Work'in it out

Here are some pictures of Kenya Gymnastics and Elijah's Karate. They are really enjoying themselves. Elijah has decided, since it is time to see if he wants to take Karate again or do something different, that he would like to stop doing Karate and try Gymnastics. I think he thought Gymnastics looked like it had more things to play with than Karate. So he starts next monday and we will see how it goes.











Tadd's Grandma passed away this week and so we are preparing for family gatherings and a funeral. She was a great woman and definantly loved the Lord with all of her heart. We are so happy to know she is in Heaven with Our Lord and as Elijah puts it, "She can fly and do what ever she wants now, with Jesus." It's good to know your kids know, that if you have accepted the Lord as your personal Savior, Death is not the end, it's just the start of a new beginning. Please pray that all would go well with the arrangements and the Love of Jesus would be felt by all, as that is how Grandma lived her life.

We still have not gotten any closer to getting plane tickets to Haiti, so we are waiting on the Lord to see if He will provide a way, in the next couple of weeks. If not we will see where He leads us from there. Tadd has been given the opportunity to teach in Ellensburg next Thursday. As the Calvary Chapel there has been without a Pastor for about a year and some good friends of ours thought he would be a good candidate, so we will drive down and meet the people attending there and then teach that night at their mid-week service. We would appreciate your prayers for a safe drive as we will have to leave directly after Tadd's Grandma's funeral and try to get there in record time, to make it by the 7:00 meeting time. Please continue to pray for both this opportunity and Haiti and that the Lord will make His will, Our will and He will make His direction clear as we seek Him. Thank you for all your prayers. God Bless.

How to beat the winter duldrums

The winter cabin fever has set in over the past month or so with all of the cold weather. We have been de-void of some much needed fresh air and muscle movement. So we had a teletubby work out session with Cade and Kota (cousins) on Saturday. Yes teletubbies are a little young for my kids but when they saw it they couldn't stop laughing at how silly they looked. So I figured we'll do the teletubby work out and get some extra ab exercise in while they were laughing so hard.



Then we got all the build a bears out that Grandma and Grandpa provided, by way of Gift Certificates, for Christmas.


Followed by some brain marshmellow time on the DS, that Elijah gets so excited when Kota brings it over.


The 15th was Isaiah's Birthday and the "House Mom" who has blessed us and him so much, took him out for his birthday and here is a clip she e-mailed me after they got back.

"I just wanted to let you know that Isaiah had a wonderful birthday yesterday. He and Johnkeng ( whose birthday it is today) each selected one friend and I took the four boys to EpiDor ( our version of McDonalds) and they ate cheeseburgers, fries, and cokes and then got a cake with their NAME written on it. It was fun to see the satisfaction of having their names written down. None of the boys had been out to this particular restaurant ( which has air conditioning) and they were all freezing and wanting to go outside in the warmth after 45 minutes!! Made me laugh! Isaiah got car sick on the way home from eating too much :)
I just had a boy throw up all over my car last week ( as many of them get carsick because they rarely, if ever ride in cars) and I told Isaiah playfully that if they keep throwing up in my car, I'm going to stop taking them places... at that point Isaiah quickly put away the barf bag and insisted he was just fine!! "

We are so blessed to have Shelley and Clay taking care of Isaiah in the Boys home. I think this is the first birthday Isaiah has actually celebrated on his actual birthday, with items specifically for him. Because of the large size of the 2 houses (girls and baby house and then the boys home) it is not possible to celebrate each childs birthday on the day it accures. So if they have time and means they have 1 birthday celebration a month for all the kids who celebrated birthdays in that month. And it is pretty low key because of limited funds and availability of special items to celebrate with. Since Shelley and Clay moved into the boys home in July they have treated each boy special and as one of their own. They take the time to special order and gain support to get the extra items that aren't necessities, but that really make the boys feel special. God is so good and is so faithful to bless us with more than we could ever imagine.

We are getting very excited, we are so blessed by the support that people have so generously blessed us with. It looks like we will be able to go to Haiti for 2-3 months, instead of the originally planned 4-6 months. We really feel more at ease with the shorter stay, as we are told if all starts moving more steadily in the adoption offices, it is possible we could bring the kids home by late April or there abouts. We also would not have as much to take over and would not have to worry about renting our house, just getting more of a house sitter. Which the Lord has already provided. Now that we have the amount needed to live and minister in Haiti, we need to purchase plane tickets for 4 of us to fly to Haiti and (hopefully 6) to fly back. We have had some money put away for tickets, but not the full amount needed. We know that the Lord can provide this, as he has already been so faithful to provide the support for us to minister in Haiti as a family. If you would join us in praying for the Lord to add to his provision and provide tickets for us to get to Haiti, we would be very blessed.

Thank you agian to all of you who have continually supported us in prayer and monitary needs. We are always in awe of what the Lord does. He has been showing us over and over agian in the last couple of months, how he has kept us and blessed us in ways we never even knew, as we have gone through this adoption process. He truly is Our: Strong Tower , Provider, Comforter, Protector, Advocate, Keeper, Peacemaker, Foundation, Teacher, Deliverer, Hope, Healer, Abba Father, Best Friend, Our All in All, Our Everything! We pray that all of you, along with us, could remember that, every minute of everyday, it would save me so much worry and frustration, sadness and sorrow. God Bless you all and may you be blessed by what He does in your life today and every day there after.

Well, we are back into the swing of things. We started school again today (much to kenya and elijah's dismay)


And even worse, it started off with a bad hair day for Kenya. She got over it by about 3:00 when she went with Elijah to his first Karate Lesson and her Gymnastics Lessons.


We had been holding off on getting them involved in any extra curricular things, as we weren't sure when we were going to Haiti. We have someone coming to look at the house hopefully tomorrow and see if it is something that will work for their family to rent while they are looking for a house to buy. We figure we will get the kids in something and if we have to pull them out, it will not be to tramatic. Thank you for your continued prayer as we continue to seek the Lord and go where we feel He is leading us. We will keep you updated and as always you are all in our prayers.