Cory went back to Guatemala for another few weeks. He is working at Kairos House and The Potter’s House ministries. We are really proud of Cory and his heart to serve. He has a huge heart for little kids and is very generous and compassionate.
Kairos House cares for children and families who need long term care at the hospital but do not have a place to stay while they are seeking treatment for illnesses- mainly cancer. The Potter’s House ministry reaches out to the children and families living in the Guatemala City dump.
Please join us in praying for God’s protection and provision for Cory and these ministries.
We watched Aliza the other night so Sara and Scott could go out to dinner with friends to celebrate Scott’s birthday. We had a lot of fun having Aliza here for the evening. She sat at the table with us while we ate dinner and sampled little bits of what we were eating. She played with a new toy while standing up (with help). She loves to have the boys undivided attention and will squeal at them if they are not entertaining her. Everyday she learns something new and she’s growing up so fast!
Being an auntie and uncle is more fun than we could have imagined. I love to watch Cam with Aliza. This picture melts my heart.
Last week the boys each had 2 games. We had an extremely busy week on top of all the sports stuff. We had commitments every morning and evening last week– it was too much. Today we are going to stay in our jammies as long as we want and just relax. We may go for a walk or a hike later this afternoon.
Hopefully, taking this time to relax today will help us get through our next super busy week with a little more calm and kindness.
Only 4 weeks to SoCal! We are so looking forward to our vacation.
I found this cute baby doll in a little toy store down in Mt. Vernon today. It reminded me of this little girl that I absolutely love and I just had to get it for her. Aliza loved this baby from the first moment I showed it to her. She hugged it close and squealed with delight as she would hold it away from her and look at the doll’s sweet face. Cam says it’s a good thing we didn’t have a little girl (he thinks I would have spoiled her). We are so thankful that God blessed Scott and Sara with a little girl that we all can love.
Here’s a few pictures from our trip to the tulips today (there’s a lot more on flickr). We had a wonderful time with Holly, Shane, Sara, Scott and Aliza. It was a surprisingly beautiful day considering the absolutely crazy weather we have been having around here. Check out “Miss Loo” in her butterfly costume!
It’s not too late to join us for the Walk for Life! The walk is a little less than a month away and we are really excited to see how God is going to work through this event. If you can’t walk with us, we’d appreciate your prayers for the Whatcom County Pregnancy Clinic and if you’d like to sponsor us click on the link above to be directed to our support page.
Today’s soccer game was a big blow-out. Caleb was kinda bummed but recovered quickly. One of my favorite things about Caleb is that he is generally pretty happy. He isn’t brooding. He doesn’t hold grudges. He isn’t really even stubborn. The things that typically frustrate us about Caleb are his tendencies to go over the top with silliness and how easily he gets distracted but really he is a pretty fantastic kid.
Sorry about your loss today bud! We are super proud of you!
While the rest of Bellingham was taking spring break this week, we didn’t. We leave for Disneyland in six weeks and I want to be mostly done with school when we get back so we chose to not take a break this week. We have a lot going on right now and I imagine the next several weeks will just fly by. Spring sports season is a bit crazy for our family. Caleb has 1 soccer practice and 1 game each week and Sean has 2 baseball practices and 2 games each week. The boys both have games on Saturdays but that pretty much means we have something sports related every day of the week except Sunday (well, except for Sunday, the 20th when we’ll play a make-up soccer game). It is so much fun to watch them play and see them learn and improve in their athletic abilities.
The boys have accomplished so much in school this year! I am really thrilled at how far they have come and how excited they both continue to be about learning. Sean is finding Math to be a bit more difficult lately but I think it’s good. We changed Math curriculum a few weeks ago to give him something more challenging. He is now working on more complicated multiplication and division. We learned about ancient Greece in History this week and about how the Olympics came to be. Last Sunday the boys picked out some new books (thanks Grandma Terri) and they have been reading like crazy all week. Caleb is getting ready to take his standardized test on Monday (homeschoolers over the age of eight are required to take them each year). We have been practicing test taking skills and doing fill in the bubble practice tests. Sean will take his tests starting Monday, April 28th
A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place started on Wednesday. The homework is extensive and amazing. As always, I am really looking forward to where God and I will go together on this journey. Every Bible study I have done over the last few years has represented a new season and a new journey with God. It still amazes me that He pursues me and continues to reveal Himself in new, mind-blowing, and awesome ways. I am praying that God will open my mind and my heart to let His truth take root in my life through this study.
I have one week left of my training at WCPC. I can’t believe how fast these 6 weeks have gone by. The training has been very thorough but I wouldn’t say I feel like I am absolutely prepared. I am glad that we will be partnering with a more experienced counselor for several weeks. The Walk for Life is about a month away and I will be sharing information and encouraging women in my Bible study to get involved one way or another in a couple weeks. I am thankful for this opportunity and also humbled. I know this is where God wants me to be serving but I also feel inadequate. And the truth is, I am. I can’t succeed at anything without God’s help. My options are to rely completely on Him and give Him credit for it all or rely on myself and hold myself responsible for the success or failure that results. It seems like an clear and simple choice but I can’t seem to consistently figure this out.
