011-07-08T00:49:00.004-05:00

Today was Joseph's eleventh birthday!

The day started out great with a haircut!!! I have been working on his Birthday video for the past two weeks and have been pouring over pictures of him when he was younger. I love his bald fade haircut and even like the close shave pretty good. I do like his corn row and twists, but with four little girls that need their hair braided, trying to find the time to do Joseph's was starting to stress me out. His needed to be done weekly to keep it looking like it should.

So Joseph and I struck a deal. I paid him five bucks to get the chance to shave his head. He didn't want a bald fade (I would have paid him $10 for that!) He opted for a #2 on top and #1 on the sides. I love it!

Grandpa picked him up just before lunch. He took him to lunch and to get contacts. That was his birthday present. He has wanted contacts for awhile. Tom took him to Lens Crafters and found out that his prescription has changed dramatically. They got him new glasses and a 10 day supply of contacts to practice with for the next week. He goes back in next week to make sure they are the right fit and order a six month supply.

We had a party for Joseph tonight. Dave picked up Mexican Lindos for dinner, and Oliver brought home a chocolate lava cake from Red Lobster for Joseph's cake. We made brownies for everyone else. We watched his birthday video, told stories about him, and gave him his presents. We got him a sweatshirt that says Minnesota, a paintball party for him, his friends, and their dads, and a shopping trip for him to get some new clothes. He was super excited with his fun day and we are all so blessed to have Joseph in our family.

We are so amazed at the blessing he is to us and praise God for getting the chance to be his parents. God is so good to us! I know so many people out there don't understand our family or our lives. They say it's too hard, too much, that we can't possibly do all the things God is calling us to...but days like these remind us so clearly that it isn't about us! It's about the awesome things God is doing and calling us to be a part of. We are so blessed to get to be a part of our son's life. This is a blessing God gave us. He didn't just lay it easily in our laps, no...there was much sacrifice, much work, many tears and struggles to bring him home. In the end God did it, but He called us to be willing to be the ones he did it through and for that we are so much richer. So tonight we praise God for Joseph-Thomas Edward Christensen!

Count It All Joy...

2011-07-07T21:54:00.004-05:00

Well, it's been awhile since my last post. That was intentional. The past week has been a tough one, even for us! While the details are not what's important, enough to say, it's been tough. God has used this whole "struggle" to really teach me a bunch...just like every trial does. One of the big things I've gotten out of this is that my blog is such a great opportunity to share with anyone who cares to read it the amazing things God is doing in our lives. He is the most amazing God and we are so privileged to serve him. This path He's called us on is NOT easy, it's NOT glamorous, it's NOT relaxing or stress free...but it is GOOD. It is good, because God is Good! He takes all things and uses it for good.

This blog allows me to recount just how gracious, and loving He is to our family. A great example of his loving kindness was this fourth of July. Dave was gone last week during all of the mess so the weekend was full of trying to sort through it all. That is what made the fourth of July so much fun. It was finally a day we got to spend as a family. When I say family, I mean our FAMILY...our whole church (with sad exception of Melissa and the twins who were in the cities) family came. We gathered at Dave's folk's house on Pike Lake for a day filled with boating, swimming, tubing, bonfires, and fireworks. It was a fun time.

The fourth was extra special because my cousin Andy (Uncle Andy to the kids) came to visit from Florida. He usually comes for the fourth of July and we are so happy to get a chance to see him.

Ouch!

2011-06-24T09:53:00.002-05:00

So I see I touch on something sensitive with my last post. I have prayed and sought council over just how or if I should respond to the amount of comments both for and against. This is where I've been lead....When I blog, you get to see a glimpse into the real me, my thoughts, prayers, and the stuff God is working through in my life. I don't normally "clean things up" put on a fake false front and post something that shows it all in soft focus, rose colored light. I am real. Of course that is not the norm for Northern Minnesota, but it is who I am.

That being said I too am human and make mistakes...um, we all do...ALL have sinned and fallen short...that's the point. I still stand however behind what the Bible says and the better things Jesus calls us to in life. I do recognize that I may have hurt some specific people. My intent was never to hurt, but to cause people to think. To examine society and this specific age group and ask some hard questions. I am not upset with Alyssa leaving...in fact we left on good terms, we love her dearly and what I wrote was NOT about her. Jesus's mission was not for her to be at our place, so for her to stay would not be following his will. It was refreshing to get to talk with her and see someone who is actually trying to find Biblical community and be on mission for the things God is calling her to. It was instead...like I said....about the things God was working on in me. I do not believe that calling this age group to accountability is popular, or easy. I also know that when you take a stand on something many people get many different things out of what you've said...sometimes not at all what you intended.

As I sifted through some of the comments I realized once again that most people do not have a real, clear, practical understanding of true Biblical community...the kind in Acts. Where people opened their homes, sold their things, sacrificed for and love on one another. That is what this is a call to. For young adults to BENEFIT from living with in true community while they are single. This prepares them for marriage and family in the future and if God's plan is for them to remain single provides them family and support they will most definitely need. I was railing against the idea of "rugged individualism" and the "you don't need anyone...just me and Jesus" through that is so prevalent in our culture.

Ready for Something More?

2011-06-23T15:08:00.002-05:00

So this week has been an interesting one. For starters it's rained all week, not just sprinkled, but rained hard. Well, Monday actually wasn't rainy, but it was pretty cool. Zoe and the Joe Boys had games in the evening. Gramz and Grampz came to them and helped us cheer the kids on. We spent most of the games huddled under blankets however. Only in Northern Minnesota is this somewhat normal for summer baseball! The rain came Tuesday and it hasn't stopped yet.

Tuesday was also Mr. Oliver's birthday. He celebrated it by going swimming with us at the Econolodge in the morning and watching the kids with Alyssa in the evening. Fun birthday. The kids enjoyed it! They got him five rubber snakes because of a story he had made up about a snake family. We are so blessed to have Oliver in our lives. He is a totally loyal, faithful friend and we are happy to call him the creepy man in our basement!

This week we were adjusting to Alyssa moving in as well. Trinity was thrilled to have another girl in the mix and one she was hoping to spend a lot of time with. Unfortunately Alyssa left this morning. We were really hoping she would be a good fit for our family. We have no delusions however, this isn't an "easy" assignment. It can be fun, exciting, never the same, full of learning and growing opportunities, but its not easy...in fact it's hard. This just wasn't the place she felt like Jesus was calling her to, but somewhat unsure just where that place is.

This whole experience with Alyssa the past week has really got Dave and I thinking, praying and searching. We see a number of young people in the same "lost in the fog" spot in life. It's epidemic among the young adult crowd. In churches we have formed entire ministries to address this age group, pandering to the consumer lifestyle of "Is there a program for me?" We tell them they are too young, too vulnerable...they shouldn't expect much from life yet, because we don't expect much from them. They should wait for marriage, wait to get a job, wait to move out, wait to take responsibly. Instead they are kept in a kind of prolonged childhood. The more I see it the more I want to pull my hair out. You've all heard of a toddler that still is nursing...that's disturbing and so is this! I am a big fan of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill. I love the way he cuts right through the bunk and hits young men square. He wakes them up and calls them to higher things. As we became more and more aware of the young people around us and the state that they are in I started looking for material to learn from, draw off to begin to address this correctly. So far I've not found much. In fact I have found a number of Christian materials that seem designed to keep young women stuck. Most try to get them to be comfortable with singleness, being alone, being independent and push education...because what else are you supposed to do with your life as you wait to "grow up". Not saying education is wrong, no, but it's simply a tool to accomplish the goals God has for you life, not a place to waste your time until your old enough to become a "real adult". Why are they encouraging woman to deny the God given desire to be in community and relationship? Is teaching them to live life alone until Mr. Perfect shows up such a smart idea? Last time I checked Mr. Perfect died and when he comes back it'll be for all of us. So Mark Driscoll where is the hard truth for the ladies? Who out there is going to call these young women to community, not "singleness", to a life lived on fire for Jesus running hard after the amazing abundant things He has for them. Not a "Jesus is my boyfriend" Jr. High immaturity, but real life...the hard stuff. These ladies need community in the church to surround them, care for them, and spur them on to run hard and not sit around pining away or waiting. They need someone to wake them up and tell them to grow up. They need to live closely with families, watching and learning how to make a marriage work, raise kids, run households. They need to roll up their sleeves and get busy with the work God is trying to prepare them for, instead of wasting their lives "hanging out" waiting until someone deems them old enough. They don't realize they are already on a mission. God is trying to use them where he has them, but they just don't see it. Dave said "There is not such things as waiting, only wasting." I agree.

