A Seth Update...

I know that many of you like to hear about how each of the kids are doing. But I have had so many great e-mails and comments when I have talked about Seths' progress. Well, here's another of those posts. I had a parent-teacher interview with Seth's new teacher this week. Mrs. Manning is an older lady who has been teaching for many years. She has just returned to school after having a hip replacement. Now for those of you who truly know our Seth, you must be thinking [like we were] how is this woman possibly going to manage Seth? Well, for starters she has two wonderful assistants that help her in the classroom. But, I have to say that this woman is strong and commanding. She may look like someone's grandmother [and she is], but she runs her classroom like a navy captain.

Seth has taken to her routines like a fish to water. He has tested her but realized that it is Mrs. Mannings' way or the highway so to speak. He is now doing addition and subtraction equations orally with the rest of his class. He is interacting more and more with his classmates. His penmanship has improved dramatically. He just completed a rollerblading unit in gym class and was the only one in his class to stop and help a fellow classmate off the floor when he had fallen.
Seth has continued with outbursts and tantrums but he has started to request going to the time out room when he is getting upset. This past week, as he was getting upset, he asked to use the bathroom. He went to the bathroom, and was able to come back to the classroom and continue on with the classroom activities without ever having had a meltdown! For Seth that is HUGE!!!!
We are allowed to visit his classroom at any time so I will take some pictures and post them here for you so you can meet Mrs. Manning. I believe that we have met a woman that is going to change Seths' life for the better. I am so excited to see what God has planned!!

Teaching

Thanks to all of you that have been praying for me as I settle into my new life as a teacher. It is tiring and a little overwhelming making sure that you are teaching these students everything that they need to know in order to do well in the clinical setting. I really hope that I do a good job with it.

I had my first crying student. I was shocked. I have only been teaching a week and I have already had to deal with a crying student. Those of you who are nurses know exactly how difficult nursing programs are. Frankly, I think they should be challenging. Nurses don't sit behind desks all day. We do very important jobs that affect people's very lives. I guess that sounds a little dramatic, but it is true. This student was just feeling overwhelmed by the serious nature of what nurses do. If we give the wrong medication or the wrong dose of a medication we can cause serious harm or even death. That can freak you out. It should freak us out.

Now, for me, being in charge of 8 students all at very different level of competence is freaking me out for exactly the same reason! Please pray for me as I walk through these clinical days over the next few weeks. I need discernment, wisdom, knowledge and patience as I try to teach and guide these students through caring for the patients.

My How Things Change

I wish that I had something positive and uplifting to post about today, but I don't. I have had a very tough week. Now, before you all think that someone here has died or something, let me just say that Rob, and the kids and I are just fine. But, we had a call from very good friends of ours in Wisconsin this week. It was the husband calling to inform us that his wife has left him. I have to say that I was completely in shock. So, we have spent this week talking with this distraught husband and praying our butts off. I had left several messages for my friend, and she finally called me back today. It was great to talk to her. It was so hard though hearing her pain and knowing that there was nothing physically I can do about it.

I have to be honest, when we got this call on Monday, my gut reaction was to fly to Wisconsin and intervene in any way that I could. However, my very logical husband pointed out that I couldn't do that and even if I could, this was a situation that I am powerless to fix. I sure wish that wasn't the case. Don't you wish that you could fix situations like this? Am I the only one that feels that way?

While talking with my friend on the phone today it was like the miles had melted away and we were together again, sharing our lives honestly and completely. I could hear her pain, confusion and also her love. It made me again want to make the trip and help to reunite these two that Rob and I love so very much. But I can't. So, I will pray. I will pray diligently that God will break through and have His way in this marriage and in these lives. He knows both of them and what needs to happen to bridge the gulf that sits between them, and only He can mend broken hearts and release people from the bondage of their past and allow them to live the life that He wills for them.

I am thankful that God does care about His people and that He never leaves them. I am thankful that I don't have to intervene, because I can ask the One who is all knowing and all powerful to intervene. Please pray along with us for our friends. God is still in the business of miracles and we need one!

Feeling Blessed

I have to say that I am having a time in my life in which I am feeling incredibly blessed. Rob is loving his job at CrossRoads, I am starting at Red Deer College, the kids have all settled in at their schools, the baby is loving her new sitter, the house we live in is the by far the best we have ever lived in. It is a little overwhelming actually. As I look at our current circumstances, it makes me realize how dark our life had been sitting in limbo for the past 2 years.

