Back to school! I’m not sure that any of our children were thrilled to be back in school last week, but every day gets us closer to summer break! The months of January and February can tend to drag on and on, but the basketball schedule keeps us busy, the boys have started practicing baseball a little, and sometimes the weather is really quite nice!
Last weekend the boys had a basketball tournament in Elizabeth City which is about three hours away. We originally were not planning on going to the tournament as its a drive away and Garett and Chandler don’t play a whole lot during a game. We try to make it to as many games/tournaments as possible even when they are bench warmers because we feel like it is important. However, we are trying to save money for some additional house projects, so we decided that we wouldn’t go to the tournament. However, on Friday morning, my friend, Laura, messaged me to say that they were not going to be able to go to the tournament and would we want their hotel room. After thinking about it for a few minutes, we decided that we would go to the tournament and use the provided hotel room. After school, I left immediately with the three younger kids to head home, pack some stuff for overnight and try to make it to the boys 7:30pm game. Roger told me to go ahead with the kids as he was off flying fire patrol and he wasn’t sure when he would make it home. So the three younger kids and I headed for Elizabeth City. There is not a direct road to that city, and it took us a while to get there! We arrived at 7:10pm, and we discovered that the game had started at 7:00pm! I was thankful that we had left immediately after packing up our stuff at home or we would’ve missed the game. The boys team did win their game which meant that they were headed for the championship game on Saturday at 2:00pm. That was exciting! In the end, it worked out that Roger wasn’t able to come as the hotel room had one king bed. So Wyatt and Travis slept on the floor and Emma and I slept in the bed. We all sleep best in our own beds, so I don’t think anyone got a great night’s sleep- read (crabby in the morning!). It was kinda a long day, and the boys and girls team both ended up with second place at the tournament. No need to mention that there were only four teams at the tournament! Garett and Chandler have never complained about sitting on the bench, but it’s nice to see that they are becoming more comfortable with being on the court. They don’t look as nervous to have the ball as they did at the beginning of the season, and we are thankful that they have had this opportunity to see if they’d like this sport.
We were all a little tired on Sunday morning, but it was a blessing to be in the house of the Lord on Sunday morning. Roger and I have really been enjoying our sunday school class and the current topic is “visionary parenting”. Biblical parenting sessions are always encouraging but also so convicting. My spirit wants to do better but the flesh truly is weak. I am a wonderful mother and full of patience and kindness until my children get out of bed in the morning! However, it’s been good to be reminded of the things that we should be doing, and to love God more fervently and passionately.
On Sunday afternoon we had the opportunity to host some dear friends of ours, the Falde Family. Garett and I have had the opportunity to go to Haiti with the Falde Family. The Falde’s have become dear friends of ours and they’ve been serving in Haiti for several years. They were visiting a church in the Wilmington area and then came to visit us for the afternoon. We enjoyed the opportunity to fellowship and catch up on what God is doing in Haiti. They are in the process of adopting a set of twins from Haiti, and I’m sure they would appreciate your prayers as they wait for the process. Nothing happens quickly in Haiti- ever, and we are praying for God to help the adoption process go smoothly. They received a wonderful Christmas gift when someone offered to pay for the rest of the adoption fees! That was an amazing gift, and now it’s the process of working through all the paperwork to adopt the twins. We had a great evening of food, fellowship and visiting together.
Our school had spirit week this week, so excitement was high in the school! We’ve not had whole lot of experiences with spirit week, and trying to come up with outfits for each day was a challenge! We weren’t able to participate every day, but we did our best. It’s hard to be the new kids in a new school and not exactly know what is and what isn’t allowed. It’ll be nice to not be brand new next year to so many of these new experiences! Tuesday was “Rhyme without reason” day, and my friend, Jennifer, and I dressed up. We work in the library together on Tuesday, and Jennifer came up with the idea of using two acronyms (CFA and FCA). She’s worked at Chick-fil-a in the past, and I figured I could find a cheerleader outfit somewhere around the school. We forgot to take a picture of the two of us, but we did manage to come up with both outfits! Oftentimes spirit week is a lot of fun- until we need to try to find outfits for six people!
Monday was a bit of a drag of a day, and that was compounded by a basketball game that was away. The JV teams both lost their games, but the varsity teams both won. Garett and Chandler didn’t play in the game, but it was a good game to watch. The varsity boys did win the game by one point! It was a bit of long evening, but we are thankful for these opportunities to support our boys and their efforts.
