Mail Call!

Kenya, Elijah and Charity went to the Post Office for a feildtrip today. It was lots of fun and they learned lots. They went with 6 other homeschool families, so it was a lot of kids, but it seems they all enjoyed it. They got to take a letter and go up and buy their stamp, then put the letter in the Big Blue mail box. They got to go back and see where all of the mail goes after you send it out and how they post office has ways to make sure they are doing their job right, it was pretty high tech.!

We were supposed to have a group of people from the Bible College in Seattle come down and do a week long Campus evangelism for us, but it looks like they will have to postpone until April. Which is OK because we would have had the Harvest Party right after they left and it would be a lot, for the next couple of weeks. We are excited for them to come in April, when we can spend a little more time focusing on having fun with them.

It was Charity's Birthday on the 14th, so we took a little date night to Yakima. It's amazing when you are short on time and money, how fun just doing the simple things can be. We went shopping for church stuff and used her Birthday coupons to get coffee and just drive around talking. I know it may sound lame to you, but we really love just hanging out together, especially now that our time together is few and far between.

Kenya and Elijah and Dad have been getting some good wrestle time in and some how Kenya managed to get eaten, as she often does.

She plays the Damsel in Distress roll very well. Mom usually has to come in and rescue her multiple times. It is getting to the point where we think she may actually get into distress on purpose. Oh well, I guess there's nothing like burning calories as a family.

We hope you are all having a great fall season and praying you feel the Lord loving and blessing you to the max.

First winter rain

We had our first winter rain today, the kids were hoping it would be cold enough to do snow, but no such luck. It sure does feel cold enough though. We are really burning through the wood in our fireplace as we just found out our furnace is shot and will require a whole different set of building codes to put a new one in. Should be interesting. It's a good thing the Lord provides us with wonderful people who just drop wood off at our house.

Chruch is going great. We had ten people at our first prayer hour on sunday night. The prayer time was wonderful and we are being blessed by the weekly bible studies. We are also gearing up for our Harvest party on Oct 31th and some of the guys from the Bible College in Seattle are coming for a week to pass out flyers around town, help with a concert for the college age kids and spread some general excitement around.

We are also really enjoy spending some relaxing time together as the bad weather sets in. Elijah is really enjoying it. I sent him to his room for a time out and he thought he would through me for a loop when I came in to see him. I guess he didn't plan on falling asleep.

I guess we could have rented out his room and just moved his closet into Kenya's room for him to stay in.

We'll keep you posted on the upcoming events, I am sure the Lord will be faithful as he always is.

Home Again Home Again Jigidy Jig!

Charity got home yesterday from the Pastors Wives conference in Califonia, it was a wonderful get away and she was very blessed. But a wonderful blessing to be home again also. Grandpa completed Tadd's whole honey do list, plus chopped wood for the fireplace and stacked it nicely.

He's definatly is a keeper. I'm not sure what was more refreshing, taking 3 days at a retreat or coming home to find the whole honey do list completed. Thanks Grandpa. Then Grandma suprised Charity at dinner with a B-day cake and cards. Kenya and Elijah were so excited to be in on a secret that mommy was not in on.

While Grandma and Grandpa were here they let Kenya and Elijah use their camera to take pictures around the house and outdoors, so they could show the cousins when they got back to Lynden. Then we gave then our camera just to even the sharing time out a bit and as you can see they went to town.

As you can see they had lots of fun.

Calvary Ellensburg started the first midweek bible study this week and it went great. The men's bible study started up this week also and woman's starts next week. Exciting stuff and so happy to have a little more fellowship time. We are having our Harvest Party on Oct. 31 and inviting the community so you can pray for people to come and hear the gospel shared and also for the sugar high the parent s will have to endure afterwards. Thanks for all of your prayers we sure do feel them and are looking forward to what the Lord will do because of them. God Bless!

A whole new way to do fall

Fall has definantly hit here in Ellensburg, apparently it is not a gradual thing. One day it was 70 something and the next day we were scrounging for firewood. It has been fun to sit by the fire and pretend we have nothing to do for the rest of the day. Next week we start all of our fall Programs at Chruch, Woman's and Men's Bible studies, Midweek Study and getting ready for our Harvest Party on October 31st.

Tadd and Charity got very blessed to get away for a day and attend the Northwest Pastor's Conference in Warm Beach (which is not really warm and technically not a beach) but it was so great to be blessed by the 4 speakers we listened to and have some great worship time. Not to mention some time together without the kids even though we love them immensly.

Charity has been blessed by some friends, to go to the Pastor's wifes conference in California next week. She leaves on Sunday and comes back Wednesday night. Tadd's Parents are coming down to stay while she is gone and Kenya and Elijah are so excited to get up early and play "WAR"(a card game) with Grandma.

We are so excited to start getting into Bible Studies again and have some time to fellowship and spend with the people we love. Kenya and Elijah are loving all the play dates,

Also, getting back into school with the kids, where some days we just hang out in out pj's and read books by the fire. This is one of the major reasons we homeschool. Call us lazy, but I call it tons of fun.

It looks like Annecy & Isaiah may not be home until after the Holidays, as the signature we have been waiting on has not come yet and it has been delayed long enough that all the other ones may not come in time to have them home for Christmas. It's a good thing the Lord knows all and does whatever is best for us and our kids or it might be a liitle more discouraging.

