Answered Prayers: My favorite ministries all together!

This group picture is a BIG deal to me. Two years ago, when I was fund-raising for my Uganda mission trip, I approached our church's missions team and asked them to consider donating funds for shoes for PCM kids. In the end, they did not end up giving any, but that's when I got involved with that team with hopes of someday opening doors for Parental Care Ministries to come share with our church what they do. I've had a few opportunities through PCM for them to come, but the schedules never lined up properly for it to happen. 

Last year, we took our American Heritage Girls troop to a Uganda children's choir concert at another church on a scout meeting night. Our families LOVED it -- soon the girls and parents were asking for us to set it up again. When I asked Justin (at PCM) if they would have another Monday-night concert, he asked if our troop and church would be willing to host one for our community. I was over-the-moon ecstatic about the chance, but had to get it approved by our church and our AHG ministry team since I would need help doing it. Everyone was excited about the chance and so it came to be...

Our Explorer scouts (grades 4-6) have been working on their cooking badge and on their social skills and etiquette badge. They ended up hosting the dinner -- though Kristen ended up precooking all the taco meat, the girls met right after school to chop veggies, make fruit salad, and scoop ice cream for dessert. When the PCM team arrived, the girls served dinner at the tables, then they sat down to eat and visit with their new friends from Africa. Kristen's and my kiddos were all there, also, even though our daughters are in the younger group (the benefits of having moms leading the event). It was heart-warming to me to watch all the kids interacting and learning about each others' cultures. A few of the Tenderhearts (grades 1-3) arrived before the concert to help clean up from dinner and to pass out programs. 

Since I was the common denominator between PCM, AHG, and First Baptist, I ended up getting to be on stage introducing my Uganda family to my AHG and FBC families. I was on cloud nine with all three of my favorite ministries coming together!! Since I was in a position to have some special requests, I arranged for the concert to be kid-friendly -- the kids in the audience were invited to come dance and sing and worship in front of the stage... because it is REALLY hard to be still when the Ugandans are leading worship. 

My "special requests" for the evening were all met: a group photo of PCM with our troop, teacher Emmy dancing, and 12-year old Samuel sharing a story about sharing Jesus with a customs official. From the stage, I was able to look out among around 250 people and watch the evening come together beautifully -- from the custodian helping me set up the chairs, the scouts feeding the Uganda children, the church staff showing up to sing along, the orphan-care ministry and more staff helping clean up at the end.... I was SO richly blessed tonight that I had tears of joy overflowing my eyes many times. So. Very. Richly. Blessed!! ... and ready to do it all again next year!

Maddie and Millie photo to update the one of them we have had in our kitchen since they first met in 2013.

Community Clean Up

The boys and Allen were supposed to be on a camp out this weekend, but the weather threatened to cause trouble for them and they cancelled it. While the guys hung out at home, Maddie and I joined our AHG troop in the Keep Whitehouse Beautiful community clean up. Our troop had about a two-mile stretch of road that we cleaned, with half the group starting at each end. We were supposed to meet in the middle, then cross the street and do the other side, but that didn't quite happen right. In the end, each of the girls did end up walking about two miles, though, and all of us had a good time even though we were doing not-so-fun, messy, and sometimes stinky work picking up trash.

We ended the morning eating pizza and playing at the park with our crew and others from the community.

Welcoming the PCM Choir

My Uganda family has arrived safely in Texas! Tonight, the boys were supposed to be camping and Maddie and I were going to head to a PCM dinner to welcome the choir. Instead, the campout was cancelled because it looked like it would be stormy all weekend, and all six of us went to welcome the Ugandan kids. I was thrilled to see some returning faces!

Below is Maddie with Gaudy. Gaudy was on the first PCM tour and remembered the triplets because she has a photo of the trio and her. Gaudy is also the one who is in some of the photos of me in Uganda as she was teaching trying to teach me to dance.

I love these kids!! Several others are also returning from previous tours and my kids are familiar with some whose faces are in photos in our kitchen. This was a just a taste of the joy that Monday will bring...

Second Grade Musical: Act I

Maddie and Ben had their second-grade musical tonight. Well... they were SUPPOSED to...

This spring has had LOTS and LOTS of rain. It was raining when we arrived at the school at 6:00pm this evening. The kids took their spots with their classes -- everyone decked out in western wear. About 10-12 songs were on the program with some being done by all four second-grade classes and others being just one class at a time. All the kids sang the first two songs, then Maddie's class got up to do their square dance. Then all the kids sang again.

That song was interrupted by the principal who asked us to take storm shelter in the hallways. Not long after that, we were told to take tornado shelter in the school library. With everyone seated between shelves of books, MY kids were thrilled. We ended up being in the library for over an hour and my crew read nearly the entire time. When we were cleared to leave, it was almost 8:00pm, and we were told the musical would be rescheduled.

On the way home, we drove past our neighborhood park and it was flooded. Ben asked if our house would be flooded, too, and my response was "Not if you stay out of the bathtub."

Tidal Wave Flooding

Fastest way to get my downstairs floors mopped? Two 8-year old boys aiming to make bathtub tidal waves UPstairs meant someone's knee broke through the tub. We didn't know about it until hot, raspberry-scented water started flowing from the ceiling light DOWNstairs. We expected the bathroom floor would be wet, but it was completely dry. A flooded downstairs hallway, laundry room, closet, and garage, 30 soaked towels, an hour of searching for a broken pipe, then someone pointed out the hole... that "NOT ME" made.