Looking back on that time, I see that it was a very, very lean time. It was lean in a number of ways: it was lean financially - 6 people living on 1 income is very challenging. It was lean relationally - Rob and I did very well in our relationship during that time, in fact, it was one of the best times in our marriage, but with our families in Canada and many of our friends busy or going through difficult circumstances, many times I felt very isolated. It was lean spiritually - it truly was a time to seek God and talk honestly with Him about the 'why' of our circumstances. I know that I am not alone in wanting to know the 'why' of my circumstances. However, I went through some long moments with God desperately wanting Him to talk to me and having Him ask me to trust Him and wait for Him. I don't know about you, but the trusting and the waiting are very difficult things for me to do. I do understand that we can't always live on the 'mountain top', and that the valleys of life are very important for us to learn to lean on God and develop trust in God's faithfulness. I do really believe that we did learn a whole lot about God's character and quite frankly our own, as we walked through those days, months and years.

But, sitting where I am sitting right now, I wouldn't change the last several years for anything. I see now that they built our marriage up to a place of great strength, honesty, love and reliance on one another. I see that it built my faith that God would meet our needs. He certainly did. We didn't have savings but we our bills were paid every month because of His provision and Him moving people at various times to bless us. It built my character as I was forced to take my eyes off of myself and focus instead on The One who held my life and circumstances in His hands.

I am sure that many of you are going through valleys right now. I just want to encourage you to spend time with God. Talk to Him, and really wait for Him. Listen to what He is trying to tell you and walk where He opens the doors.

Trying to take the whirl out of the whirlwind

Well, my life is officially a whirlwind!! It is very difficult trying to juggle 2-3 paid shifts at the hospital a week with a day or two of unpaid orientation at the College. It is especially hard when the hospital shifts are night shifts. I am trying to do this so that when I walk into the College a couple of weeks from now, I don't look like a complete idiot. If there's one thing I know about teenagers and young adults, it's that they can spot an unprepared phony in a heartbeat. These students will have paid a lot of money to the College for this experience and I want to do a good job, so I have to put the prep time in. Along with that, both Lauren and the baby have colds and have been up in the night stuffed up and just generally not feeling well. That's always the way it goes right?? When the parents are stressed, the kids seem to get sick and add to an already busy time. Not that you don't love your kids, but it just seems that sickness comes at the most inconvenient times.

I do want to take this moment and give my wonderful husband a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the back. Rob has been wonderful through all of this. He has by and large managed the night duty with the sick girls because I have been at work and he is covering the home front while I am at the College this week because, of course, the school age kids are off school due to a Teacher's Conference. Thanks Rob. You continue to be my knight!!

Well, I found this picture of the baby that Jonah took last week, and it just made me smile and melted some of the stress away. Because of that, I decided to share it with you. Happy melting!! :-)

CrossRoads Church

So, I just thought I would give you guys a glimpse at our new church. CrossRoads Church is a church unlike any other that we have had the priviledge to work at so far in our ministry career. This building houses a sanctuary, multiple offices, a first aid room, library, gym, cafe with large seating area, a chapel for smaller weddings, and funerals and for overflow seating on Sunday mornings and a full commercial kitchen. The have multiple pastors and support staff as well as maintainence staff and a full time chef. That's right a chef!! Maggie is wonderful and she and her team of volunteers cook up wonderful things that are sold in the cafe on Sunday mornings. They also make the food for funerals, and they cater many of the weddings that happen at the church. The cafe is the site of many wedding receptions for the Red Deer area. The church is always hopping with activities, not just church activities either. Many of the facilities are rented or borrowed for community events. We are quickly outgrowing these facilities, but with the current economic conditions, going ahead with the planned building expansion may have to wait a year or two. I will try to nab some pictures of the inside so that you can see it first hand.

Rob, Anton [the new Missions pastor], and Jordan C. [the Sr. High youth pastor], spent a day last week on some Indian Reservations up in Rocky Mountain House, a community about 45 minutes from Red Deer. The conditions on the reservations in some cases are awful and it will be nice to take part in some home missions projects geared at blessing the Native People around us. On many of the reserves the water is not safe to drink and many people share homes due the level of poverty. They have very sub standard health care available on the reserve and many have little or no way of getting transportation into town to see a doctor. Substance abuse and domestic violence are huge issues as well.

Pray for Rob, Anton and Jordan as they work with a couple who are living on the reserve and trying to reach out to the Native people. This is missions at it's best - meeting the needs of people right in your own community.

Our House

Well, here is our new home at 716 Lancaster Dr. in Red Deer. It is a nice bi-level home. I will have to get a picture of our back alley. Here in Alberta it is very common to have no drive way or garage in the front and to have on the street parking in the front of your home. In the back, there is an alley where you can park additional cars and put your garbage out. It is odd for Rob and I and when we buy a house we would really like for it to have a driveway and a garage.

Here's a picture of our entry taken from the living room upstairs. That's the closet to the left there, and right by the closet is the stairs to go downstairs to the family room and the kids bathroom and bedrooms.

Here's the eating area in the kitchen. There's a nice breakfast bar area that we could put some stools at. But for now, we're just going to leave it.

We have two full baths that are pretty well identical.

Here's our basement family room which is just down the stairs from the front door.