How's Your Hearing?

The last few days my boys have been having problems with their ears. I don't know if it has been caused from moving anxiety or is just unique to little boys. Sunday mornings are always a little hectic around our house, but even more so since we are between houses.So while driving to church I wasn't paying complete attention to the conversation behind me until Collin asked "Mom, was Amazing Grace an angel?". I have no idea what he heard that made him attribute that name to an angel. Then yesterday morning the boys where watching an old black and white version of Robin Hood when I heard Collin say "they must be in hell". I was quite astonished until I heard Ethan respond with "No Collin it's Nottingham not Naughtyham". I thought everything was going along rather nicely until I told Landon that we were going to Constitution Park later on in the day. He eagerly ran out to tell his brothers, when I walked in the room I was greeted by a very concerned Ethan. "Ummm Mom, did you say we were going to Constant Pooping Park?" If anyone has any suggestions to help remedy these problems we are having please let me know.

Alumni Reception

I wanted to remind everyone who is able to attend about the Hobe Sound Bible College/Academy Reception on Friday night following the evening service. It is always a really fun time of reconnecting with old friends. We will have lots of good food, old yearbooks, and slides. There is no formal program so that everyone can have an opportunity to fellowship. It doesn't matter if you didn't graduate, just so long as you attended. We hope that everyone will make an effort to attend.
Also just a reminder that they will be announcing the Alumni of the Year in the Sunday afternoon service. I am personally very excited about it this year. I'm not allowed to say who it is, but I will say that it is one of my heroes. I can't give any more information or trouble may come my way, but come to the service and you won't be disappointed.

The Power of Paint

This is not the official blog on the "house"but I thought I would give everyone a preview. We are aiming to be moved by the end of the month. Everything is done except for some painting and hanging doors. These pictures are before and after paint and flooring. It is amazing what new paint can do for the atmosphere of a room.

This is the room that we are putting all four boys in. It is huge and they always end up in the same room anyway. Before we painted it I wanted to ask for some Grey Poupon everytime I walked in.

I'm not really into murals so I'm trying for a sky, ocean, sand look without being drastic. My big project for this room is the boat that we are using for Dylan's bed. Yes, it is an actual boat. It was sitting beside the canal for months, so Harold asked the owner if we could buy it. He said we could have it in exchange for cheese. NO, I don't make cheese but I have a BJ's card. So for the price of cheese we have a boat bed. I will be sure to post pictures when it is finished.

This is our room (Harold and I). I zoomed in on the floor so you could see the layer of dog hair that was covering it when we started.

It is now a little cleaner looking I think. Notice the French Doors. When we started they had no trim. The yellow insulation was oozing out.

This is Harold's office. It was yellow with concrete floors before. I'm not sure what happened to the picture. He is so excited to finally have a place to organize his books and papers. He does have to work from home quite a bit, so it will be nice for him to have a place where it is quiet.

That is all I will let you see of the house right now. You will have to stay tuned to see the kitchen, guest room, play room, and dining room.

Last weekend I had the privelidge of attending a Revive Our Hearts conference with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It was a time of true soul searching. I also had a great time just being with some good friends and sharing lots of laughs. There were seven of us that went together. We have been studying the book Lies Women Believe for the past year. This was a great time for us to join our hearts together and unite as Christian women who are hungry to see God move in our families. There was another group from our church that attended as well. We left behind thirty-eight kids with the fathers in charge. We are so thankful that they all stayed safe in our absence.

To end this rambling post I will share a picture of what greeted my eyes when I opened them this morning. It seems that I have to share my bed with many people these days, but these actually looked so precious that I didn't feel the least bit resentful. Hope everyone has a restful week.

Prayer Request

Emergency Medical Flights are not unusual in Harold's line of work, but every so often there is one that grabs my heart and won't let go. Tomorrow he will be bringing this little girl back to the United States for surgery this coming week. The doctors don't expect her to make it through surgery, but felt like they had to try. It is a lot of pressure on the pilots knowing that someone is critically ill, especially when it is a little child. This little girl is only three years old. The tumor is growing so rapidly that the missionaries who are caring for her say that it was noticably larger just over the weekend. Please keep all of them in your prayers tomorrow and in the coming week. I will try to update when we have some more information.

My New Discovery

I know that there are those of you out there who are not happy with me right now. I promise that there will be house pictures coming, but it's hard to do before and after until the after is complete. I also plan on telling about my weekend at the Revive Our Hearts Conference. These are stories that will take a little time so please be patient with me until I have time to share completely.

This is for those of you who live here locally. Mrs Ruth V told me about a discount grocery store on Sunday, so today I went and checked it out. It is located on Indian St. in Stuart. They have only been open for three weeks and are depending on word of mouth for advertising. They sell dented cans, bent cereal boxes, that kind of thing. I can be pretty picky about that kind of thing, but I checked carefully and nothing had been opened or tampered with. They have everything from canned goods to diapers. Cereal that would be $4 in the store was .50 to $1.59. I am always looking for a bargain so I thought I would share since I know a lot of my readers also have kids and are on a budget. Hopefully this will be a help to someone.

Sonel

Harold recieved this email this morning. I just thought that someone out there might be interested.

Sonel may be moving into My Father's House Orphanage at the Light & Peace Mission in Bon Repos, Haiti. If anyone would like information about adopting Sonel, please call Carol Hawthorne at Dayspring Ministries: #908-879-6116
Sonel with his friend Frank from Hackettstown, NJ.

