Rescue Mission

A couple weeks ago James and I went to the Kansas City Rescue Mission (KCRM) to help distribute clothing. Although many of our friends have been volunteered at KCRM, we have never gone. James and I had the job of taking clothing orders. Throughout the course of the evening we each talked to over 20 men. "I need a pair of socks, jeans 32/32, an XL t-shirt and underwear." I heard variations on that list twenty times. "Do you have any long johns?" "No, not yet."
Between writing down orders thoughts were racing through my head. What is this man's story? How do you get to a place in life where you're asking a stranger for size 34 underwear? Where can I come up with about an extra $200 to buy a whole bunch of warm clothes for these guys?
My heart just broke for those men. I can't imagine only having a few outfits that I carry around in a backpack. I can't imagine having no one to go to for help. I've been letting the experience roll around in my head for close to a month now. James and I have collected a few bags of clothes to donate from our friends. When we dropped them off, I recognized several faces. These guys are always there. They're actually homeless. I just can't wrap my mind around that kind of life. I'm searching for a way to make a difference.
And then I look around my house. It's a comfortable 70 degrees as I sit on my couch and look at my Christmas tree. I have a soft bed and a separate bedroom for each of my kids. I don't necessarily think it's wrong for me to have my house in Lee's Summit but I do think that God has called me to give whatever I have, perhaps even more than I can spare.
I don't really know how to wrap up this post. I don't have all the answers...

Many Random Thoughts

Yes, I did forget to mention that my mom came to visit in the last month. Sorry, Mom. I was just looking at my calendar and remembering what I could. We did enjoy your visit as always. The boys always flock to Grandma with books. No one reads like Grandma!

This weekend we took a little trip to Tulsa to visit some good friends. I've been friends with Mariah for something like 15 years. She had a baby in September and we made the drive down for a visit. James got us a "ritzy" hotel in downtown for an amazing $50 a night. When we went to the pool Friday afternoon were highly disappointed. The water was freezing! I finally went to the front desk (in my swimming suit and dripping wet, in the lobby of the ritzy hotel) and inquired about the water temperature. As it turns out, they recently had resurfaced the pool and couldn't yet turn on the heat. Brrrrrr! We let the kids play in the hot tub for a while and then called it quits on the whole thing. We spent all day Friday and most of Saturday playing and driving around the rural-ish northern part of Tulsa. It is always so great to spend time with good friends!

My husband has been pretty entertaining recently. A couple nights ago after the kids were in bed he built a tower out of blocks. Yesterday when I got home from school he told me about a show he saw where they were making jewelry. He had some good ideas for making a Scrabble tile into a pendant for a necklace.

My oldest sister is coming to visit this weekend. I'm super excited! Saturday we are going to a retreat at our church for women. Hopefully we have a good time and learn something!

Asa is trying to put Judah's shoes on right now. They're a little small!

I'd like to start having a few deeper posts, something more than the mostly boring details of my life. Here's a start:

U2's Bono recently received the NAACP's Chairman's Award for his work to end poverty and disease in Africa. I recently saw his acceptance speech linked on facebook. In the speech he said a few things that struck me. "Where you live should not determine whether you live or die." How true. There are babies born all over the world that have no choice about the economic and political situation they are born into. We are blessed to have two healthy boys that receive all the food and medicine they need. This next quote really woke me up: "True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom." How often is our "religion" just something we think about on Sunday? I have really been striving recently to make my religion more than just a title. It's transforming my life and my perspective of things.

One Month

It's been exactly one month since my last post. Why the long break? I'll tell you why. My friend Janae has started home-preschooling her kids and she doesn't have enough time to read blog posts. Well, that's not really the reason but she did ask me not to post anymore.

