My whole body is exhausted.
Every time I sit down my eyes get heavy and by breathing gets deep.
From family coming home from Uganda and staying with us for a few days, to my parents moving to a home right here in Raleigh, to getting used to a brand new puppy, to soccer try-outs, to school activities, to a local mission trip right across the street with another sister church, life has just been busy.
A good busy.
This is not a typical season for our family. We are used to lots of white space and margin. This ensures that we have enough of ourselves to give to all of life's unexpected things that tend to come to us on a daily basis. But sometimes life just happens all at once, so we just embrace the crazy and remind ourselves not to get swept up in the lie that life is supposed to stay this speed.
So yes, we enjoyed my brother and sister in law and their 5 girls (and baking-in-belly boy). The cousins kept each other entertained and us adults...well, I could sit around the campfire outside all night with them.
As I write this my parents are doing the final walk-through in their new home in Wendell before closing! I canNOT believe this is actually happening. What a whirlwind couple of months for them as they traveled back and forth looking for a home in a market that is moving this quickly.
Jemma, oh Jemma, she has really grown on me. Not that I didn't ever think she was completely adorable, but the more she obeys (and goes to the door to pee outside all on her own!) the more she steels my heart.
The highlight, for sure, was the VBS we did in the mobile home neighborhood right across the street from us where many of our kid's friends from school live. We partnered with our friends at Exchange Church who have been building relationships with the families for a year or so and joined in with our own passion to reach the families in our own Rolesville community. We split up the kids by age group and set up three stations; Bible story, craft and games. We also opened and closed each evening as a group singing and learning our verse. The parents were also invited to a short ESL class during the evenings which was exciting to watch grow in attendance every night. We capped off the week with a Block Party last night for the entire family with free food, snow cones, popcorn, bouncy houses and soccer, of course
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| This little dude is actually in Jude's class at school and his older brother is in Zeke's class! |
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| Rainy and her daddy leading worship |
I was in charge of the middle-aged group of kids. The very first night there was a boy who, while hearing the story of creation, jumped up and exclaimed, "GOD made EVERYTHING?!" He had clearly never heard this before and it brought tears to my eyes. He couldn't even pronounce half the words in our Bible verse the first night and by the end of the second night he was helping OTHER kids remember it! It was SO cool to see his excitement.
Last night during the block party I ganged up with a crew of middle school boys on the soccer field. About 20 minutes in one of the boys fell down with a hurt ankle. I stood over by him until he was ready to get up and made sure that he was alright before I started playing again. A few minutes later he ran over to me and said, "Hey Miss, what's your favorite color?". I told him that I loved blue and he just smiled and ran off. After several minutes he came running up to me with a purple snow cone saying apologetically, "Sorry, this is the closest to blue I could get." Oh.My.Gosh. My heart melted and my eyes were immediately opened to this opportunity I had right in front of me. See, earlier that day I had been praying specifically for a clear, open opportunity to share the gospel that night. God knows my strengths, my weaknesses and my passions and gave me a wide open door. I LOVE soccer, I love playing with those kids (even though they school me!) and I desperately want those boys to love Jesus. So after T handed me my snow cone we stood on the sidelines with a couple of his buddies and got to have some simple gospel conversation with them.
And now, I'm off to go to the school to dance with the kids for National Dance Day before heading over to my parents new home for pizza movie night.
The days have been long, the nights have been short, and I am very much anticipating my Sabbath Saturday to soak it all in.
Happy Friday ya'll!
