Aaron's Birthday Hunt

The gators that kept us girls away...

For his birthday this year, Aaron wanted go wild pig hunting on public land in Georgia.  We had all intended to go, but a week in the swamps in a tent didn't really make us girls want to pack up and go-

Jesse's first hog

Aaron and Jesse had a great time !  They saw a lot of different hunting terrain on the East coast of Georgia...and my freezer gained 100+ pounds of pork- "the other white meat"!

Grandma Came to Town!

 My mom came to visit in February, and we so enjoyed having her here with us!  We are training with her brother, so we had a big get-together with cousins and second cousins and great aunts and uncles... Settlers of Cataan was the star attraction for a couple of evenings!

I hadn't seen my mom for almost 2 years, so it was a real treat to have her here for a week!

CPR Certification

A friend of ours from church is an American Heart Association instructor and she graciously provided a full day of instruction so that all five of us could become certified in CPR and First Aid.

Megan had to give 100% of her strength to get enough gumption behind her chest compressions on the adult mannequin, but she worked hard and did well!

THANK YOU MISS SONIA!

All three of the kids have been serving in the nursery at church, and Jana is loving babysitting here in our home!

We love Teen Pact!

First day at Teen Pact

 We were delighted for Jana to attend Teen Pact in Atlanta!  This program is a week long leadership training that allows students to attend classes in the state capitol.  They learn about the political process and are encouraged to become active citizens, for the betterment of their communities and for the glory of God.

The students are required to dress in business attire while attending classes at the capitol for a week.

A bad picture, but the only one I got on the final day of Teen Pact- during the graduation ceremony.

We've had friends who attended in other states and loved it, but we weren't sure about sending her in Georgia...Little did we know that Teen Pact was started by a homeschool dad here in Georgia, in my uncle's church, in fact!  It was a blessing for Jana to enjoy a week with other students her age, and develop public speaking, debate and critical thinking skills.  Their mission statement is: Our mission is to train youth to understand the political process, value their liberty, defend their Christian faith and engage the culture at a time in their lives when, typically, they do not care about such things.

 If you have the opportunity to attend, we highly recommend it!

Field Trip!

 We took a Saturday field trip to the Atlanta History Center, and had fun playing on the Olympic equipment...the competitive spirit is alive and well in our household!

Raise the bar!

We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low.  We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone... [We] have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. -A.W. Tozer

One day, our children won't fight to see whose taller or who's gaining on the other.  They won't stand up straighter when someone tall walks into the room.   They may even stop standing on tip-toes as they walk up to me, each of them wondering if they are taller than Miss Jessica or Miss Kristen or Miss Holly yet. 

I hope that we can however challenge them to always stand on their spiritual tippy-toes.   We adults are pretty easily drawn into comparing our figure, our car, our income bracket- but rarely are we so delighted by the joy of the Lord that we allow His joy to trump any such comparisons.  It's our hope to challenge one another within our home to raise the bar.  To really revel in the joy of the Lord and rest in the power of the Holy Spirit.  To allow the Holy Spirit to have such a large role in each of our lives that if one of us begins to 'slouch' and depend on our own strength or struggle with doubt- we quickly stand tall in the Holy Spirit, showing evidence of the Spirit's work in us and basque in life dependent upon His power.

Unity is necessary to the outpouring of the Spirit of God. If you have 120 volts of electricity coming into your house but you have broken wiring, you may turn on the switch, but nothing works - no lights come on, the stove doesn't warm, the radio doesn't turn on. Why? Because you have broken wiring. The power is ready to do its work..., but where there is broken wiring, there is no power. Unity is necessary among the children of God if we are going to know the flow of power...to see God do His wonders.

A. W. Tozer

James 1:17

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (NIV)

Aaron is home from Florida, and we are enjoying hearing the lessons and experiences that he learned while at his class.  I wanted to share one with you...

Lesson: Personal space, personal property and respect of such things vary according to cultural norms.
**This lesson was shared in love by missionaries who were honestly relating their own experiences- with no criticism or judgement- we are thankful for any insight or input that we receive, so that we know how to better mentally prepare and pray for God's help with necessary adjustments.

Obviously, you don't enter another culture and expect no change!  We had cultural adjustments going from San Diego to Montana, and we certainly have had a lot of adjustments leaving Montana and coming to Atlanta!! (Part of why we moved to Atlanta was to force these adjustments to occur while still in a context that speaks english and has ample supply of Mtn. Dew!)

The lesson that Aaron learned at his class was important~ even though it was only verbally related to him- but it was one of the first things that he told us about when he got home.  It was a blessing, however because the kids and I had dealt with this lesson a few months ago  when someone in our neighborhood helped themselves to the jacuzzi on our back porch while weren't home.
Through that experience, the kids and I had to work through our feelings of being invaded, and we learned about cultural norms and personal property.  It affected me to have a stranger on my back patio, using my stuff.
I pouted and cried some (no shock there- I cry a lot) but what I realized was that God taught me a valuable lesson through that experience.  Apparently we needed our boundaries pushed a little bit! We thought that we were holding onto our things with an open hand, but we needed our hands opened up a bit more!  Aaron learned this lesson from people who have overseas experience with this cultural 'shift' and the kids and I learned it at home in our neighborhood!

I am so glad to see how God is using each day here to teach us important concepts that serve us as we serve Him!  He continues to train us, and He is providing opportunities for growth and stretching. 
Attending training courses, reading a miriad of books, serving in a small church setting, depending on the Lord more fully, doing a lot of seeking Him IS GOOD.  but... only God will make us ready, and the trick is knowing that we cannot be completely ready for all that is ahead of us!  We don't want to pretend that we can...instead we want to be full of faith and have our eyes fixed on God so that we can live lives that point to Jesus and His good gifts over and over again.