Awakening Fest

For months we have been excited about taking our kids to a Christian music festival..."Awakening Fest" in Virginia. Most of the kids have never been to a concert and they have been so ready to hear some favorite bands- Jeremy Camp, Skillet, and tons of others. Our "middles" are 9, 11, and 12 and they were especially delighted to be included in the group going.
We drove to the park under grey clouds and I was praying that they would move out and it would that it would be a perfect night. The clouds not only didn't move out, they opened up and began a steady downpour that outlasted us and most of the others there.
We stayed while our outer layers got wet and persevered through the drenching of the next few layers of clothes. When our skin was wrinkled like a long bathtub soak and the sun began to set and bring in the cool weather we gave up.
We did get to hear 3 bands and the kids went down to the front a few times and jumped and screamed and probably did permanent damage to their ear drums. I sat with a friend who I never have enough chances to be with and we talked while the rain soaked us to the core.
No pictures - I wasn't about to pull my camera out in all that rain, and the kids all thanked me for a great time. Nice.

Make Up Your Mind...please

I love foster care and highly recommend it to any family that wants a "close to home" ministry, but there are parts that make me.....CRAZY!
The most important decisions that effect you and the kids in your care are made by social workers and sometimes by a judge. Like now. We have been through four months of hearings and now we wait and wait and wait for a judge to decide if three of our boys will be living with us or returning to their mom. We wait, we comfort, but this is hard on the boys. Does the judge realize that every night the boys pray that tomorrow the judge will call and say they can stay? And then what if he says they are to leave?

I'm learning to live in faith as I teach it to the kids. So hard.

It's All Relative

James and I attended a fund raiser for our local crisis pregnancy center last week and there were replicas of 8 week old fetuses for each person to take home. Some were black and others white. Very cute.
I left them laying on the kitchen counter and Elijah, our 9 year old, picked them up and said, "Hey look, foster brothers".
Families are the people who love you!!

Start Your Engines

When a friend called to let us know he was driving at our local car race track, we thought it might be fun to take the kids to see him. We knew the little boys would love the cars and noise and speed but the teenage girls were just as thrilled. Okay....so was I.
And the best part for a family of 12....their was no admission charge!!
(click on the picture for an up-close look)

Our New Baby Girl

AnnaClaire arrived here almost 4 years ago. Luckily we live far out in the country or she would have run away. She thought we were "strange" and certainly our family was nothing like what she was used to. I overheard her speaking to her mom and saying, "They won't even let me listen to hip-hop music!". But little by little God worked in her heart until the things that she thought were weird became her heart's desire as well.
Anna loves the Lord and that loves spills out to everyone around her. She is kind and thoughtful and always ready to serve others.
And not only has she been adopted into God's family, last week she became our legal daughter as well!

Teach Me!

Is anyone else getting excited about school starting?

I love the summer and wish the lazy days would never end......but then there's the Sonlight Curriculum for this year sitting on the shelf waiting for us and we want it!! Never before have we loved schooling like we have since using Sonlight. The kids look at the books they're going to be reading and imagine the people they will get to know and what their lives are about. And that's what makes Sonlight so awesome. History isn't just facts with this curriculum, it's people and missionaries and their thoughts and struggles. It's a very personal diary of a time in the past.

I found this on the classroom blackboard.
Thanks Sonlight!!

Many Hands

Sometimes the amount of work involved in raising so many kids at once is staggering - but equally as impressive is the volume of labor that a group this size can accomplish. We first noted this on vacation when we unpacked at the beach house. In a matter of minutes the van was empty and the house full.

Yesterday we were happily surprised as well.
The largest of our Bradford Pear trees in the front yard split and fell to the ground. James took advantage of the huge mess and trimmed the trees around it providing a job for every person in the family. Most of us had to haul the branches down to the brush pile where even Grace got in on the action and stacked the limbs and logs we brought her. The kids were awesome and the sheer number of them working accomplished the job in no time.

And what better way to finish work than a cool down in the pool.