So this is where we are at now. We are in need of some help. A Christian female that is ready for some hard but totally rewarding work. Some one who cares enough about the children and husband she will one day have that she wants to learn what she can now. Someone who is tired of being told they can't do it, and have to wait and is ready to see just how much she can do. We are here to shepherd, encourage, and teach her, pick her up when she makes mistakes and ask forgiveness of her when we do to. We offer room and board in exchange for some part-time babysitting/nannying/camp counseloring type work. It's pretty flexible and they can have another job and/or be in school. God wants to use this time effectively. Do you know someone who is ready to get on with life? Perhaps this is the exact place Jesus is calling them to.

WELL...Father's Day

2011-06-20T14:43:00.003-05:00

So ya noticed the giant "WELL" in the title of this post? That's because this weekend we had a giant well problem. The issues with the well have been going on for about a month now and Dave has replaced, and checked most of the parts from the motor/pump, to the valves in the house trying to fix the problem. Saturday however, it gave in completely and stopped.

Dave had taken the boys to watch Mr. Oliver cross the finish line for Grandma's Half Marathon in Duluth in the rain. The weather was a mess, cold and rainy...yuck. They got home just as the last of the water came trickling out. Unfortunately Zoe and Trinity were in the shower when it quit so they had to spend awhile with dried soap in their hair.

With all of the parts that have already been replaced the problem was narrowed down to the foot valve at the bottom of the well, or the line that runs under ground from the well to the house. If the latter was broken we'd have to dig up the yard and replace the line...major money. So we'd first replace the foot valve. This same valve had to be replaced about four years ago. This time however Dave didn't have his tractor so he and Mr. Oliver built a 2x4 cage with pulleys and climbing rope to lower someone down the well. Oliver climbs so he had a harness and lighted helmet Dave could use. The plan was to build the system and actually go down the well Sunday afternoon when we had a bit more time. Dave still had his sermon to finish and we were supposed to be at my parents house for an extended family dinner since my brother and sister were in town. As they were setting everything up however a winch fell in.

So now going down the well became a must! They fixed the foot valve (which was indeed the problem!) and then lowered Dave down into the freezing cold water to hunt for the winch. The rope ran out of slack with him in the water up to his chest. The guys up top scrambled for my line to lower him more, but by the time they found it Dave couldn't feel his legs anymore and was afraid hypothermia was setting in! (Only in MN in the summer can you get hypothermia!) The outside temps were hovering around 50 degrees with a cold wind and some drizzle. So, we decided the winch wasn't really that important after all! It doesn't have any battery parts or anything anyway, and the pipes in the water are all metal too. Dave said the water is about 15 feet deep and he would have had to be weighted down and lowered all the way under water to the bottom to get the winch. Not fun. I think he would have to have a scuba suit on to do that.

Well, this awesome handy man of mine fixed the well in record time and we were still able to make it in time for dinner! Way to go Papa!

Sunday was Father's Day and around here that is quit a day. With ten kiddos how can Father's Day be anything but a Huge Holiday!? The kids have been working all week to make and find gifts to give him. Some had things they had made at school, others wrapped up some of his tools (I think there may have been a wrench or two that would have been helpful with the well, but it was instead safely wrapped in tons of paper and tape!) Dave had fun opening his gifts before he headed back to his barn/office to physic himself up for his sermon.

Church was great, we had a number of visitors with it being Father's Day and Dave did a great job. I wasn't actually expecting it to be spectacular given the events of Saturday, but he did a really great job and I learned a lot. It's really neat having a pastor/husband and pastor/Dad. We are going through the armor of God and this week we were on the shield of faith. Dave talked about how the flaming darts of the evil one were all rooted in doubt...doubt of God, doubt of the body, and doubt of the mission. Then he talked about how the Roman solders of the day would have used their shields in battle. How a single Roman solder was a dead Roman solder...they were not meant to fight alone, they were meant to fight within a community, a group and together they were very effective, but alone they were dead. Of course he related it to the body and how in our western culture we thrive on rugged individualism and how that is one of Satan's greatest tricks...get us off and alone and we are easy targets. Dave talked about three manuvers or formations the solders would do with their shields...the turtle, the wedge, and the saw. The turtle was super effective at protecting the solders from flaming darts as they used their shields to form what looked like a turtle shell. They would hold their shields over each other and protect one another. Much like we are to use our faith to strengthen each other, especially when we are under attack. The wedge was like the tip of an arrow with one guy leading the charge and then two to the side of the one and so one. The whole group would start to run full speed in this formation at the enemy with the goal being to break through their line of troops so they could turn and flight them from behind. This move required the group to run, if they stopped they would be easily picked off and the front guy of course took the most attack. Dave compared this to church planting, with the pastor (and his family) being in the front. We have to keep moving or we will be easily picked off. Our goal is to plunge deep into enemy territory so we can begin fighting from within. The last formation was the saw. This was a group of solders who would run back and forth behind the front line of solders ready to re-enforce the front line when someone was hurt. These are the people in the body that encourage others, pick people up when they fall. They are ready to jump into the fight at a moment's notice.

It was a great sermon. I am so amazed at the way in which God is using Dave. He is giving him such great wisdom and understanding. I am only saddened that so few people get to benefit from it right now. We are praying that God will grow his church, his bride in his time, but it's hard to wait. We love Esko and long to see more and more people wake up to the truth of the Gospel, not the trap of religion, to experience really community and see the battle around them. God has a plan and I for one am excited to see it unfold!

Jay Cooke Picnic

2011-06-17T14:53:00.005-05:00

Today we took the family and went to Jay Cooke State Park for a hike and a picnic. The weather was gray and cool, but that seems to make the best light for picture taking! We were joined by my brother and his family and Gramz and Grampz. It was a fun afternoon together.

I took a bunch of pictures of the kids, some turned out great!

I've been doing a lot of thinking the past few days...thinking in the hallway. Sounds odd, I know. See, at nap time I've been camping out in the hallway outside the kid's bedroom. Remember we have nine of them all in the same room. So nap times can tend to be loud play times with a lot of screwing off and revving up. That means afternoon hits with crazy, wild, tired children. It's not a pretty evening. So lately I've been snuggling into some silly animal beanbag chairs with my laptop, and water bottle or coffee in the hallway outside their bedroom. We have Andrew Peterson's soothing Christian folk music playing off groove shark so we can all hear it and a sweet, soul satisfying calm settles into our house. More times then have happened in awhile I have sat here with a silly smile on my face just loving this time, talking with God. He allows me a fresh perspective on life and the amazing blessing it is to have this family, these kids, our many opportunities, and adventures. We are so blessed, so amazingly blessed!

Well, nap time is coming to a close soon. A few who bodies are already stirring. The weather which was grey and cool this morning has given way to warm and sunny. It looks like a trip to "The Beach" in Cloquet for an afternoon dip in the pool might be just what the kids need! Yup, so blessed indeed!

Zoe's Baseball

2011-06-15T13:49:00.007-05:00

Monday was Zoe's first baseball game!!! It was totally crazy!!! Let me start at the beginning...