Our tub drained through the wall and the water came out the trim of our coat closet and through the entryway light fixture. The next day, the water stains started showing up on the ceiling. :(

Easter Camping

Allen has been working night-shift nearly non-stop since the end of January and has taken only four days off. Working every weekend, every day, for 12-14+ hours, he is worn out and so are the rest of us. As we approached Easter weekend, the three- to four-day weekend was already changed because the kids' schools used Good Friday and Easter Monday as bad-weather make-up days. Jon and Will had school until noon on Friday, and all the kids had school on Monday. We decided to hope Allen would be done working and booked a campsite for the weekend. We were a bit disappointed that he did end up needing to go to work Thursday night, but he got to leave a bit early and got home around 4am. When I woke up, I expected he would be in bed next to me, but he decided to stay up and go to the gym. He had really been missing his dark-AM workouts and this was the first he went to in over two months. He got home about the time I was waking Jon and Will up for school, but he did nap until it was time to get the boys at lunchtime. We had lunch, packed the car, and headed out, hoping for great spring weather even though the weather forecasts looked like it could be wet.

We picked a state park we had not been to: Martin Dies, Jr., State Park. The two-and-a-half-hour drive was pretty and really green after all the rain we've had this spring. We checked into the park, set up camp, and started working on dinner. I had precooked some Italian turkey sausage and cut up bell peppers and onions, and the kids helped me assemble foil packets of sausage, peppers, onions, small gold potatoes, and Italian herbs and spices. We cooked the foil packs on the campfire, and everyone loved the meal. Our meal was complete after a couple s'mores. The kids helped with the dishes, then I took them to the playground not far from our campsite while Allen made some wind-blocks for the picnic area. 

 The sun was setting and we started getting ready for bed while we could still see. As we finished brushing our teeth, big raindrops started falling. We rushed to the tent and climbed in our sleeping bags just as the rain started coming down. There was steady rainfall for several hours then lots of wind and a full moon fooling us into thinking it was dawn several hours before the sun rose. Allen's internal clock was telling him that he should be wide awake even though the rest of us knew to sleep at nighttime. By the time we woke up, everything was dry. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, leftover turkey sausage, onions and peppers, and fruit. All four kids were anxious to go to the playground.

With grocery sacks ready to go, we all headed to the park. While Allen and the kids playing on the swings, I helped the park rangers and volunteers set up the Easter egg hunt. Mid-morning the kids came back to that area and joined all the other camping kids searching for candy-filled eggs. There were obstacle courses and other games, but we didn't stay too long. Our family headed to another area of the park to see what there was to see.

After lunch, Allen was ready for a nap, so we all rested for awhile -- enjoying the breeze and the birds chirping. When the kids and I had enough of the tent, I sat outside reading and they went back to the playground. Allen slept several hours then we all went to hear a ranger talk about alligators (they live in that park). We went hiking -- just a short hike, but a beautiful one, around one of the park islands. Since we knew the island trail went around the perimeter of the island, when Will and Jon asked if they could take another trail, we let them. We passed each other along the walk, and Ben joined the other two boys. Having four kids means hikes are usually louder than I like, but with our group split like that, I was able to enjoy the sounds of nature. It was a good hike for me. The boys passed us again, and, rather than listening to them complain that they were tired and walking too far, those boys CHEERFULLY did the hike twice... but without Mama and Dad.

 It ended up feeling like everything was planned around meal times, but soon it was time to start working on dinner. Allen started a fire, Ben worked on assembling a King Ranch chicken casserole, and Maddie helped me make apple dumplings for dessert. The apples took much longer than we planned, but they were so tasty! We cored small apples, wrapped them in pre-made pie crust, filled the core with apple-pie spice, then wrapped it all in foil to cook over the fire -- no sugar added. Again, dinner was a hit, and I was thrilled to start a collection of recipes for camping that the kids could make and enjoyed. Jon and Will washed dishes and we all got ready for bed.

The storms started early morning and we had a lot of rain. Allen could check radar on his phone and it looked like the rain wasn't planning on stopping until late afternoon. When there was a lull in the storm, he rushed around (hours before dawn) making it easy to pack up when it was time to do that. At dawn, we woke the kids and he carried them to the restrooms one at a time so they wouldn't get muddy. We set them up to start packing INside the tent while Allen and I began loading the car. Once the tent was empty, he carried them to the car, the thunder and lightening stopped and the rain slowed to a drizzle. We quickly rolled up the wet tent and tarps, stuck them in the trunk and headed out. Allen and I were wet and muddy, but everything was in the car and the kids were pretty dry and clean [as clean as expected after camping for a weekend]. As we drove away from the park, the storms started again and the rain came down really hard. We drove through a McDonald's for breakfast sandwiches and kept on driving. It was still raining when we got home.

I loved our weekend! Will initially was really grumpy about going camping, but after a short time, even HE was saying how much fun he was having. I really enjoyed spending time with our complete family and working together to get things done. It was probably great for Allen to reset his body-clock with the sunrise and sunset and fresh air, and all of us stayed "unplugged" (no phones, video games, computers, or tv) except for watching the weather on the phone. I am anxious to do that again! ... but I do wonder was our first family camp out on our own, without extended family or friends, not set up by scouts or church groups?

The car was unloaded, the mountain of laundry started, and I was able to spend the rest of the day unwinding the way I love best: pajamas and my Bible studies. Though we didn't attend church, it was a beautiful family weekend enjoying God's creation. Loved it!