God is so good to us and is so faithful we are so excited to see his provision, grace, purposes and plan for the next couple of months.

Home Again!

Our family is back together again, Charity and the kids got home on Tuesday after a long 11 days away from home. It was lots of fun to be with family and the kids got to spend a lot of time with their cousins they haven't seen in a long time. The kids got a free week off of school due to Charity's brother's wedding and her Grandma's funeral, now they have to face the music and get started this week.

We went to the local nursing home tonight with our church Sunday School classes to sing and hand out cards they had made. It went great, the kids loved it and so did the people at the nursing home. It is great to get a little more involved with the community.

School starts at Central Washington University this week so we had a hord of college students come to church for the first time today, we are so excited to see what the college atmosphere add to the church, as when we started on sunday morning college had just ended for the summer.

We hear the winter comes quick here and so they say to expect snow in the next month or so. To be honest I am not sure how we are going to handle a real winter. We are used to Western Washington Winter were it snows a few days out of the winter and it melts with in a day or two. I guess the snow starts in the fall and and it dosen't go away until March or so. God was good to give us 2 all wheel drive vehicles. So we will see how our snow driving is. The kids are obviously excited to wear their snow suites more that once this winter and I am sure we will have lots of snowmen to play with.

The CPS hearing was actually a pre-trail hearing to establish witnesses and what each sides case would be. Charity was in Utah, so the Lawyer handled the hearing and the actual hearing was set for January. We will continue to pray that this time is just to soften the hearts of the people involved, God is always faithful and we know he will be in this situation too. We hope you are all doing well and have some time to settle down and spend with the Lord and loved ones as the fall sets in and things slow down a bit. Thanks for all the love.

Traveling

Well, Charity is in Utah, having lots of fun with family after attending her Grandma's funeral and then helping get ready for her brothers wedding. Kenya and Elijah have been having lots of fun with their cousins, on Tuesday we went hiking up to a waterfall with 6 kids in tow all under the age of kenya and elijah. It was a mile hike that was a little steep at times, but I think the kids out did the adults.

Then after the hike, Grandpa Davis took us to a Salt lake Bee's baseball game where they got toasted by Sacramento. It sure was a lot of fun to get sick off of baseball food though. Thanks Grandpa!

We still have 4 more days down here and boy are we missing daddy! Partially due to the fact that Elijah started a fever on Tuesday night and has been down for the count ever since. Because we don't want to get anyone else sick, we have been hunckering down at the house for the last couple of days and boy is Kenya getting cabin fever. Please pray for Elijah as we are not entirely sure what is wrong with him, so we may have to pay a strange Dr. a visit.

The hearing with CPS went well I guess, because of the family emergency, the Lawyer did all of the dirty work and she said we will find out next Tuesday if the Attorney General will make a decision on his own or if it has to go to trial. Please pray that the Lords will be done and pray for the Lawyer as she tries to put all of this together.

We are getting excited for school and fall weather as it usually means hanging out at home a lot more, we sure are ready for it. Hope you are all too. We will post some more about the remainer of the trip next week. God Bless your week.

Going South

We found out today that Charity's Grandma in Utah died last night, so she will be going to the funeral on Satruday. Then because her brother's wedding is on the next Saturday she will probablly just stay all week. So Tadd will be a bachlor again for a week. We could use your prayer as we are both away from each other and lots of stuff going on.

One of the really cool things going on is, we got an e-mail on Monday from another pastor in town who said he had seen our website and noticed we meet at the park on the first Sunday of the month. He wanted to inform us ahead of time that they had rented the same park and were doing a BBQ and outreach service and thought we should know before sunday. We checked our receipt from the park and sure enough we had it rented also. We called the Parks service and after checking their records, they were very apologetic and said they would call the other church and tell them to relocate. We really did not want to make another church try to reschedule on such short notice, so Tadd called the pastor to see what we could do. After talking they decided to do a joint service and BBQ for both churches. They are wonderful people and we are so excited to get to know them better. God is so good to make these meetings and do His work through them.

We also just finished dropping off our "Exit Baskets" to the woman's shelter. As part of the woman's ministry we decided to pair with the woman's shelter and make baskets full of kitchen and bathroom items for the woman who are moving out on their own from the shelter to an apartment. When they move out they have nothing and so the woman in our church purchased and put together beautiful baskets complete with Bible and the "Love letter from Jesus" tract. Please pray for the woman who receive them, that they would read these with an open heart. Here is a picture of the finished product.

Charity has her hearing with CPS on Tuesday the 8th and apparently will be in Utah for it. It is a phone hearing so it should work out OK. As always though we would really appreciate some prayer for that this week, that the hearts of the people involved would be softened and the Neglegence charge against her would be reversed. Also prayer for Tadd as he teaches 120 more people this sunday, than he is used to and that the Lord would bond our churches together for no other reason than that we are all a part of the Body of God. Lastly that Tadd would not have a heart attack from all of the frozen pizzas and hot pockets he will be eating while charity is gone.

Here is a picture of what the girls, do while the dad's are taking care of them during the woman's activities.

We will keep you posted on all the goings on, as we know God is in them all and they will all turn out for His glory.