So Monday morning was met with excitement and expectation. It was Dave and my's 13th Anniversary and also Gramz's birthday. The weather was warm and clear. I had planned to get the kids up and going and take them to the boardwalk in Duluth for some exercise and fun before lunch. As soon as my feet hit the floor I was off. Helping this kid find something to wear, combing this kid's hair, getting the twins dressed, dealing with a screaming Asha. It was a lot. I went to the basement and found piles and piles of laundry and a totally trashed girl's locker room. Hosanna, Zoe and Trinity were super helpful in digging out of the mess. By the time we got upstairs most of the kids had eaten breakfast already and the kitchen was only half taken care of. Some kids just hadn't done their jobs so half done was as far as things got. Dave came in and I asked him to get certain kids to come back in and do their jobs. I went to take a shower. Clean up and thinking we might still be able to make it to the boardwalk (although it was pretty late by this point). That was until I came back through the kitchen and found water everywhere! The twins had gotten into water and poured it on everything. It took three towels to soak it all up! I may have lost it a bit and yelled for everyone to get out of the house and locked the doors. I needed some time to cool off and for their safety and mine it was best to be separated. Poor Oliver however was outside and got locked out! We laugh about it now.

So the boardwalk didn't happen. Dave came in and had a chat with the kids and especially the ones who hadn't done what they were supposed to do. The afternoon went better. A sweet gal from Esko came over to stay with the kids while Trinity and I did some grocery shopping. Alyssa grew up in Esko and is thinking about moving in to help us out while Garrett is gone. We all really enjoyed her.

Zoe's game was right after dinner and it was just crazy! This is the fun league and most kids have never played before. So most coaches have their whole team play in the field while the other team takes turn batting. Each team makes it through the batting line and then they switch. It don't think their is a score kept and when a ball it hit it's kind of like tackle baseball! Ten kids all run for the ball and pile on it with one coming up victoriously holding the prize!

Zoe did excellent and had some great hits! It was fun to watch her. Way to go Zoe!

Tuesday didn't start out much better then Monday. We tried, but we have realized that if we aren't ready the night before, things just don't run smoothly and I end up trying to get 10 kids up, fed, and ready to go along with myself. It's pretty ugly. Tuesday we had coffee in the park with some gals from church. It was great once we got there, but totally stressful before hand.

Trinity asked me why it is so stressful and I told her that I was able to do six kids well. We had fun and it wasn't stressful. I thought I could easily handle seven, but I never got to try. God's plan was to go from six to nine and then ten right away. If we had added kids like most people do, we would have had at least a year to adjust to the new addition. Given that math it should take us about four years to adjust. I don't think it'll take that long, but it is a balancing act. We rely on Garrett when he's here and when he's gone, that too takes some adjusting to. School's out, yet another adjustment. So, in reality this in normal. We are really praying God will provide that additional help we need. We are finding it is help with the daily things (laundry, mowing, dishes, etc) that tend to send us over the top. Just having one more person "on" adds so much.

Tuesday afternoon we hung out at home, naps, and played outside. It was nice. Alyssa came over again in the evening and join our family and Oliver. We went to Gramz and Grampz's house for dinner. My brother and his family are up visiting from New Mexico for a week. It was great having the extra help with the kids so we could sit and chat with the adults.

Once we got home we put the kids to bed and had a great chance to chat and pray with our "older" kids. We are so very blessed to have Oliver, Garrett, and (hopefully) Alyssa in our lives.

Last night I realized again just how amazing it is that God picked Dave and I as the ones who get to pour into and teach, not only our children but these young adults. The responsibility was also new and fresh on my mind as I recognized that what is modeled here, what is learned here will also shape their families, their parenting, and their children. Wow. Well, that is some pressure! But not in a bad way, just in a sobering way. I am constantly amazed at the things God brings into our lives and despite the doubt of my abilities say over and over "I choose to use you to accomplish this, teach this, heal this, do this". In stressful times Satan whispers to me that God is doing all this to me, that he is a hard and unloving God who delight in my downfall. That is such a LIE! Nope, my God loves me so much. Each time he brings something new he is saying "I know you can do this", "I trust you with this task", "I believe in you"! The God of the Universe could choose anyone, and he chose me! I know that these things I am only able to accomplish through the shed blood of his son and the power over sin and death that He accomplished. Being tied so tightly to the Holy Spirit and his guiding counsel and strength. Make no mistake, he doesn't pick me because of anything I've done...maybe he picks me because I can't do anything! His disciples were all unlikely candidates...but he did the transforming work. I love how his hand continually transform me, smooths my all too many rough edges, molds and shapes me. Oh Jesus, how sweetly you love and affirm me. Please allow my eyes to continually see what Satan would have me believe is for my ill is actually for my good, and a gift from you. Thank you for loving me so well. You're patience undoes me if I ponder it at all. Praise you!

Banff Photos!

2011-06-13T20:36:00.007-05:00

So I promised I would post some of the photos we took in Banff. The place was beautiful...our favorite spot.

People often ask us why we don't go somewhere warm. We both have issues with going to a third world country and not helping/serving. And in Canada you can easily have a fire going in our little stone fireplace inside to keep off the night chill or the cool morning. It usually warms up a bit by the afternoon too. The temps are also great for hiking, not too warm, not too cool.

Also the wildlife is awesome. We love the fact that elk will walk up to our porch, the roads are dotted with bears, mountain goats, moose, and deer.

It was a great vacation and we are so blessed to have gotten the chance to get away.

Too Much

2011-06-09T20:59:00.003-05:00

So, last week Dave and I got a chance to go to the beautiful Canadian Rockies for an early Anniversary retreat. We have gone to the same place for the past few years save last year, and really enjoy our chance to get away and reconnect. It's just crazy around here all of the time so of course this being the first chance I have had to blog since getting home, I wanted to blog about our trip...but then yesterday happened.

I'll post some pictures we took while we were there, but after yesterday all the desire to talk about our get away has drained out of me. Suffice it to say that we spent a lot of time planning everything from one on one time with all ten kids each month to our 3-5 year plan for our house projects. With all the planning that we did, we failed to plan for our return.

That is where we went wrong. We took our little trip on what turned out to be a very bad time. When we booked the trip, Garrett was still in Kenya and we were under the impression that he didn't leave for school until the second week of June, just as the kids were getting out of school. We were wrong. We actually normally go on our trip next week, over our anniversary on the 13th, but we moved it a week earlier thinking Garrett would still be home. We found out after all the things were booked and paid for that he was leaving the day after we were. Oliver and the Grandparents stepped in and agreed to help out. They were wonderful, but nine kids are a lot. (We took Asha with us.)

When we got home late Tuesday night the kids were rilled, and the care givers were exhausted. The well also stopped working shortly before we walked in the door. We felt refreshed and happy on the drive home, and by the time we went to bed Tuesday night (late) we were both exhausted, tired, and angry. Not angry at each other, but angry that despite spending our entire vacation planning and preparing, trying to find a way to fit in a family of ten kids, planting a church and holding down a job, it was/is just too much. We are so tightly booked there is just no room for the well to break, or kids to be hyper, the laundry to be piled up, the house in need of a scrub, etc. As we went to bed we regretted having left in the first place, seeing that no amount of planning or preparing would ever be enough to navigate our lives. Then yesterday happened.

Wednesday was going to be a crazy day anyway as it was the kids last day of school. We knew that and thought we were prepared. We had even stopped at the bookstore on our way home from the airport to pick up gift certificates for the kid's teachers. We woke up late, because we had gone to bed angry and late. We were trying our best not to sweat the small stuff, to speak gently and calmly to them, to minimize the ever present stress that seems to live constantly at our house. All it accomplished was us finding the end of our patience over and over, lots of deep breathing, and determining again to not raise our voices or intensity. The kids were a mess. They lost shoes from the door to the bus, they lost the gift certificates from the table to the door, they seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. Almost as if they saw we weren't stressed so they didn't think they needed to move along, despite our constant reminding them they were in fact already late. We dropped our kids off 30 min late for the last day of school.

