Long Time No Blog

Blogging. I've become so addicted to some blogs that my limited time on the computer is now sometimes used viewing and keeping up to date with several of my girlfriend's blogs. Never enough time for my own! Honestly, some people including myself thought both Mark and I were nuts when we had 4 children so close in age and their toddler years were certainly never dull but plug your ears if your children are small...it's harder now than it was when they were smaller!

When they were little, time was limited to home. Except for the necessary trips to the grocery store, doctor, church, etc. and their needs could be met relatively easily. Food, changing of a diaper, rocking them to sleep. Now as they're 5, 7, 9, and 11 my life is spent largly in the car, taking them to their different actitivies. I have people tell me, "my goodness just cut back on what they're doing" well, it's hard to do when in reality each of them is only doing ONE thing. It's the reality of having 4 children. We're doing homework at two different tables, trying to keep track of who needs papers signed and the dates they're due to be returned on, not to mention the "I could scream" when teachers send home a special request for ___fill in the blank. Won't someone please just figure out what is needed throughout the school year and give me a dollar total? I'd so much rather send in a check than make myself crazy keeping track of it all and then feeling like such an incompetent mother when I forget.

The above things are just silly things to complain about. There are far more serious things on Mark's and my mind now. When the children were younger we weren't worried about their self esteem, their ability to make proper decisions and the countless hours they were away from home during the day soaking in the world's knowledge. I am so overwhelmed at what faces our children right now and pray every day as they leave our house that they'll be surrounded by God's grace and protection.

As for myself, there are days when I hardly have time to catch my breath. When the kids were younger, we'd put them in bed by 7 and have the entire evening to catch up a little bit around the house. There seems to be no catching up anymore. Keeping up with housework, laundry, bills and anything else around the house gets jammed into the small amount of time I'm actually home. I sink into bed at night and just pray for the ability to sleep well and not dream about what lies ahead for the next day.

All this to say, life is full! Not bad, just full. I am thankful for friends who I can call at any time of the day, whether I've seen them the day before or not in years and still feel the freedom to catch up like they're next door. I talked to a girlfriend from college, one of my dearest friends in the entire world, while Mark was gone over spring break with the kids, for 3 HOURS! What a pleasure and a gift to hear her voice. God has blessed me with many of those friends. I take pleasure looking in on the children at night when they've fallen asleep and seeing them so peaceful. It's a wondeful pleasure crawling into bed at night and lying next to a man who I know loves me immensely and is always there to encourage and affirm me.

God is good and even though life can be crazy it's important for me to remember that God is always there. Even when I'm too self absorbed to realize it. He's there to help shoulder the burdens of our world, if we'll only hand them over.

Childcare Worldwide

After church today, I felt like I needed to come home and write about Childcare Worldwide. They are the mission group that brought the Orphans Choir here last October. Jamil, the chaperone who stayed with us along with the three other boys, one of which was Allan, is employed by Childcare Worldwide. I have during the last week been in contact with their headquarters in Washington state and have spoken several times to the woman who runs the Orphans Choir. To be honest, we never contacted them about trying to get guardianship of Allan. Jamil assured us that he knew how to do that and we felt as though we could trust him. Once we started to suspect that some of what was going on was not accurate, I called them and Amanda was so sympathetic and helpful.

They are launching an investigation and there will be significant consequences for Jamil. They will in a timely fashion, terminate his employment and we're hoping make it impossible for him to enter the states again. Right now they are securing all the information they need from us, speaking with the Embassy in Kampala and making sure that no harm comes to their work in Uganda.

Allan has been in boarding school this whole time and has absolutely no idea that any of this has been going on. Amanda has checked with the supervisor over there and there is no way that Jamil could even have access to him. We are so happy about that. Happy that this entire time, he's been receiving an education and he's not been waiting to get on that plane! As much as it breaks our hearts, it makes it easier knowing that he's not been walking this journey with us. His precious spirit is healthy and well.

Amanda will be traveling to Uganda this month and has promised to keep us informed of every detail related to the situation. God is good, even in the midst of hard times. This whole experience has been a learning situation for our entire family. We're not done learning and that will undoubtedly take years. To realize that you've been lied to and deceived is a very hard pill to swallow, but both Mark and I are thankful that we felt confident in our prayerful decision making process to at least have attempted what we did. Our God is a faithful God and sometimes, we just don't see what he's trying to show us, and sometimes we do see it and just don't want to; so we ignore it. I'm not sure yet, how we could have done things differently, but we're relying on God to make our hearts teachable.

I do however want to make it abundantly clear that Childcare Worldwide had absolutely nothing to do with Jamil's actions. They are a very reputable organization that facilitates vibrant ministry all over the world. If you've sponsored a child through their organization or are considering doing so in the future, take that mission on with confidence that your money is going where it's supposed to. We have sponsored three children through another organization for several years and it's been such an enjoyable process for our whole family.

Houston we've achieved FLUSH

Our toilet is now totally hooked up and I'm headed to Lowe's today to buy a sink and faucet, wait a second, I think I've already bought a sink and faucet. Yep, did that about 4 months ago, but our oh so kind contractor, returned it to Lowe's and got the money back for himself. Reminder to self, lock the shed from now on and don't believe the contractor when he says, "it's to the left of the door inside the shed". Obviously the contractor no longer works for us!

The boys are chomping at the bit to move into their new room so we'll most likely do that this weekend. Max has decided to share his space with Ben, giving MT his own room, and he's totally amped about that! We'll post pics as soon as we get them settled.