On Tuesdays I help out with choir for the elementary students. Normally I just tell students to listen, be quiet, run the PowerPoint, etc. but the piano player was not there for class. Tamela asked me if I was comfortable helping out with the piano aspect. Well, I was quickly reminded that it’s been about 8 months since I’ve played a note on the piano! I was not amazing, and I don’t think I was especially helpful, but it did remind me how much I miss playing the piano and how I need to get back into finding time to practice!
Tuesday afternoon found our two younger boys at an informational meeting regarding a JV baseball team. It looks like there will be enough interest and enough boys to have a JV baseball team this year, and Wyatt and Travis are very thankful for that! The boys enjoy playing baseball and while they’ve never been formally on a team, they’ve played it in our backyard for years! The coach told both Wyatt and Travis that they did very well in the practice especially as they’ve never been on a team. They were both encouraged by that!
On Thursday afternoon, I had the opportunity to go walking with a new friend. Laura has become a good friend to me, and I am thankful for her. Since our kids have sports practice after school, we decided to walk for a while while they were at practice. It was a great use of our time as we walked three miles and then spent some time in prayer especially for our children, spouses, school and church. If we really want to change the world for Jesus, it’s going to happen first when we get on our knees. I want to be passionate and fervent in prayer, and it was nice to have a fellow mama and friend to pray with and share our burdens. While Laura and Justin have two girls and a boy, and we have four boys and a girl, our children seem to relate well to each other. As mamas, Laura and I are happy for our children to have friends that they can laugh and have conversations with each other. Laura and I are hoping to continue our walking/praying plan. We have a few specific prayer requests that we want to continue to pray for and see what God does.
Friday was the longest day we’ve had in a while! It was the last day of spirit week, and the students were excited about it being Friday, a game day, and a pep rally! Today was also Homecoming day, which I don’t have any previous experience with, so we were excited to see what was going to happen. There were four basketball games after school, JV girls, JV boys, Varsity girls and Varsity boys! The JV teams both won their games yesterday, and both varsity teams lost. Chandler did get some playing time in the JV game, so that was exciting for him. At the close of all the basketball games, the school recognizes the two class representatives from grades 7-12. One boy and one girl from each class is chosen by classmates to represent Mr. And Mrs. *** for the school. These students have a good standing with their classmates and are to be chosen based on their character and reputation. The boys dress in a suit and the girls wear a formal dress. The whole ceremony takes about 20 minutes, but it’s a privilege to be chosen to represent your class. It was fun to watch the students and to listen to their testimonies. Wyatt’s friend, Gabe, was chosen for the 7th grade class, so that was especially cool. I did shed a few tears as I listened to the recording of Gabe’s voice telling about his salvation and how thankful he was for his parents, teachers and school. It was a super late night as we didn’t get home until around 11:00pm, so that made for a tired Saturday morning!
We also have a huge praise to share- the kids school bill for this year is paid in full! Praise the Lord! Due to my parents generosity as well as my sister, Jen, we’ve been able to pay off this year’s school bill. That’s a huge, huge praise! Roger and I were just talking about how we’d like to think about sending the boys to a Christian camp this summer, and now we will be able to save some towards making that become a reality. God is so good to us, even though we don’t deserve it. We didn’t expect to be able to get the school bill paid off until closer to the end of April, so this is about three months earlier than we anticipated!
Also, we have a prayer request. When we were at Wednesday night church, Roger and I were convicted about providing opportunities to our children to bless others. We are in the process of raising up third generation Christians, which is a huge responsibility! It’s easy to become lethargic in our praise of all that God has done, and I think our children need to be reminded that they are children of God and that they have the privilege to SERVE Him. We are looking for meaningful ways that our children can bless others. They could pick up trash alongside the road for several hours and that would be beneficial to our community. We are not opposed to that, but we’d rather have the kids have a face to go with their service. I’ve contacted a few people about ways that the kids could serve either by doing yard work, cleaning, serving food to the homeless, etc, but we are still praying about what would be best. We are SO blessed to live in America, and we are SO blessed to be the children of God. I want our children to be able to be a blessing to someone. Please pray with us that we will choose wisely. That our children would enjoy the opportunity to serve. That God would be glorified. We serve a great God!
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