I switched cars when we got home and headed to the grocery store with the four little ones in tow. I hate the fact that after coming home the first thing I have to do is start digging out from the pile of un-done things like grocery shopping. We were out of everything. I should have planned for this, left a list and money for someone to go shopping, but I didn't even think of it. So now we were at WalMart piling our cart high. In the middle of isle 4 Asha grabbed the bottle of hot sauce out of the cart and threw it. I dove to try to catch it but missed as it smashed on the floor, my iphone slipped out of my hand and smashed as well. A big crack in the already chipped screen running the length of the phone. I just knew it was going to be a tough day, but I had no idea what was next.

We raced home and I started putting away the groceries as the kids played outside. The yorkies were on the porch and barking madly. Gumdrop is in her first heat cycle and we wanted to wait until she was a bit older before we started breeding her. So her and Osseh were in

separate crates on the porch. I let Gumdrop out first while I put away the mountain of groceries. I called her back, put her back in and let Osseh out. He tried to drink the split water on the porch, the stuff left over from the twins having to scrub the chalk off the siding they had drawn. I noticed it, and thought he must be thirsty, but was too concerned about getting the frozen stuff taken care of that I didn't stop right there to get him some water. I was in a hurry, because I had to pick the kids up from school early. They only had a half day and were done at noon. I saw he run through the house and thought he had gone upstairs to sleep.

The time came to get the kids and I called and called for Osseh but he didn't come. I thought he was probably upstairs and mad that he'd been in her crate and so wasn't coming. I gave up looking and went to get the kids. They came home and we all looked throughout the afternoon. I had a pit in my stomach as I knew something was wrong. He'd never been gone this long before. I jumped on the mower while the little ones napped and tried to make a lawn out of the jungle that was our yard, at least the yard close to the house. I didn't have the time to tackle the fields. I came in and started flying through dinner and kitchen prep, the whole time knowing that something was just not right. The kids helped me move some of the kitchen stuff around to make serving dinner easier while others got ready for their soft/baseball games. Dave and I had already decided not to go to the games as we were both feeling like there was just too much already going on. Grandma and Grandpa came and took Trinity to hers and we dropped the boys at theirs. We were so sad that we had to miss their games, but at that point we were struggling to just keep our head above water.

Oliver came home and helped us look for Osseh. He found him. My precious poor puppy was dead. He drown in the water trough trying to get the drink I was too busy to give him. He was just thirsty, and I was just too busy. Even as I write this the guilt and pain is overwhelming. My soul aches, my body shakes and all that echoes in my head is "its too much, its too much, ITS TOO MUCH!" My kids dissolved into heaping piles of sobs and screams as the news reverberated through the house. I just want to be done, I have to be done! When will the pain stop!!! Osseh was my birthday present 18 months ago, he was to replace Nemo, our other male Yorkie that Dave had hit with the car as he ran to great him. You would think that with the number of dogs we've had to bury the death of another one wouldn't be as hard, but actually the pain is worse. We have buried eight dogs in the past eight years, seven of them since 2007. When will it end? We wanted our lives to be simpler, but not this way! I fear for the emotional toll this has taken on my kids and my husband. I am sure the overwhelming amount of stress we live under has taken years off of our lives, I fear it's shorted our children's as well.

Dave was sad of course, but he was mad too. Mad at all the weight he's been asked to bare, mad that there is just so much on our plates. Mad that we are asked to walk this path of pain and stress. He's confided in others, sought counsel, prayer, scripture. Few seem to understand. They see our lives as a mess we've made, stress we've chosen, the consequences of mistakes or decisions we made that now we have to live with. They say we should just cut back. We'd LOVE to! Where? What/who do we cut?

Should Dave quit his job? Let's say he does, how do we provide for ourselves then? The church care barely pay us a small partial housing allowance. How do we feed our ten kids, utilities, insurance, gas, clothes, let alone anything "extra" like birthday's or Christmas? No, Dave quiting would only create even more stress.

So what about the church plant? Should we just throw in the towel? (Don't think I haven't thought about it!) Unfortunately the God of the Universe spoke clearly and audibly to Dave and told him to plant this church in Esko. He has opened so many doors, and yet this path has been anything but easy. We still face many up hill battles and trials seem to still be everywhere. Dave is an excellent preacher. He is definitely gifted and called. Satan does not want us here preaching the Gospel and he's determined to make us a wounded, scared witness if not get us to quit all together. How is Dave supposed to stand before God Almighty look into his face, see his nail scared hands and tell him it was just too hard so we quit. We understand he told us to do something, but we tried, found it difficult so we chose to disobey instead. If we walk away now, we might as well be walking away from everything we believe in. No, God called us to plant this church, so for the sake of our souls and the souls of the people of Esko, we can not cut the Church. So that leaves the family.

Most people think we are crazy for having so many kids as it is. We agree with them. Ten kids is a lot. It is so funny to us how people shake their heads at how difficult ten kids must be, mutter things like "boy you've got your hands full" and then ask us to hold one more thing! At best they just stand their staring instead of offering a hand. Just so you all know, just so the record is straight...we did NOT choose to have a family like this. We did not place a starving infant girl in our laps and ask to care for her...GOD DID...we did not plan to have another child (Zoe)...GOD DID...we did not set out to bring home our daughter's abandoned 3 year old brother...GOD DID...we did not seek to bring home three more girls from Ethiopia (we asked for ONE more child.. total. Adopted or natural, ONE not four!) GOD placed us with three girls, sure we could have said no, we could have chosen to leave them abandoned and alone with no hope for adoption. Sure we could have said no to God...would you? Would you look God in the eye and say thanks but no thanks? What about Asha? We were told we couldn't have anymore kids! For two years we tried before we started looking into adoption. GOD closed my womb so that he could bring our three Ethiopian daughters home, then HE opened it again. So which one should we have "cut"? You tell me. Which one/s should we spend back, or give away? You tell me, and then you tell them they were a mistake...they are a consequence to a bad decision that we are just stuck with. Saying "no" to our kids is the same as saying "no" to God.

It so easy for people to offer crappy advice. They aren't the ones living this life. I am sure some of you are thinking "Oh she's just mad right now." Yup, you're right. I am mad. I am tired. Not mad and tired at what we've been asked to do, no, it is a privilege. We've been counted worthy to get to have ten beautiful children. We've been tested, searched, looked deeply into and still we've been appointed to plant. Entrusted with Jesus' bride. Called to shepherd God's weak, hungry and searching sheep. Dave's been blessed beyond measure with his job that provides a good salary, allows him to work from home, and gives him flexibility most jobs wouldn't. No, I'm not mad at the things that fill our lives. I'm mad at the stress it creates. I'm mad at the number of pets we've lost. I'm mad at how badly it hurts. I'm mad that we seem to just start to get our feet under us when they are kicked out again. I'm just mad.

So now what? What am I supposed to do with my anger? Is it wrong to be so angry? Nope. Jesus was angry. The Bible says "In your anger do not sin". It doesn't say "don't be angry" or "anger is a sin". So I know what I'm not supposed to do. So what do I do? I run to Jesus and I cling. I look into the eyes of one who didn't count the cross too much, or too hard. I look at his scared hands and side and see that my Savior, my hero is also a wounded witness. My eyes are fixed on him and the with the stress of this life my body and soul long for the joy of heaven. The peace and rest from pain that waits for me there. At the foot of the cross I can once again see more clearly the battle that rages on around me. That this life is not the end or the focus. I can just begin make out the lies, so shrewd and cleaver that Satan has whispered into my ear, the distractions he's offered, and the trials he's pushed into my path to cause me to stumble and fall. And finally my anger has a place to rest. The root and cause of all my stress and all my pain was birthed out of his deception. And where is God? You ask. Why does he let me suffer all this? Is he unable to stop it, or enjoy watching my struggle. No. He is there, allowing me to be refined, carrying me, and teaching me. He is preparing me, changing me, and making me more and more like Jesus. Praise God this life is not all there is! Praise him that he has something so much better for his children. How sick and sad it is that so many are going to miss Him because they are so comfortable and stress free. They are going to hell as they sit on their couches lulled into damnation with pleasant lies and easy lives. My anger is focused on the evil one and fuels my fight against him. He will not have my family! He will not have our church! My poor little Osseh was a causality of war and I will greatly miss him. Jesus did not take him, and as I weep for him, Jesus is weeping with me, so sad that death has to be part of this life and looking forward to when death itself is put to an end.

