Driving Again!

The last few weeks in our lives have been full! Randy took us to Oklahoma where we stayed with his sister and her family for two weeks. While we were there, Randy took a two-week missions trip to India with his Dad. While they were gone, I finally got the children's school books and we were able to start this year of school. Please pray for us as we got a late start and there will be days ahead that we are unable to work. I know that eventually we will be able to get caught up but we will be taking very few "vacation" days!

The children had their first attempt at roller skating several weeks ago. I was very surprised at how quickly they caught on! Caleb ended up taking his skates off and just putting them on his hands and pushing them around!

We have been staying with Randy's Aunt in Texas during the last week and tomorrow we will be leaving for Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with them. Andrew will turn six on Wednesday so we are planning on having a party at my parents' house. He is very excited! It is hard to believe that he is growing up so fast!

Please pray for safety as we travel the next couple of days. We will be visiting several churches while we are there. Please continue to pray for us as we are making decisions about our final months in the United States and getting things lined up for moving to Thailand.

God has been so good to us. During this month of Thanksgiving, we have much to be thankful for. Just looking back over the last few months, He has done many special things in our lives. Of course, the biggest is the addition of William to our family, safely and healthy! He has kept us safe while traveling and kept Randy from harm while on his trip. We will thoroughly enjoy this Thanksgiving with family and friends. Not only will we reflect on the blessings God has given us, but we will think ahead to how God may use us over the next year and we will thank Him for the opportunity to be able to serve Him in another field. We will thank Him for what He is going to do for us in the future. Although we don't know exactly what lies ahead for us, we rest in His promises and thank Him for being a God in whom we can put all of our faith and trust.

Never A Dull Moment!

Since we left Mexico, there hasn't been a dull moment!!! Our schedule has been just as full, if not more. We had our family picture made so that we could have a new prayer card ordered. That is not as easy as you may think! With five children, one inevitably will not be looking at the camera, or not smiling or just may not feel good. This time it was Caleb. We have all had the regular flu and poor Caleb was fighting it worse than anyone at the time. However, our pictures turned out good and I am so excited to share them with you. For a change, we went casual, which was a lot of fun, except for trying to find clothes for everyone to match!

God has blessed us with a wonderful family!!! Cynthia is 7 years old; Caleb, the sick one :( , will be 2 on December 1st; the newborn doll, William, is now two months old; Lee, the oldest, is ten; and Andrew, our child that keeps us laughing, will be 6 on November 18th.

Each one of our children is unique in his or her own way. It is amazing how all these children can have the same Daddy and Mommy, and yet be so different! God has blessed each one of our children with different abilities. We are looking forward to how God is going to use each and every one for His own glory.

Randy and I have celebrated twelve years of being married. God has blessed us with much more than just five children! We have had the awesome privilege of serving Him as missionaries and have been able to travel to places we not only dreamed of visiting but also places we had desired to visit one day. Right now, Randy is on a missions trip to India. He left yesterday afternoon for 10 days. Please pray for his safety. Also, please pray for those of us back at home who miss him tremendously!

Things haven't slowed down although Randy is gone. If anything, they became more hectic for a short amount of time! As with all children, ours have tried to "push the limit", so to speak, with Mommy in seeing what I might allow them to "get away with" since Daddy is gone! We have had some interesting moments! We finally got our school books for this school year and got off to a bumpy yet productive start. With everything that was going on with William being born early and our move out of Mexico, we are just getting started. As the saying goes, "Better late than never!" With all of the traveling we will be doing, we are sure to drop a little more behind. Please pray that we will find the time to do as much as possible to stay on track and hopefully catch up gradually to where the children should be in the school year.

It is sinking in to all of us that the move to Thailand is not far off! We are looking forward with anticipation to the exciting things that lay ahead. And, I am looking forward to sharing them with you.

God bless you all.

Finally - A Free Moment!

We have officially moved out of Mexico. We are currently staying with Randy's Aunt in Texas. Everything we own is now in a box, rubbbermaid container or suitcase in a trailer. What a blessing to know that we are in the center of the Lord's will. We are planning on being with our families for the holidays. We are also looking forward to doing a few things with our children this week. The last few months have been pretty stressful with the early arrival of William and the move. We are in great need of some down time!
Please pray for us as we will be traveling. We have all had the flu and are still battling with symptoms. Please pray that we will be able to get over it quickly.

William's 1st Month

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Reminiscing

Make a Smilebox photobook

A New Week To Work

Sunday is always a long, hard day for us which makes it hard to get out of bed and get started on Monday. Today, we seemed to have had an especially difficult time getting started. The house is a mess and I have realized it will probably stay that way, in a sense, until things start getting put into boxes. We have almost gone through everything we had in our storage room. We do school work in the morning and after lunch and a rest, I am able to work on separating items for selling or packing. It is hard not to overdo it. Even though it has been almost five weeks since I had a cesarean, there is still a lot that I cannot do. I am so thankful that God has allowed me to heal quickly, but getting my muscle strength and tone back is going to take some time! Randy and the children still help out in a lot of things and my mother-in-law has been an added blessing.

I realized yesterday that we are only going to be here two or three more Sundays. We have mixed emotions about leaving. These people have become family to us. We love them and it is going to be hard to leave. However, we are excited about reaching another people in another country and culture. We fell in love with those people last April when we visited Thailand.

Please pray for us through the next couple of weeks. There will be tough days but God will give us grace to get through them. When God closes one door, He always opens another one. Habakkuk 1:5 is the verse God has given us for our new endeavor for Him. It says, "Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you." We are praying that God will use us to help Him "work a work" in Southeast Asia. What a blessing that would be!!!

Getting Back To Normal

It is hard to believe that William was four weeks old yesterday! And, four weeks ago yesterday, I did not think that I would feel as much like myself as I do. I thank the Lord that He has allowed me to recover faster than I thought I would. I still have a ways to go but I was able to start walking for exercise yesterday and that has made me feel better, also. As of last week, William weighed 5 pounds and 11 ounces! God is so good!

Now that William is here and things are pretty much back to normal, we have started the task of going through our things and dividing out what is to be sold and what is to be kept. We have been able to sell quite a few things so far, so now we just need to get some boxes and start packing. Our time here is quickly coming to an end. Please pray for us as we make decisions on things here. Please pray for our children also as the reality of moving is becoming more real to them.

We are sad to be leaving people we love, but we are looking forward to making new friends in a new land!