The Corner Grocery Store

I am singing a song in my head about the corn blowin' on it's horn at the corner grocery store. (Raffi) We have certainly had our share of corn this week. Sunday I was dreaming of painting part of the basement. The part where I plan to do preschool with my three little ones and my nephew. I am doing a major overhaul of that area and getting it back to what it was when I taught preschool here. I bought the paint and other things and was so excited to get it done when I got this phone call from my aunt and uncle. Some of you will understand this kind of call. They called to tell me their corn was ready and we could have as much as we liked. Well, there went the painting. I've been picking, shucking, washing, cutting, canning and freezing corn ever since. We filled the entire back end of our 15 passenger to the top with corn and went back today to get some more. I actually have a bit more to do tomorrow but then I am done. So don't anybody call and tell me they have corn!:) I am so thankful for that call, really. I love putting up food and now we have 40 bags of creamed corn in the freezer and 30 some quart jars of regular corn and we've eaten quite a bit of it right off the cob. Isaac said "Corn again?" at lunch time. Tomorrow I have quite a few tomatoes that need attention so maybe I'll paint Friday or Saturday. It is all little steps to get ready for our new children. The food, the painting and the cleaning out the junk. We are especially full of praise today for who the Lord is. This verse is also a song and I love scripture set to song. May you all find something to rejoice in the Lord about.

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!

"Aroma" of our home

I had a wonderful faith filled Saturday last week. I want to share a bit of what I learned. It was a day planned for women, home school mom's, to be encouraged and to laugh and even cry. The day was laid out with various speakers. The one that made a large impact for me was the noon speaker. The title was "The Good Wife". What is the "aroma" of our home? was a question posed. As the mother of a home I set the tone for how most things go and are run. If mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy is a very true statement. I have seen this in my own home. I can take things from good to bad in a very short amount of time. How are we building our house? A house is the structure but a home is the spirit. I try in any way I can to not complain when I am doing something I don't like (like dishes, yuck). I sure can complain though when children don't listen to me or fight with their siblings. I can get downright mean about it. The Lord is working on me about this. Another thought I was left with was we need to feel it a privilege to feed the spirits of our children and to feed the spirits of our husbands. I learned I can't overlook their hopes and dreams because I want mine fulfilled first. My dreams sometimes only include a clean house with no laundry in the baskets but how do I act to get this accomplished.

Proverbs 14:1 The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish pulls it down with her hands.

Praising the Lord

Hello, it has been over a week since I posted. I have been busy canning!!! Since getting home from our trip I have canned green beans, peaches, pickles, pickled okra, peach jam, and chokecherry syrup. Right now canning food is the only thing I am doing to help out with our adoption. I am canning more than ever to help lower our grocery bill for the winter months. We are also eating from our garden daily. Today was a wonderful treat, cabbage! We all really liked it and it was a bit different color than the store's. Brighter somehow and more attractive. My cantaloupe is near ready, some 30 are out there. With gardening keeping me so busy and doing daycare for three sometimes seven extra kids I can do no more right now. My friend Jana is leaving tomorrow on a trip in the bus. When she gets home she is going to help me brainstorm fundraising ideas. We're still working for our home study and other things have gotten in the way of that. Kevin is finishing up a job and may have two more to do soon. He is working so hard for us and for these kids. I am appreciative of his hard work and love him for his love of us and these children. He loves these children and wants so much for them to be home with us. God will see us through and we are praising him for the wonderful ways he provides for us. We love our big family. It is true rasing a family can be a challenge financially and having more children will add to that and if we can't even pay for the home study why do we think we can raise these children but we believe with all our heart that we are called for this. These children need us to keep believing that. God keeps showing us his provision and we have everything we need and then some. I love the Lord so much and love how he came into my life when he did. The kids just finished Vacation Bible School last night and one of the songs was Praise the Lord. It aptly describes how I feel about the Lord's work in my life and my family's. God bless you all.

Let everything that moves and everything that breathes;
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.
From the rising of the sun to the time that it goes down;
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.