Baseball & The Playground

2011-06-05T17:41:00.005-05:00

Well last week was just nuts. Satan really didn't want Dave and I to get a chance to go away for our anniversary. Everything kept breaking and I mean everything! Dave repaired so many major things. I was so proud of my hubby. He kept his cool and was able to make what would have normally taken days take only hours. Maybe it was him, maybe it was God's grace working through him. He fixed the lawn mower, the well pump, and then a valve on the well, and the dishwasher. He also kept up on his hours for his job with FMG (Falkner Media Group, preached, visited family, and went to two baseball games! What a guy!

You heard me mention the two baseball games, Trinity and the Joe Boys had their first games on Wednesday. The boys played a double header so we went to Trini's game first and then high tailed it over to the boys. It was quite a crazy night! It was also the same night Oliver came home from his two week long road trip. We all missed him and are glad he's home.

Thursday was a pretty crazy day. It was the last day before we left so of course that was nuts. Plus Garrett is also leaving on Saturday for two months of linguistics school. We were also scrambling because Monday Garrett was in a car accident. He had been broadsided in Duluth and his car was totaled. It was a hit and run so there was no insurance to collect either. Now he needed to find a way to get to school without a car. He found some friends who could give him a ride if he was able to get to the cities. Since we were flying out of Duluth we couldn't give him a ride. Thankfully his Grandparents came up and got him.

Since Garrett will be gone when the old wooden playground in Esko is torn down, he wanted to go and take some pictures of it so he had some memories of his childhood play area. We took the whole family and got some great shots.

Family Baseball

2011-06-05T09:53:00.007-05:00

So right now I am sitting in the most comfy brown leather couch that my body has even sunk into, inside the coziest little log cabin in the maGESTIC Cadanian Rockies. I had wanted to blog all last week but the time was crazy and blogging just never made it to the top of the list. Dave and I LOVE our little anniversary vacation and we always come here, we've done all of the normal touristy things before so now our time can be spent sitting, praying, talking, walking, and just relaxing. But enough about our vacation for now, I wanted to blog about an awesome family weekend last week.

Last weekend my sister and brother in law came up to visit along with their son, Ethan. Ethan is just about Josiah's age and my kid's only cousin that lives in Minnesota. We hadn't seen them since Christmas so this we a fun treat. We all gathered at my parents house around 4:00 in the afternoon for a fun family game of baseball in the vineyard with a barbecue afterwards. We broke into teams and had so much fun hitting the ball around. Even Gramz and Grampz played! The twins and Lacy all got a hit (with help) and we found that no one in our whole family can really pitch...looks like it might be time to invest in a tee!

Josiah loved getting to wear his new Esko uniform to the game and Joseph made sure he had his hat too. After a few innings we had to call it so Grampz could start the grill. The rest of the boys hung out playing 500 while Jessi and I chatted and threw the ball to Mara who was determined to hit the ball. She kept swinging and missing and saying over and over how much she loves baseball! It was adorable!

The whole evening was so much fun! We are really looking forward to adding four more to the teams when my brother Jeff and his family comes to town in two weeks.

Sunday my extended family came to Arise for the first time. They seemed to enjoy our little church in my living room about as much as anyone could. The music was spot on and it was wonderful to listen to everyone singing praises to Jesus.

After church we were going to have our low key afternoon, but instead Dave and Lucas spent the time trying to figure out why the well wasn't working and we didn't have water. This had been a problem since Thursday. Dave had been out of town all the week before and had just gotten home on Friday. He had replaced the well pump Friday night after Gospel Group, and that had fixed it for a day or so. Sunday he worked on the well again and ended up removing a valve that was stuck. It's still not perfect, but we have water again!

Sunday evening all the adults went back to my parents house for dinner and conversation. It was nice to have some adult time with them. It was a fun weekend with family.

Kindergarten Graduation!

2011-05-30T22:38:00.003-05:00

Friday was Zoe's Kindergarten Graduation! The whole class sung songs and they all got a chance to go up to the microphone and say what their favorite part of Kindergarten was and what they want to be when the grow up.

Two years ago when Hosanna and Elisha had their Kindergarten Graduation Hosanna wore the same pink dress that Zoe wore. She had come into the kitchen when I was cooking and asked me what someone was called who walked along the beach picking up pretty shells and rocks. I told her that was a "Beach Bunny". I had no idea why she was asking or what it was all about until she walked across the stage and proudly announced that when she grew up she wanted to be a Beach Bunny!!!
Zoe teased us and told us she was going to say she wanted to be the Easter Bunny! She actually said she wanted to be a gym teacher! It was bittersweet watching my beautiful girl graduate from Kindergarten...she has grow up so much this year! Wow!

Friday was a beautiful day and the kids played outside a ton once they got home from school. Hosanna found one of Papa's old hats in the garage and Zoe wanted one too, so she made one!

They also did a bunch of chalk drawings on the driveway. Here is Zoe and Hosanna! Fun times!

2011-05-25T15:29:00.004-05:00

Oh, summer is almost here! The beautiful sunny weather this week has all of us itching for school to be out. The kids come home, toss their backpacks toward the mud room, grab a snack and race outside to play. I love it! It is so much fun playing kick the can, and tag with them outside. The puppies have gotten big enough to take outside for a romp in the grass too. Nothing is cuter than kiddos and pups! Soon they'll be for sale, so if you know of any dog lovers looking for a new best friend, keep your eye out for these cuties!

This Sunday Mike and Melissa brought their new twin girls to church. It was so great to see their family all together. The girls are just precious! Asha wasn't so sure about her new friends, she doesn't want to share her Mama with another little one! Andy and Dave prayed over this new family during the service. It was wonderful to get to praise Jesus for the work he's doing in their lives.

Sunday was also Hosanna's birthday. I know I already blogged about that, but here are a few more pictures of the celebration.

Today has been another great sunny day outside. I took the girls to WalMart this morning and then met up with Allison and Lori for a walk around Esko. It was a wonderful day for a walk. The girl's ate and slept well once we got home. Oh yeah! Another HUGE milestone in our lives is that we got a forward facing carseat from Allison for Asha. She road in it to "downtown" Esko where we parked for our walk. She loved sitting like a big girl!!! I think we will still use her infant carrier for a few more weeks when we need something to strap her down in when we are out, but she is almost too big for that now. So sad that she is growing up so fast.

What a great God we serve! He has blessed our family beyond measure!

Hosanna Joy

2011-05-23T21:22:00.006-05:00

This weekend we celebrated our Sweet Peach, Hosanna Joy as she turned 8! I am still struggling to comprehend just how in the world she is 8. I spent a good chunk last week pulling together all the photos and videos of her so I could make her birthday video. That is such a trip for me to see her literally grow up before my eyes. She was/is so special. Her middle name is so fitting because that is just what she is!

So just like in years past we packed the family up and headed to the cities to the Mega mall and the Rainforest Cafe. This year it was a bit different as Dave didn't drive down with us. He was in California all week and flew into the cities around noon on Friday. Grandma, Grandpa, and Garrett all drove down with us in the bus. They dropped me at the airport to pick up Dave, and because God is just that cool, we were there as Melissa got off the plane from Ethiopia with their brand new twin girls!!! It was so amazing to get to be on this side of the home coming! Amina and Amira are absolutely beautiful. They are super mellow and very good girls...makes me a bit jealous! Melissa was tired, but beaming. Mike snuggled one of them in the crook of his strong arm and couldn't have looked prouder. They are going to make great parents! We are praising Jesus for bringing them home, and for the family he's created in the Heyndericks.

