Happy Mother's Day!

We have three Mothers who are amazing ladies. They have been there for us throughout our lives loving us, supporting us, praying for us, and encouraging us. We won't be spending the day with any of them but we are sure thinking of them. Thanks so much to our incredible Mother's. We Love You!

Bike-A-Thon

This morning the kids had another fun raiser which was a a Bike-A-Thon. There were a couple of courses that the younger children could do here on the campus and the older children biked to next town over. This is the first year Titus went off campus to the next town over. (Ruth did not participate as she had to work. But she did sponsor her brother.) It sounds like the kids all had a lot of fun and they worked hard helping raise money for the school. WAT TO BE KIDS!

Match Maker, Match Maker, Make Me A Match...

The other day I was working on cleaning up my laundry room. And in the corner was a laundry basket that was 1/2 way full of unmatched socks. Every time I do wash it seems like I have a sock that doesn't match.















Whatever happens to the missing socks I don't know. I have long thought that the theory that the dryer eats them, is a pretty good one! I worked through a plan to try to match as many of these socks as I could. I first of all sat down to see if there were any matches in this pile that I might have missed before. I did come up with a few matches but as this was the pile of unmatched socks many of them did not have a mate. So I laid all the socks out, separating them by color. Most of the socks were either white or black. The next step in my plan was to go to the drier and see if any socks were left inside. Unfortunately, I found no missing socks there. Next I went to every room in the house looking under beds trying to find an odd sock here or there. The Hunt was on! This search proved successful as I found three abandoned socks. (I did find a matched pair of socks under one bed.) So I took the odd socks and washed up all my whites and colors to see if any of my mates where in the dirty wash. Then I sat down once again trying to be a MATCH MAKER. I did end up matching a few more socks. As I was looking over all of my unmatched socks ,it was beyond me how I get socks in our house that do not belong to any of us. I had a cute pair of socks with a froggy on them. But that was one of those odd socks that I knew was not ours. Maybe you are reading this and see one of your MISSING IN ACTION socks in my sock pile. While I was on this quest to match socks I have to ask myself several questions. 1. How holey is too holey? So I was able to say good-bye to several socks that were no longer wearable. 2. How close of a match do the socks really need to be? As you can see I have two nice dress socks that are pretty close and yet they are not a match. But in the end how much do people REALLY look at your socks. So those two dress socks did pass the test and were a match. This quest did end up giving me about a dozen more matched socks. I was able to come to terms with the fact that some of these socks have been unmatched for a LONG time and just needed TO GO. I still do have a pile of unmatched socks, although it is much smaller then when I started. Well, this post has been odd and yet I know some of you out there who have more then two children, can feel my pain, as I can feel yours with your pile of unmatched socks. Maybe we should ask the MATCH MAKER how he does it.

Pizza, pizza!

The last three days the school has participated in another school fund raiser. This is one fund raiser my family enjoyed getting involved with. It is pretty cool that one of the locate pizza places in town donated 1/2 of the cost of pizzas sold on those three days to the school or day care of your choice. A person just needed to come in with one of those papers from their school and their school would get credit for the pizzas sold. So Monday Ruth started us off by ordering pizza for the family. Then another day Titus treated us, and last night Seth surprised us with pizza. It is a good thing our family LOVES pizza.

VICTORY!

Last night we were celebrating with Ruth in the fact that she finished up her chemistry course. Ruth is the only student taking chemistry this year and she is taking it via DVD. She has worked really hard in the last three weeks doing two and some times three lessons a day in chemistry. Since she was out of school for three weeks in February it really was something to celebrate that she finished the course and even got done early. It was a challenging course but she did very well and it has wet her appetite for college chemistry. Since she is wanting to go into nursing we are trying to locate some sort of anatomy course that she can take next year. WAY TO BE RUTH!

Hidden Treasures

Like they say, "One man's junk is another man's treasure." Titus can attest to that statement. The last two weekends the mission had a huge indoor garage sale. I think Titus lives for this each year and he feels like he finds some real "treasures". But if you would see his room you would be able to see he has enough "treasures". Since Titus knows how we feel about all of his "treasures" he likes to slowly work them in the house when the coast is clear. The other day I went in to give him a hug goodnight and I almost killed myself falling over his new treasure; a "must have" bowling ball. How he got that in the front door without me seeing I don't know!

Faith Begins At Home

I left the house early this morning in order to attend a seminar with six other ladies from our church. There were two sessions that we attended. The first one was directed at parents and it was called "Extreme Family Makeover". Statistics show that between 60%-90% of children are going to leave the faith some time between graduating high school and during their college years. Through an Early Childhood Education Survey, the results showed that the most significant Religious influence in a child's life is first their mother and then their father. And yet many parents are not spending time reading the Bible, praying, or having any kind of spiritual influence in their children outside of church. The first session was very challenging for me, as a parent, of the responsibility Vern and I have to live out our faith in our home with our children. We are already doing many things with our children and yet there are ways we can impact them even more. The second session was for pastors and youth workers on "Becoming A Faith At Home Driven Church". This session was a chllanege to me as a Sunday school teacher and Awana leader, as to what part do I have in helping to equip parents to bring their faith home. I was so glad I attended these seminars as there was a lot of great information. However, I hope it will be more then just information but things I can apply to my life.

The Breakfast of Champions

No we were not eating our "Wheaties" for anyone who even remembers what those are, but yesterday all the first year staff and students went out for breakfast. Classes are winding down and it was a good time to enjoy each others' company. We have a great group of students who are always a joy to spend time with.

Last Night of Cubbies

Tonight was our last night of Cubbies for the year. We invited the parents for a program in which each group presented some thing. Then each child who finished a book was given their award. The Cubbies sang a couple of songs and said several of their memory verses. I must say the Cubbies were nice and enthusiastic as we sang our songs. (Good job!) Our church did some thing really special for all the Cubbies who were graduating into the next program. Each child graduating received a Lamb book which also comes with a CD of the story being read. So the Cubbies will be able to hear the gospel message over and over again. It was a good year and we saw many of the children grow and mature. We also saw their understanding for God increase. It really was a privilege to be a part of their lives each week. I had some great leaders working with me who did an tremendous job.

We're Expecting!

That's right! On Dec. 25th we are expecting a GRANDCHILD. We are of course very happy and excited! Please be praying for Kristina and this precious little life.