No matter where you are, no matter where you've been;
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.
Let everthing that walks and everything that runs;
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord

Chorus: Praise the Lord
Come on let's Praise the Lord
Let everything that lives sing praises to the Lord
Praise the Lord

Home Again

Our bus with the majestic mountains behind.
Uncle Ken and Aunt Karen took us to the Grand Coulee Dam.
These beautiful children with their mother at the training in Spokane.

Eleven days away from home and here we are. We traveled to Spokane for the Older Children Adoption training. It was a good trip with no major problems. It took us three days drive there and back. We were planning on it taking two but our little bus doesn't like to go faster than 30 up any incline whatsoever and since we went through the Rocky Mountains and several other mountain ranges it was slow going. But oh so beautiful. We enjoyed God's beautiful creation and since we are from the flat part of North Dakota the mountains were especially enjoyable.

The training was wonderful. We met so many people. Most of them will be adopting from Ethiopia. The trainers Steve and Michelle Gardner are truly inspirational. They have adopted 9 children and their story makes you cry with what God has done. We heard the beauty of adoption and the difficulties and we are more determined than ever to bring our children home to be a part of our family. I know they have a lot to show us about life and God's love. When you watch a 19 year old biological son with 9 adopted siblings get choked up over how his life has been touched by these children you know you are in the right place. We were treated to an Ethiopian meal the second day and it was great. We met a family that in their retirement have adopted 6 girls from different countries. They are a most beautiful family. I am including their picture hoping they wouldn't mind. Another family has 9 mostly grown children and will soon have 6 adopted children. She is a grandma already and God has shown them this direction for their life!! I will sign off with several witticisms we heard over the two day training.

"Life is short. Eternity is long. Live like it!" John Piper

He who dies with the most joys WINS!

Why do we spend so much money and effort to decorate something that burns?

When we get to heaven what do you want God to say to you? "Well done." or "Well,... you're done."

Please continue to pray for God to meet our needs for this process. We have the second half of our home study to complete then we should see things really move. Thank you all.

Spokane, WA here we come!!

We leave tomorrow morning for Spokane and our two day training for adopting from Ethiopia. The blessing for us is that Kevin's Uncle Kenny and Aunt Karen live there and we are staying at their place. They are taking us site seeing the first half of the week. Friday and Saturday is the training and they are watching the kids:) Then we start home on Sunday. I've added a couple pictures of what we are living in the next 10 days. I've packed it all week with all the amenities of any fine hotel. We have a fridge, stove, running water, toilet, iron. We even have music as Jordan is bringing along her guitar and harmonica. Our day is getting quite long here as we mowed lawn, picked and canned green beans, butchered 60 chickens and made the food we are taking along and now are cleaning up everything. Kevin's parents stopped by so we could see our niece Ally and nephew Arik from Wisconsin. Pray for safety and good gas mileage:) We love you all for praying for us and helping us bring these children home. God Bless You for your love and kindness. We are praising the Lord for his loving kindness too. He is so good to us.

Psalm 63:3-4 ...your loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.

A Little Setback

Good evening. We had a little setback which has me a bit disappointed but we know these are inevitable. We had set up our second home study meeting for Thursday night and had a bit of a plan to pay for it but that fell through. The meeting is to be set for another time. Please pray specifically for the finances for this part. Kevin has completed the jobs he had until now and only has one in the works. So (with a smile on my face) please pray for Kevin to get more jobs so he can be away from home more:) Seriously, a couple of jobs would be good just to get through the next step. It was a bit of a blessing to have the meeting canceled because this week I am packing for 9 people to be away from home 10 days. I was getting a bit anxious for how clean should I have the house for this meeting. What do you think? Should we paint the bathroom and tile the floors and replace the garage door and fix the broken window or should we let her see the place as we live in it? One reason we decided now was the time to adopt and not when "all" the projects around here were done was then we would never adopt. The projects when you own a home are never ending. The trip to Spokane, WA is getting us excited. We are attending an Adopting Older Children from Ethiopia training there next week. We are taking the bus and Kevin and Troy just got the air conditioner installed today. The fridge is the next order of business and then we will be road ready. We are looking forward to next year's trip to Somewhere, USA with all of our children (adopted too).



Emily picked out today's verse:

I Corinthians 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.