After getting to welcome home Melissa and the twins and seeing them off to Duluth, Dave and I joined up with the family at the mall. We had a great family lunch at the popular Rainforest Cafe. The twins and Asha were pretty excited about the "thunderstorms" in the restaurant. Asha was just a newborn when we went last year.

Hosanna opened her presents during the meal and was thrilled with her gifts. After lunch we met up with Aunt Jessi, Uncle Luke and Cousin Ethan. They joined us for Underwater World...this huge aquarium in the basement of the mall. Hosanna loves fish and anything to do with the water so this is always a hit. We bought a family pass last year (it's cheaper than single tickets!) It was good for a whole year and we timed it out so that we got in this year for free!

Hosanna took a trip through Build a Bear Workshop with some of her birthday money and a special birthday coupon they had sent her a few weeks ago! She had it tucked into the rungs of the top bunk (she's on the bottom) so she could look at it at night! She got her Bear a scuba diver outfit!

Saturday was just a "normal" Saturday for us. I say that with quotes because Saturdays are just nutty around here. Dave has to spend most of the day working on his sermon (because we were gone on Friday and because he had been gone all week). That leaves me to wrestle the kids to get them to clean the house top to bottom so we can hold church in our living room on Sunday. They are pretty good when we start out, but by the middle of the day as the chores start to take longer and longer and the attitudes get stinker and stinker we are all about done. I have really been working hard on my language, tone, and intensity with the kids and this set up didn't help. So instead of losing it with them, by the third time they have chosen poorly they are placed on their beds for the remainder of the day. Two kiddos ended up that way!

Dave is trying so hard to not let this be as burdensome on the family, but there is not much he can do. He came inside in the afternoon and asked me how he could help make this more fun. It was so sweet of him to ask, but there really isn't anyway to make ten kids clean a house when they are sick of doing it and keep screw off, fun. I just burst out laughing, which I think turned to tears as I explained how "fun" wasn't really possible right now. Maybe he's right though, maybe I have a stinky attitude too. It's something I am really working through right now, and it's not just with the church stuff. It's me and dealing with the kids when they refuse to respond to correction, discipline, or rebuke. When they nod with glazed over eyes as I try to bring about understanding and heart change only to have them run off and do the same thing again and again and again!! I don't find that "fun", yet it's too be expected...after all, they are just kids. It is neat to see how much some of the older ones have taken the sermons to heart and have actively started to apply the truths they heard preached.

Saturday ended well though as some friends from our Gospel Group came over and helped with moving the big furniture and the set of of the chairs for service. They hung around and we had pizza and great conversation. They are such a blessing to us. We are so thankful that God has called them on this journey with us.

Sunday was Hosanna's actual birthday. While the morning was rushed and a bit stressed trying to get all ten kids ready for church without messing up the house. Realizing I had forgotten to start the oatmeal in the cooker the night before which meant no breakfast. Scrambling to send Garrett to the store to grab doughnuts instead. Despite the craziness it was still a pretty good day. Church went well. Mike and Melissa brought the twins and their dear friends who were visiting from the cities. The whole church got to meet Amira and Amina. Asha was fine with them until one started to cry and I picked her up and not Asha. The look on Asha's face was heartbreaking! I am sure once Asha gets to know them they will be best buddies. They are only two months apart in age.

After church we had our low key afternoon. This is the only time we get any sort of sabbath, rest or downtime. And this Sunday we crashed. The whole house (for the most part) took a nap! Once we were up we had a bit of a family party for Hosanna. Both sets of Grandparents came over and we celebrated the light and joy that Hosanna is. We watched her Birthday video, opened some more gifts, and had dinner. The other kids all went to bed around 8:00, but Hosanna made the wish that she could stay up until midnight. So that is what she did. We snuggled up on the couch and watched a Disney movie together, just Hosanna, Papa, and I. It was fun, but an exhausting end to long day!

Wow! We have been so richly, abundantly blessed! God is so Good! Thank you Jesus for our Hosanna Joy!

A Watermelon Kind of Day!

2011-05-17T21:56:00.006-05:00

Today was a crazy busy day! Dave left this morning for another week in California. He was supposed to go yesterday, but his flight was delayed. He ended up leaving this morning out of the cities instead. That actually works well for our plans however. Friday we are taking the kids to the MegaMall for Hosanna's birthday. We are going to pick him up at the airport and then hit the Rain forest Cafe and Underwater World. We are all looking forward to the fun trip. Last year Asha was just a tiny newborn!

In a few weeks Dave and I are getting some much needed time away! We are going to our favorite spot in Canada. We are however taking Asha with us. Ten is just too many to leave at home, and with her special diet and the fact that she's still nursing we thought this would be best. We were rethinking this yesterday however when we were jumping through hoops to get her a passport. Major pain! So when we were in the line at the DMV waiting our turn and got the call about his flight I was relived to have the time crunch lessened. Well, that was yesterday.

Today Garrett and I got the kids up and off to school. Oliver left yesterday for a two week road trip, so it's just Garrett and I for this week. Our dear friends Mike and Melissa gave us their old car....couldn't even tell you what kind it is...it's tan and works...that's all that I care about! They are moving on up to the mini-van world! Melissa is actually in Ethiopia right now bring home their twins!! We are going to get to see them on Friday when they arrive! Yippee!!! I am so excited to get to see this from the other side! We are super pumped for them!

After we got the kids to school I started in on my long list of things that needed to get done. One of which is Hosanna's birthday video. I started it a week or so ago, but there is still a bunch to be done, and her birthday is quickly approaching. Once the twins and Lacy were down for naps I ran to Cloquet to tackle a to do list a mile long. It was super satisfying to check things off one by one and I felt like I was flying through them all. I got home just before the kids got off the bus. I had gotten a watermelon yesterday when we were running errands in Duluth and today was the perfect day for one. I had also picked up corn on the cob for dinner. Joseph picked bar-b-que chicken wings for the meal, I added in the pasta and corn to try to balance it out a bit!

The weather the past two days has been wonderful! It is supposed to be even better tomorrow too! The plan right now is to take the younger kids to a park tomorrow for the morning. They are all sleeping really well with all the fresh air they are getting! The boys and Trinity had base/soft ball practices last night too. They all look so cute in their uniforms! Zoe is playing this year too, but she has just had picture day and no practices yet. She is pretty excited about them starting though.

I guess I should explain this next picture. This is just another crazy day at our house! The twins were having a hard time obeying Papa. He repeatedly told them to play in the living room and they kept running through the kitchen. So....he taped them to the beam! Now don't worry, the tape wasn't on their skin, and he did give them a book to look at while they waited for their time out to be over. They got the point...somewhat. Made for a cute picture anyway!

Things are going go with the church too. We have had three services now. Last Sunday Dave was on a roll and he went long. We'll have to see if people come back next week! We are all glad that we are getting this chance to practice before going public. This way we can work all the kinks out. Our little church took an offering for the school to build a new playground. The old one is falling apart and the school is trying to get the money to put a new one in this summer. Yesterday we got to deliver our donation to the principal of the Elementary where are kids go. It was fun. A bunch of us are going to get to help put the new playground together in June too! God is definitely moving in Esko. This is so exciting to get to be part of what He's doing.

Well, it is way past my bedtime and I have an early morning tomorrow. So that is all for now!

Coffee in the Park

2011-05-04T21:52:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Today was too, but I'll get to that. Yesterday was great. It's been awhile since we had a nice day so a trip to the park was definitely on the schedule. I met some friends at Chester Bowl park for some coffee and let the twins, Lacy and Asha play. I picked up Carter from half day kindergarten along the way to the park. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.