I read this today and found it to be so exactly what I needed to hear. Here’s the portion that really spoke to me:
“Will-powered faith is the worst kind of faith. A relationship with God that is rooted in our ability or strength is doomed to fail for two reasons. First, a will-powered faith will result in self-loathing. We make commitments, try our hardest, give it our all, and fail. So we try again…and fail. And the only person we have to blame is ourselves. Some of us suffer from a spiritual depression because we have lived in a cycle between trying and failing for so long. Second, if our will-powered faith doesn’t end in self-loathing it is because it ended in self-righteousness. We make commitments, try our hardest, and we succeed. We congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Then we look around and notice that other people are not experiencing the same success we are. Why don’t they try as hard as me? Maybe they are just not as godly. Self-loathing or self-righteousness—God hates both.” Curtis Jones, LPM Blog
I definitely can relate to the self-loathing side of things. I struggle to honestly asses myself. I am highly critical and extend very little grace to myself. When I have operated at that critical level for a long period of time, I then justify giving myself a break by getting in a rebellious and entitled space– which is neither healthy or helpful spiritually or otherwise. I try too hard and then I just stop trying. I don’t know how to not operate by my own will-power. I feel weak and aimless. It’s a struggle for me to understand that my worth comes not from what I do (how I love, how I serve, how I spend my time, how I fail, how I disappoint) but from the one and only fact that I am a child of God in whom He delights and dearly loves. Continually I ask God to teach me how to rest in Him, to trust Him and to teach me how to have genuine faith, not “will-powered faith”. One day I hope to say that I have learned this lesson and then I can move on to the many other lessons on the list that need some attention.
I need to express my deepest gratitude to God for putting Cam in my life. Cam is supremely patient and at times the most selfless person I have ever known. Even in the midst of conflict with me (when I am being totally unreasonable) he can put aside his hurt feelings and reach out to me with words of encouragement and good counsel. I am blessed beyond measure to share life with Cam and I am sorry for everyday that I forget that fact. God has taught me so much through him. The relationship Cam and I share provides safety and stability and as a result I am much more responsive and receptive to God’s loving pursuit. So, thank you God for loving me so much that not only did you send your Son for my salvation but you sent Cameron to love me and save my heart.
How can it be that there are Jars of Clay songs that I haven’t heard until today?? I was listening to the radio this afternoon and heard this song and was so puzzled– apparently I missed that there were a couple songs on Furthermore that I didn’t already own. Anyway, this song I heard today is beautiful and maybe I wasn’t supposed to discover it until now? It does seem to be the very thing God and I are working out right now. I thought I’d share the lyrics here:
I really love reading to the boys. Most recently, I have been reading The Phantom Tollbooth to Sean and Caleb. This is a great book to read aloud. It is full of rich language and elaborate descriptions. I have appreciated the meaning and message the book subtly and artistically includes. Here’s an excerpt from what we read tonight. Milo (the main character) and Alec another boy just entered the city called “Reality”.
“Many years ago, on this very spot there was a beautiful city of fine houses and inviting spaces, and no one who ever lived here was ever in a hurry. The streets were full of wonderful things to see and the people would often stop and look at them.”
“Didn’t they have any place to go?” asked Milo.
“To be sure, ” continued Alec; “but, as you know, the most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that. Then one day someone discovered that if you walked as fast as possible and looked at nothing but your shoes you would arrive at your destination much more quickly. Soon everyone was doing it. They all rushed down the avenues and hurried along the boulevards seeing nothing of the wonders and beauties of their city as they went.”
Milo remembered the many times he’d done the very same thing; and, as hard as he tried, there were even things on his own street that he couldn’t remember.
“No one paid any attention to how things looked, and as they moved faster and faster everything grew uglier and dirtier, and as everything grew uglier and dirtier they moved faster and faster, and at last a very strange thing began to happen. Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter, and the streets faded away, until at last it was entirely invisible. There was nothing to see at all.”
Thank you for working your “magic” and making my Blog dreams come true!
I love you TONS (and not just because you are wicked smart and talented). Thanks for your patience and for everything you have taught me along the way.
“Discover the parallels of the Tabernacle’s building and your life as a chosen vessel of God.”
Christ the King’s Women’s Ministry will be offering this study:
11 Wednesday Mornings
April 9 – June 18
10 am – 12pm, in Fun Zones
Materials Fee: $20.00, free childcare or
11 Monday Nights
April 7 – June 23 (no class on Memorial Day)
6:45 – 8:45 pm, in room 116
Materials Fee: $20.00, free childcare
It’s no big surprise to anyone who knows Sean and Caleb well that they are HUGE Bon Jovi fans. When they discovered that Rock Band had “Dead or Alive” on it they were stoked!
We don’t have Rock Band (hence the video below) but Uncle Cory generously shares his. The boys are missing him today so….this one’s for you Cory!
I am using a new version of wordpress and I forgot to enable comments when I posted this. Comments are now enabled– so feel free to leave us or the boys a message. I had a couple emailed to me so I am posting them here:
Sara & Scott well we just watched the boys rock out to dead or alive, and wanted to leave a comment, but it said the discussion was “closed” anyway, here is our comment, scott says bon jovi rocks, but not as hard as sean and caleb, and he thinks they did the song justice!
sara thinks we have future rock stars on our hands. I love all the expressions and feeling you get from them!! what handsome boys. very fun!
loves! Carmen Sonny and I were CRACKING up watching Sean and Caleb lip sing to Dead or Alive - WAY TOO FUNNY!!! LOL…
The Eleventh Hour
See the Morning
Roots
Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage
Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions (Relit Theology)
Jesus: 90 Days With the One and Only (Personal Reflections)
The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
The Phantom Tollbooth