Sonel is a beautiful baby with quite the personality. He doesn’t like to sit still because during his stay at Grace Children’s Hospital he has to learned how to walk. He is also a little bit of a trouble maker at meal times as he impatiently grabs for his food.
Sonel is full of life and when he looks at you with his big brown eyes and delightful smile, you know he’s a blessing from God to all who work at Grace Children’s Hospital.
Although Sonel is a happy baby, his last name reveals his unfortunate situation. “Innocent” is the name that the hospital gives to a child who is without a last name. Sonel was found abandoned in a severely malnourished state near the Grace school on January 26, 2007. Due to the fact that he was found alone, the staff does not know where Sonel is from or how old he is. They estimate that he was born around March of 2006.
No one comes to visit Sonel, but he is loved nonetheless by the mamas and other staff members at the hospital. Sonel has now fully recovered from malnourishment. In fact, he eats so much that the mamas call him “petit cochon” which means “little piglet.”
Grace Children’s Hospital has brought Sonel from sickness to health and, in the absence of his family, continues to love and care for him until a place is found for him to go. Each year the hospital takes in many sick children who end up being abandoned. In May, 2007 there were eight such children at Grace. One must wonder what would happen to little ones like Sonel if Grace Children’s Hospital weren’t there. Praise God that International Child Care has the ability to help “the least of these.” .
By Sarah Pascoe. Sarah, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, spent the month of May volunteering at Grace Children’s Hospital.

"The Rest of the Story"

I have to go back about five years in order for you to appreciate the story I am about to tell. When we left TN and moved back to Fl we had great aspirations of owning our own home. We moved into a rental home while we looked at our options. We very quickly found out that homes in our price range were in bad repair or in neighborhoods that Harold wouldn't feel safe leaving his family alone in when he has overnight trips. So we opted to keep renting for awhile. About a year later we decided to start looking into putting a double-wide on campus. We did some research and found the manufacturer that was most highly recommended, their closest dealer was a company that had put a couple of others on campus. We found a lender, went and put a down payment of half the total amount down. During this time we moved out of the house we were renting and into a very small trailer, that since that time has been condemned and torn down, to save money. It was a couple of months later that we found out that we were number 36 in the line of victims of a fraud scam. Not only were we not getting the home we ordered, but we now were also out $36,000 that we had to make monthly payments on. The amount of our debt greatly limited our options for housing, FEA had nothing else available for rent, so we found ourselves in a desperate situation. Our furniture was stored in the Tabernacle and we needed to get it out soon, the trailer was so full of mold that I was constantly worried for the kids health (Collin had tubes put in his ears and his tonsils and adenoids removed during this time), besides the fact that we couldn't even fit enough beds in for everyone. It was a blessing from God when someone came to us and said that they were taking a pastorate and would like to sell us the double-wide that they had put in a couple of years before. They offered us a wonderful deal with payments we could afford on top of the money we had lost. So even though it was 700sq. ft . smaller than the one we ordered we moved in and it has been our home for the last 3 1/2 yrs. We went through years of litigation as crime victims before we were able to recover most of our lost money. During this time the housing marked skyrocketed out of sight. It was a situation that Satan used against me to the fullest extent. I became obsessed with looking for houses, I had my eyes on what everyone else had and I lost peace and contentment. Finally one day while driving down US1 I said "God you have to take away this obsession and help me to be content with what I have". I was finally able to release the situation to God and experience the power of being able to forgive someone for a wrong done. Since that time I have been content with the home God gave us. That is not to say that there are no problems, but the resentment I struggled with for so long is gone.
Now for the part you've all been waiting for. Back in Nov. while Harold was on a break at work, he decided on a whim to check out some real estate sites. This house suddenly popped up. His response was "No Way". He called our friend Arnie, real estate agent, to inquire. Arnie said "there's nothing like that in Hobe Sound", but he did some quick research and called us back. It was a foreclosure that had been listed in the wrong county. Therefore we found it before the real estate people did. He got us in to see it that afternoon and we decided to make an offer. After a few negotiations we had first option at the house for less than the asking price. We talked to all the financial experts we know and the answer was the same, "there's no way you can go wrong". Now our problem was to sell our trailer so we wouldn't have two payments at the same time. The next miracle is that someone offered to finance the house for us until we sell the trailer, therefore giving us only one mortgage payment to make. This is also great since we have to do some remodeling on the house, we have a place to live until the house is ready. Everything was going along great until the job I had been on for the last 2 1/2 yrs suddenly ended. I won't go into the details, but it was an unjust situation. Our monthly income was cut in half, but we were under a contract that we couldn't get out of. God has been so faithful to us through this situation. Our monthly support for this month was enough to cover the bills. Harold started working 8hrs on Sat, and just yesterday I got a job offer that will last until March. So the monthly income is made up.
We closed on the house last week and now are in over our heads remodeling. The people who lost the house must not have been too happy. They took the toilets, sinks, hot water heater etc. etc, etc. Thankfully our mortgage was enough to cover the cost of renovation. We are having the time of our lives. We would much rather remodel it ourselves and have the reward of living in our own design, to our own taste. It mostly needs cosmetic repair, flooring and paint, besides the toilets and stuff. I will be keeping a record of our renovation progression for all who are interested. I might even ask for your opinion every once in awhile. I promise that there will be before and after pictures for your viewing enjoyment. I realize that this has been a rather long post, but you couldn't get how wonderful God has been to us if I didn't tell "the rest of the story".

PS Please help us pray that we can sell our trailer. Maybe God can use it as a miracle for someone else.