Gateway in Guatemala

A group from our church is headed to Guatemala this Saturday. Sadly, I am not going, but my hubby and Dad are going, along with 12 others. They'll be working mainly at Kairos. Please be praying for their time! Here is the team's blog if you'd like to follow along: www.gatewayinguatemala.blogspot.com

TREASURED

So today was the kickoff of a new ministry at our church- TREASURED! It's a ministry promoting adoption, foster care and child sponsorship. We have lots of ideas and goals, but our initial steps involve increasing awareness and educating our church and community. We are also offering "mentor families" to walk through the adoption or foster care process with others who might be interested. I'm so excited to see what God does here!
Here's a link to a Christian Alliance for Orphans' video that was shown at church today. It grabs my heart every time!

Creation Groans from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Here is a link to the sermon as well.

Life in a nutshell

Things around here continue to be busy... most of the time good busy, but a few moments of "what have we gotten ourselves into?!" We commited to the Guatemala mission trip with our church and the Kairos fundraiser before I had taken the full time job. And I committed to all of those things before finding out I was pregnant... again, God has a sense of humor! Every time I hit a season of being too busy, I tell myself I won't do that again and work to simplify, but it is amazing how the busyness sneaks in. I'm convinced it is Satan's favorite tool to distract us from the things God has for us!

The busyness makes it harder for me to hear God's voice... and right now I have lots of questions for Him... How do I decide what's the best child care option? Should I work or stay home after the baby? What the heck do we name this baby!? When is the right time to resume taking foster children placements? Am I a wimp for hiring a cleaning lady to help me through this school year?

So that's life right now... busy, lots of amazing upcoming events- Jimmy and the Guatemala team leave in less than two weeks and the Kairos fundraiser is about a month away! In the meantime, we are trying to squeeze in fall fun. Last weekend we did a hayride/bonfire at Sibley Orchards where I used to go as a kid to pick apples. This weekend we get a date night- woohoo! Here are a few recent pics of Samuel- he just finished swimming lessons and is quite the fish. The others are from a mommy/Sammy outing to Deanna Rose. I love his skinny little legs on the fence... can he stay three forever?