Trinity has been sick for the past three days. She has had a high temp and sore neck and back muscles. When we got home from the park her temp was 103.4! I called the doctor and got her an appointment for today. With all the fresh air I was pretty tired by the time the kids got home from school. Dave and I both took a short nap before we went out for our date night. I started getting a sore tummy just before we left.

This morning I woke with a super bad tummy ache. We got the kids off to school and then Garrett watched the little ones while I slept until Trinity's doctor appointment. Her and I went and discovered that she most likely has mono. The doctor said he couldn't do the test until she had been sick for five days, but that all signs pointed to mono. She is laying low now. He said she can go back to school once her fever is gone for 24 hours and she feels up to it. He said she needs to make sure she gets enough sleep and not to get too tired.

As of tonight my stomach is still pretty sore, but I am hoping I'm on the upward swing. I slept most of the day thanks to Garrett watching the kids and Oliver making dinner. Dave took the four in baseball to get shoes and pants tonight too. I sure hope tomorrow we are feeling better because I am sick of being sick!

Welcome to Arise!

2011-05-02T20:54:00.005-05:00

So our first service as Arise Church went wonderfully! Yesterday was a monumental day for our little church and for Esko. This town isn't gonna know what hit them when Jesus is done! Despite the fact that the service was in our living room and that most everyone was already here at least half an hour early, it went great. Melissa and Mike gave the church an amazing gift, hand crafted communion plate and goblet, made by her father. It is simply gorgeous. Dave was very touched when he opened the gift.

We started at 10:30 with announcements and worship. Yup! We actually had worship!!! We've been praying that God would provide the means by which to have worship and he did. Kris and Jon did an amazing job. I was blown away given that it was our first time ever trying this. Now our prayer is that God will supply more people with musical abilities so Kris and Jon don't have to shoulder the whole thing themselves. Worshiping with our Arise family was wonderful.

Dave started a series yesterday on the armor of God. He did great. I know I am probably not the most objective person to say that, but from what everyone else said, he was incredible. We video taped it so that at some point we can podcast it. Than you can all see for yourselves! Dave spent all week trying to get pumped for preaching in our living room...whatever he did, it worked!

After service we had sandwiches for lunch and then the men of Arise joined together to help out the Esko little league by working on the baseball fields. Only Dave and James were supposed to be there, but the rest of the guys joined in and as a result they were able to have a number of great conversations with other guys from Esko. I think it made an impact on some people.

The rest of Sunday was a quieter family day. That was really really nice. We have had such a busy Sunday for almost nine months that having Sunday afternoon and evening open was wonderful. We played bionicials with the kids, read stories, and had Mexican for dinner.

After we got the kids to bed Dave and I sat down to plan out his schedule for the next week to try to get all the things he needs to get accomplished in. I think he has so much on his plate that if we don't plan it all out, he'll never get it done and be left always trying to put out the next fire. So we talked through all the things he needs to get done for work, the church, and wanted to make sure there was plenty family time and time with Jesus. We were able to fit it all in, but he has a pretty tight schedule now. He starts at 5:00 am and doesn't stop until 8:00 pm. He has from 8-10 open 4-5 nights and that is his only "down" time. He is working 30+ hours at work, and 30+ hour for Arise, he's got a good amount of family time too (20+ hours, if you count family breakfasts, dinners, and 5 hours Saturday and Sunday afternoons.) That is the best we can do for now. He still has to be in California one out of every six weeks and that week throws the schedule off completely, but at least it's a start.

I don't know if he can keep this pace or not. I don't know what he can set down however. He needs to work, the church just can't support us yet. We are going to need a building of some kind sooner than later too. He can delegate and pass along as much of the Arise admin. stuff as he can, but we are pretty small so the number of people he has to delegate to is much less. The family time is the easiest thing to cut into, but that is something Dave just won't allow. God gave us ten kids and they need both their parents!! I pray that God will redeem this crazy busy season and that it'll be just that, a season. I pray he'll supply the relief in his own time and uphold us until he does.

So today we enacted the new plan and so far it seems to have worked out alright. There are tweaks and adjustments that need to be made, but over all it went well. Our morning started a bit earlier than we'd wanted however. Around 4:00 am Trinity woke with severe shakes, a fever, and a super sore neck and back. She had pulled a neck muscle a few days ago and now I think a cold has settled in there. She was shaking so much it was hard to rub her back. I was nursing when she woke up and started calling for me. She woke Zoe who came to get me. Papa went instead. I laid Asha down just as she was reaching the guest room (next to ours). I snuggled her under the blankets and rubbed her back until she stopped shaking and fell asleep. I told her to just stay in bed in the morning and to not go to school.

Zoe crawled in bed with us for the next few minuets before the alarm music started and we willed ourselves out of bed. Dave showered while I woke the boys and we all gathered in the living room for morning quiet time. Dave is wanting to teach the older kids how to make it a priority to spend some time with Jesus in the morning...to get a right view of yourself before the cross before you start the day. Years ago I read The Discipline of Grace, in it the author says to Preach the Gospel to yourself daily. I agree wholeheartedly. I need to anyway.

After quiet time the rest of the kids got up and Dave headed to the office to start work. I got the crew up and out of the door in time for school all by myself. (Gold star for me!) Garrett was working an overnight shift so he wasn't home. The only causelity of war was our $200 rice/oatmeal cooker. It had overflowed on the lid and Zayma had opened it without asking spilling sticky oatmeal goo all over the machine, the counter, the 100 year old old growth hand hewn log walls, and the floor. It was a mess to clean up. I took the liner out of the machine, wiped it off best I could with the sopping towel and asked Joseph to set the sticky thing in the sink. One way or another, it somehow got covered in water. I don't know if it'll work now or not. The screen is foggy and the word "microcomputer" next to the screen has me worried. Garrett suggested putting the whole thing is a huge bag of rice! That is what we do when an ipod gets wet!! Funny!!! I am glad he can laugh at a time like this! The hard thing is that we use that appliance at least once and sometimes twice a day. It is used more than the stove. I don't want to even think about trying to make preparing breakfast fit into our already too tightly scheduled plan. We'll just have to see.

After the kids were at school (and Trinity was asleep) I took the twins, Lacy and Asha grocery shopping. It was a long morning, but we managed to fill a cart at Sams club and fit it into our tiny hatchback Yaris. I filled it to capacity! We went home to unload and eat lunch before heading to Walmart to finish the list. Thankfully when we got home both Garrett and Oliver were there. Garrett helped unload and put away the groceries and Oliver offered to go to Walmart for me. Yeah! That gave me some time to catch up on the laundry in the basement and prep dinner...shish-ka-bobs...yum!

The rest of the day went pretty well. The kids had pizza quesadillas for snack, did chores, and played legos and bionicials on the kitchen table. Trinity got her make up homework done, and I even got some time to read with Zoe. We started this new thing with the kids too. They each have mason jar with their name on it. They get a small polished rock/marble/glass jewel/etc for each time they are encouraging, kind, nice, gracious, or loving with each other and have one removed each time they are too loud, rude, mean, arguing back, or tattling. We hope this will encourage nicer behavior. We'll see. Once your jar is filled to the top that child wins something, I'm not sure what yet, maybe a date with Mama and Papa or something.

So that's it. Our first official Arise service and our first full day as both pastor, employee, and papa. It's busy but good and now I'm exhausted...time for bed.

Ready or Not Here We Go!

2011-04-30T21:38:00.002-05:00

So this is it! Tomorrow we have our first official (private) church service for Arise! It's a private service, sort of and it's in our living room...but still, it's kinda, ah, exciting and a bit scary. I am not so sure I'm going to like having services in our house however. Not that this was our choice or anything, but in a small town, if the town hall won't let you rent you really don't have many options. The school might be a possibility, but that would have to go before the school board to get permission. We wanted to first have something in place before we approach them. There is the possibility of a building in town that we walked through last week, but that would still be a few months away. So for now it looks like we will be meeting here.

