Speak, Lord - Pt 2

     Continuing in our learning in preschool we read about Samuel being awakened by the calling of his name.  Man, we sure have been awakened here.  Nine months ago 2 of our sweet neighborhood girls and preschoolers were taken away from their parents.  Since that day each of our family has prayed for them.  We began by praying we could adopt them.  We searched,thought we had them, and so many other wild things.  Nine months later they are not with us.  And they have not returned to their parents either.

We've cried and prayed for the girls and spent time counseling their real parents.  Each week we are told another thing by the court systems here.  Their birth parents asked to sign the girls over to us and then we realized they no longer have any say over the girls and they are stuck in the system.  So, we kept praying for them.  But, we prayed for them to join our family.

This week the court decided to grant visitation back to the parents. Their mother asked if we could keep them, since she is not able to.  We were of course thrilled, gave her finances to get them, and then we waited.  Only to find out she had taken the money for other purposes, not shown up to get the girls and was using again.  Now her rights have been revoked again.

When Samuel finally realized it was God speaking to him, he said, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening."  We are just praying.  We are praying for God to speak in how we can care for others here, whether is is bringing the girls into our family one day if the courts let them, or if it is helping their mom get on her feet.  And we are praying for God's will, not ours for the girls.  That the constant moves, and lack of parents and care, they would still see how much God cares for them.  And I am so thankful that as much as we want the girls here, God knows their name and loves them even more.

Answers - Pt 1

    One of my favorite times is teaching Bible stories in preschool.  The stories come alive and are real to the kids.....as we should be reminded THEY ARE REAL!  Last week we talked about the Israelites getting bit by all the snakes in camp, because of their wickedness. Thankfully, we made snakes wrapped around poles, since God told Moses in the Bible looking at those poles is what would heal them!  God is in the business of healing!

     This week is all about Hannah and Samuel.  Hannah wanted something so bad.  She wanted a baby so much and did not have one.  So, she prayed.  And God answered with Samuel.  We talked a lot about Hannah really wanting a baby.  All of our preschoolers jumped on the wagon and told me their moms were having babies too:)

     While we were on our alphabet hunt, I talked about finding the letters and the kids told me we needed to pray...like Hannah!

     Man, I forget this.  Praying for everything.  Even if God answers in a different way.

     Like how I was having trouble balancing everything and praying for help.  God, didn't take away things on my plate, but He brought others in to help.  As I wandered how to balance teaching children all the time, He brought a teaching team of women on Sunday morning, nights, and Wed nights to rotate.  Or how I could not figure out budgeting and accounting items, and he helped provide our cousin to step in and volunteer her vacation time to explain and teach me things.

Thank you, God, for answering prayers!

   

   

Staff night Out

    We do a lot of special fellowship times with our Bible College students and our preschoolers, but it is so rare to get all the staff together and recognize just them.  This week some some friends and adjuncts volunteered to watch our kids for a special night....which meant, we could get the staff together and treat them to a special night.

     

10 Adults + Studying Moses = 10 Plagues

    With a group visiting this week and all of them wanting to help in the preschool, our little one roomed preschool was full.  And that did not even include 20 munchkins.  This week in Bible we were studying Moses, so having all those adults meant we could each have a station for the 10 plagues!

At each station we would talk about Moses asking Pharaoh if he would let the people go, and at each one they shouted, "No, he wouldn't let them go!"

At my station we saw God's power through Moses' stick turn their water into blood.

Then, there was the plague of darkness.  Yes, it was all very homemade and used what supplies we had to work with:)

This station they crumpled paper into hail balls!

This station in the netting there were tissue paper flies covering all, kind of hard to see from the picture.

This station all the animals got sick and died.  Several volunteered our pet dog for this, but thankfully we had some play ones in the preschool to use instead.

This station combined the locusts buzzing and the plague of the gnats and lice.

Here the boils covered their beautiful skin.  I missed getting a picture of the frogs leaping over each other.

Lastly, they colored blood over their houses to save themselves from the final plague.  

How fun to have extras help bring our Bible stories to life.  Seeing the kids really understand God's love to save his people, but to also understand punishment from a hardened heart was so powerful.  We continue to pray that all will know God's love and be rescued as He longs for us to be!

One of those Weeks...

    Whew!  What a week, and it is only Thursday!  Still to come for the weekend is a neighbor's wedding, Capture the Flag Fellowship night, girls Esther night, church, a field trip to the bakery with the preschool, and the usual taking care of my family and house.

     Our weeks seem to be pretty full anyways, but this week several unexpected things happened.  It was a week of writing a newsletter and sending those out trying to get the formatting right for our tech challenged family.  Then, a family needed help here so there were added extra hours of watching their kiddos too.  And, then our accounting system crashed...with the past year's information all on it. After money and lots of time by 4 different staff members it was fixed and updated.  When those unexpected things happened resulting in really late nights and juggling schedules around and letting other things go by the wayside, I felt really stressed.  And then so relieved that it is now working and fixed!

   So grateful for the staff teamwork here.  Not one of our staff complained that I asked for help in the office until 10 pm or took their lunch hour, they all were super amazing.  So thankful to the Lord for who he has teamed us up with at this time.

     As this week was going on my husband was in his discipling time.  He does this every week with the same man and when weeks get crazy, especially this week...I wanted to think with this accounting emergency, can you put that meeting off until next week?   He ended up still making it work to meet with the man and while they were meeting the man talked about how reading the word for that hour every week had grown him so much and how loved he felt.  It's so rare to see Christian men leading their families here, and so precious to see this man growing and leading his family to the Lord.   I am so thankful that my husband leads us and sees the important things of what life are all about....meeting with people and showing them the Lord's love.  Because sometimes I forget.  I almost let accounting, a clean house, and the right words for a newsletter get in the way of loving others.    Almost.
   

Starting up school

    Well, we are still waiting for 4 students to come.  They were detained and would ask your prayers for their arrival here hopefully this week.  This year we have 5 countries represented from Dominica, St. Vincent, Barbados, Haiti, and Jamaica.

We made the preschool beautiful and hired Ms. Josea to help us this year!  Mrs. Pam was missing from this photo, though she helped too!

15 preschoolers started the week, with more to come.  Sickness has been going around here....I put up photos of the cuties....

All of us together for the year!

Admidst parenting, teaching, a parent back to school meeting....I got to host a shower for my neighbor's baby!  We played fun games of seeing what it's like to have a baby with balloons in our tummies while tying our shoes.

Here we are at Sunday service, so neat to see our students serving and leading!

Pictured above is our new intern from MU Campus House for the semester!

Wedding Waiting

Our neighbor's son was getting married. He was marrying a lady from another country.  So, we had never met the bride.  They asked Naiyah to be the flower girl.  And since we had a dress from my brother's wedding this past year, we said yes to be in the wedding.  

It was enlightening.  The invitation said the wedding would start at 2.  It almost began at 4:00 :).  The reception was sat for 30 people, over 60 were there.  I was sweating (literally- it was very humid, of course) trying to figure out how to entertain 3 young ones while standing in a small reception room waiting several hours for food to be served.  Thankfully they were serving bottled sodas, which is a huge treat for my kiddos.  When they were served, they asked…"Wow, are these free?"  

Thankfully, those sodas occupied them for awhile!