Peaches!

It's that time of year again...It seems to always be the week before school starts. Peach season! Mindy, mom, and I get together each year to can. (Kailyn and Annsley have now joined us. They faithfully peeled peaches for two days.)Though it's a lot of work, I look forward to it every year. I froze about 30 quarts and canned about 30 jars for myself. Altogether we did about 100 quarts + a couple of batches of peach jam. Mmmmm...
It's such a great feeling to have all those jars in the pantry ready for winter. Feels so pioneerish. : )

Adoption update

Just an update regarding our adoption process...
Last week we completed our interviews for our homestudy. We are waiting on our social worker to write up the official report. Once we have that in hand I will apply for a number of grants. We have applied for a few already and are waiting to hear on them. We are also working on immigration paperwork, passports, and the dossier (the paperwork that goes to the Philippines).
We recently received the file of deaf twin girls that are currently in an orphanage in the Philippines. Our agency has asked to consider them. Besides deafness, they do have some other medical issues. We are praying and seeking the Lord regarding this huge decision.
My goal is to have the paperwork done by the end of September. And then, if we don't choose the twins, we will be put on a list of waiting families. We will wait to be matched with a child/ren. That process can take up to a year.
Please continue to pray for us in this endeavor!

Welcome to the Family

After much prayer and dialogue, we as a family decided to have our exchange student, Julien, live with us for the 2008 – 2009 school year. After the first week he had expressed an interest in having us be his host family for the year. We reminded him that we are a relatively boring (or just flat out a boring family). We reminded him that we don’t watch much television. The bulk of our evenings revolve around reading books. We eat dinner together and engage in conversation during dinner. Our home is used often for having various groups over for meals or Bible studies. Despite all the “reasons” why he shouldn’t be part of our family, he said that he enjoyed being around us. Therefore, our aim this upcoming year is show the beauty of Christ both in the Scriptures and in our lives to this young man.

Kailyn, Cade, and Claire are very excited to have him live with us. They get along so well. Claire loves the fact that she has another brother to tease. Cade loves having another boy around the house to play games with. Kailyn always loves conversations with older kids in general.

Lord willing, he will be attending Ferris high school which is about ¼ mile walk from our home. We heard this week that there could be a possibility that will be required to attend a school much further north from our home. So please pray that Ferris High School will be his school.

It will be a busy year having a teenager in our home; for we are learning that their schedule is constantly changing. It mostly revolves around what other friends are doing. We’re excited about the fact that he loves to attend church with us and we are also thankful that looks forward to attending the high school youth group at our church.

So please pray that the Lord will use our family in Julien’s life.

Salsa dancing

Having a teenager in our house has been, uh, ....an enlightening experience. This is all new for us. I've heard my friends talk about life with teenagers, but now I am getting a little taste of it. The phone calls, the late nights (are we supposed to wait up for him?!), the driving, the coordinating of schedules, the urgency to see friends he just saw a few hours ago, the limited vocabulary. (Roland has been working with Julien on expanding his vocabulary, however. The other night Roland told him that we did, in fact, have more than 3 adjectives in the English language... Boring, stupid, crazy about sums up life for a 16 year old kid, I guess.)
It has opened up new doors for us though, as the pictures show. Some of the exchange students and kids from Faith Bible Church decided to go Salsa dancing. I had somewhat reluctantly agreed to pick Julien up downtown at 10 pm when Matt and Lisa Dykstra called and said that they were going to be accompanying their exchange student and asked if we would go with them. Now, those of you who know us well know that Roland doesn't pass up any opportunity to dance. Me, on the other hand, well, dancing is not my idea of a good time. I don't know what it is. Perhaps I can blame it on my childhood. I was the kid who had to sit out during p.e. in seventh grade when they did a unit on square dancing. (You know what dancing leads to, don't you?) Perhaps it's the fact that I have no rythym and even struggle in aerobics class. Perhaps it's because Roland and I argue every time we dance. (What do you mean let you lead?! How am I supposed to know what you're doing?!)
Anyway, I did finally agree to go. We had our first (and probably last) salsa dancing lesson.
And yes, we argued. : )