In the last month I have:
-taught 9 days of preschool
-taken a little boy for his 15 month check-up
-gone on our youth group's fall retreat
-been to Bible study every Wednesday morning
-had a visit from Aunt Janet and Uncle Steve (James' sister)
-gone to Sam's Club (twice)
-driven a few times to Tonganoxie to see Aunt Janeille and family (James' other sister)
-attended two birthday parties
-made dinner for some sick friends
-hosted small group a few times
-hosted a BBQ
-gone to church every Sunday morning

I'd say that's a pretty good reason for not blogging!

We finally had the opportunity to go to James' nephew Drew's birthday party. His birthday is in September and we've never been able to attend his party because of school. Now that they live in the KC area, we can go to all the parties! It was great being there to see him open his presents and hang out with his friends.

Have I ever mentioned that James has a new job? Well, he does. He's the communication coordinator at our church. It's been a big change for us. We're still trying to iron out some of the details that come with a new job. I experienced on of the benefits of having him working in town this morning. We ate breakfast together! At a time when James would have previously been at work, he is home now and we can sit at the table and talk over waffles. On a side note, I've not seen Asa eat so much at one meal in a long time. He ate an entire waffle!

A lot more has happened recently, but I'm not going to be able to remember all the details. I'll see if we have any interesting pictures and might post them later. Good to "see" you all again!

Preschool

Well we have put two days of preschool behind us! I was pretty nervous about the first day. Will the kids in my class cry all day? Will I have enough activities to keep them busy? Will Judah cry in his class? Will I like teaching little ones? All these questions were racing through my mind before we started on Tuesday. It really was a pretty good day. James helped me get out the door on time. The boys played in my room while I got things ready for the day. Asa was excited when I took him to his class. He walked right in and sat down at his place at the table. Judah started the day out pretty well in his class. Two of my six kids were absent that first day, leaving me with one boy and three girls. They were pretty easy to manage. The downfall happened when Judah's teacher stepped out and left him with the music teacher. He wasn't happy. I was taking my class to PE and he saw me in the hallway. I decided to hold him for a while. He was very happy to see his mommy! But very sad when Mommy left again. His teacher said that he never recovered from this sad turn of events. And the most exciting part of the day came upon getting home. I saw that the front door was wide open. Apparently we had forgotten to close it when we left in the morning. I called James to come home and look through the house before we all went in. By the grace of God nothing was stolen.
Thursday was the second day of preschool. I was more prepared than the first day. Judah did great in his class. Asa got to paint. All my kids were there and I kept a bit of order. I've been working on plans for the rest of the month and it's hard to have enough activities to keep 3 year olds busy and interested all day! Let me know if you have any good craft ideas!

Pictures

I finally have uploaded more pics to flickr. Link to the right.

This is the best effort I made at lunch all summer:

More Walking

Judah is getting really good at walking. He just can't stand up on his own in the middle of the room. Asa did that forever before he even started walking. In the background you see Asa sitting on a blanket with a bucket because I thought he was going to throw up when he woke up this morning. Everything has been puke-free so far this morning. Judah tries to play with the bucket and Asa says, "No. My bucket."

The Jungle

For some reason the back yard of our new house wasn't taken care of all summer. I guess the kid who mowed the yard was only paid to mow the front yard. As a result, the grass was more than knee high and there were weeds as tall as me. In addition to the grass problem, there are millions of tiny trees growing along the fence line. And there's an invisible fence line about 5 feet in front of the back fence from trees sprouting up. After we had lived here for a couple weeks James tackled the jungle with the push mower. He successfully mowed down most of the grass. The next step was raking. Two Saturdays ago I was feeling ambitious and went out to start raking. The problem was that there was still really long grass and it was too hard to rake. So we just had to mow again. After mowing, we raked up all the trimmings and bagged it up. (Let me insert here that the garbage company will not pick up our yard waste unless we call and ask them to do it. I asked if this was necessary every time and they said it's not. Maybe they should communicate that to the people who drive the trucks. Frustrating!) After mowing again, the yard is now usable. We still have a lot of trimming to do but we can at least let the kids play outside.