That was not a fond idea for anyone who lives here however. The kids and Garrett did an excellent job helping Dave and I clean, but this is a big house and there was a lot of cleaning that needed to be done. We didn't even get to all of the list, but we managed to hit all the big areas. The living room had to be completely rearranged. The Bechthold's came over for dinner and to help us move the furniture and set up the chairs. I don't know if we will have anyone new join us or not tomorrow, but just encase we do, we want it to be hospitable. Dave is starting a sermon series on the armor of God and we even have matching kids curriculum! We have some worship songs ready to go...Praising Jesus for Kris and Jon's guitar playing ability (because they are it as far as worship team goes!) We are praying for some more musically people to get saved! (I am sure Kris and Jon are too!)

So now it's almost bedtime, the living room is set up, Dave is putting the finishing touches on his sermon, and we are about ready. Whatever tomorrow is, however our first service goes, Jesus's name will be proclaimed in Esko, His people will gather to worship him, and that is pretty awesome!

Jesus, bless tomorrow. Make it all about you and the thing you are doing here in Esko. Send your word out tomorrow, prepare hearts to hear and minds to understand. Open eyes. We praise you for what you have begun in Esko and ask that you continue your work. Thank you that we get to be a small part of your great plan for Esko. Amen.

2011-04-29T13:47:00.007-05:00

So I have wanted to sit down and blog for the last week or so. I posted Saturday with pictures of our pancake people, but I really wanted to recap all the fun we had with the kids during Spring Break. Time was not on my side however and so all I posted was the pictures. This week has once again been just crazy and despite my best efforts to carve out some time, it just wasn't possible. So now I have found a nugget of time and this might have been worth waiting for. I am sitting on my front porch in a comfy rocking patio chair with my laptop and my hubby next to me. It is a beautiful day. With last week covered in snow and yuck today is like medicine to the soul. The sun dancing in the bright blue sky. Children are napping soundly after a long fun walk around Esko this morning with some sweet friends. Dave is playing some soft music and working on his sermon. Yup, his sermon! My amazing man is now a pastor.

(This picture is of a "garden" Hosanna built with left over Easter grass and sticks!")

This week has been a bit unusual. There is something in the air, an expectancy, or caution. Like we are starting to walk after having been sitting for a long time....starting out slow, testing our legs, not sure they will actually hold us. I know that with each step we will become stronger and more confident, and soon we'll be running, but right now we are firmly in our first steps. Last Sunday, on Easter we (Arise Church) was commissioned, prayed over, and sent out from Rock Hill Community Church. Pastor Kyle preached a great sermon, we enjoyed amazing worship, we praised God for what he accomplished in raising Jesus from the grave, and we said goodbye. It was amazing weather and an amazing time.

Rock Hill has been such an eye opening, soul healing, God lived out family to us for years now. Leaving is/was not easy. It's still a bit surreal. This week has been a blur of trying to figure out and tie up all the details to be able to pull off a church service on Sunday. We tried to rent the town hall, hoping we could hold services there until we could save up to build a building. Dave, Andy, and some of the other guys went to the town hall meeting to ask permission and was basically told "no". They still haven't ruled officially as far as I understand, but the vibe was not favorable. They met with more opposition then they were expecting for just seeking to rent space. Likewise in a nearby township a different church is renting the town hall with no issues whatsoever. It was hard Sunday to be sent out from our home and not have anywhere to be sent to. This week Dave discovered that a building in town in what would be a great location was open. We actually know the owner and the guys went and walked through it. It needs a lot of work, but has potential. Last night another group of us got to look at it. We found some more issues with it, but can also see the potential. It just gets down to if this is what God wants for us or not. Either way it'll be many weeks before we could hold any sort of service there if we did feel that was the place.

So with no place available to rent we are having services in our house. This isn't the best solution, but we are blessed to have the space so we'll make it work. Dave is doing the best he can to get pumped up to preach in his living room...it's not quite the same.

The church stuff has been an undercurrent running through all of this week. Over the top of it I have been battling head on with my own sin. This has been a hard week for me as a mom. I don't know if it's because we are now officially a church that I am noticing how rude my kids have become, or if my eyes are just being opened, or what. The kid's sin and rudeness is so blatant and huge in my eyes right now. What stinks all the more is that I know without a doubt that their sin is directly my fault. I haven't held them accountable, I haven't corrected them when I should have, my language, my rudeness, my sin is being reflected back on me mirrored in my children. I have prayed and worked all week long to correct them gently, speak into their sin, hold them accountable, that sort of thing. I do alright and then something happens and I loose it. Last night the kids were all in tears and so was I. Sometimes, a lot of the time, it's just too much.

Dave is preaching this Sunday on the armor of God. I could use some armor. I watched a sermon a few nights ago from this pastor I like and he said something about figuring out if your home is/should be an open home or a closed home. Open being people always over, a higher degree of chaos, phone always ringing, media on and consuming attention. Closed being the opposite. Very scheduled, no one ever over, or only when scheduled way in advanced, very limited media, phone never rings, etc. His point was aimed toward marriages and making sure both spouses were on the same page. The concept of open and closed home however, got me thinking. I think part of the reason our time in Sierra Leone was so good, was because we had a closed home. People came over, but they were the workers and it was always a scheduled thing. Their presence didn't effect our schedule or plans. We had a routine that was the same each week. Rules, snacks, free time, all of these things were predictable. I would not have considered myself to be a closed home person however. I like having our home open, I like having people feel like they are part of our family and can come over often. I like the kids bringing their friends over. I don't however like the chaos, mess or noise that comes with an open home. An open home also makes shepherding kids much harder. There are so many of them that quietly speaking into their lives is a nice concept that is drowned out by the noise of laughter, talking, and yelling.

On top of all the normal "crazy" this week, here is the other things that have added to our week: Snuggles had puppies. She was early as far as my count was. It was Tuesday right after the kids went back to school (they had Monday off). Dave had a huge sales conference call presentation to do and came running inside to tell me that she was having them in the yard and carrying them under the porch. It was freezing outside and scheduled to snow later in the day. I ran outside and crawled under the porch to find her birthing # 5, four lay around her. Big fat puppies that weren't moving. It was so cold out that I think they just got too cold. One of them had a tiny bit of condensation at his nose and move his head ever so slightly. I ran inside with him and yelled for Garrett. I heated a towel in the microwave and started rubbing him to get him warm again. Garrett slide farther under the porch and retrieved the other pups. We checked them all over, but they were already gone. Garrett took over rubbing the one pup while I dragged Snuggles out from under the porch. We put her in a big crate inside and she had three more puppies. The frozen one we were rubbing finally came around, but it took close to an hour just to get him warm again. He's doing great now. The other ones all lived, they are smaller than the others, but doing just fine too. She normally has six to eight pups, but a few don't make it. They would have all made it if she hadn't had them outside on such a cold day.

A few days later I called the poochie parlor and was able to sneak her in quickly for a shave. The puppies were having a hard time nursing through all the fur and she smelled horrible. They shaved her down short. She looks a bit silly, but she is much happier and will be nice and cool all summer. Her coat will grow back in no time.

Asha has discovered the pantry and cupboards. She loves to climb inside them and play with the spices and dishes. She is so funny!

So that has been our week. We are on the cusp of a brand new thing God is doing and we want to do it well. I want to raise my kids well. I want to be a light in Esko, a family that points toward Jesus. And on that note....Josiah just came running through the living room with a glass jar, slipped and the thing shattered on the ground. Looks like my moment of quiet has come to an end!

Pancake People

2011-04-23T20:22:00.003-05:00

Today we made Pancake People for breakfast. The girl's all tied for the weekly winner and so we made a special pancake treat. We got the idea from a kid's magazine. First we made a smiling sun. Dave made a Gluten free lady and I made a pancake Pastor!!! Fun!