A Very Important Update

Dear Friends and Family,
We have some wonderful news to share as a side bar to our adopting. I am expecting a baby in April!!!!!!! We are absolutely thrilled. This does not change our plans to adopt. We have been hoping for this pregnancy for quite some time. I was signed up for a PRACS study and did the screening. It is a place where they pay you to test medications for them. You are actually testing how they break down not how they work. I only do drugs that are safe and on the market but they always pregnancy test you every step of the way. I had the screening on a Friday and the next Wednesday I got a call from the Pracs nurse which has never happened on any of my five previous studies. I was so excited and she was trying to break it to me carefully. There are a lot of college kids doing these studies. Anyway, I called Kevin and told him I couldn't do the study. He was so happy. When he got home I asked him how many people he told. He said just a few:) I knew he couldn't keep it to himself. In church on Sunday, Darrell asked if anyone had something special happen they wanted to share so Kevin wants to tell. I kind of want to wait until I'm 9-12 weeks along. He told everyone but decided to wait on telling family. Well, we have three families from Wyndmere in our church so it did get back to his family and we feel terrible but are happy to be free to spread the news around now. So God willing we will expand our family by four this next year.

Other good news is we are having the second part of the home study on Thursday evening. We are happy to make it past another step of the process. Pray for me as I try to decide what is important to clean and what to let be. I am trying to can tomatoes and pack for a camping trip we are going on Friday through Monday. Yikes! Another busy week. I think I thrive on it though. God Bless You for caring to read this.

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are your works and that my soul knows very well. Psalms 139:13-14

How Mighty His Wonders

How great are His signs, how mighty his wonders. Daniel 4:3a

We have much to be thankful for today. I have been in contact with Amy Twedt of God's Children Adoption Agency. They are doing our home study and are wonderful, God loving people there. They want children to be placed in homes. Mrs. Twedt contacted me today and they are able to come down on the price of our home study a very considerable amount and this is so great, WE HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE AMOUNT SHE SAID!!!!!!!!! God is so good to us. We are praising Him for using this agency in this way. Please pray for them to continue in this work. Please pray for them to be blessed greatly! We are thankful for the way God has used them. Next step is to set up the meeting to be at our home. I started a painting project today, in which the painting hasn't actually started because there is so much prep work before actually painting.

I have a couple of requests.
1. We are planning a rummage sale in September. I am asking if anyone has a few items they would like to get out of their home. If you have a few items in good sellable condition you could let me know and I will plan a way to pick them up or figure out a drop off place.
2. Jana and I are also planning on making skirts to sell. Well, Jana and Jordan will be sewing them but I am helping with the planning:) She made them for the girls last year. We need old girl's jeans, with holes or without. The legs get cut off and other fabric gets sewed on. Very pretty. We need all sizes of jeans or pants. Thank you so much.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Psalm 72:16

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.