silence

All I hear right now is a little cricket bug through the open window, the crickety creaking of Ruby rocking back and forth in the little rocking chair, and the breathing of deeply sleeping kiddos.

It's heavenly.
I sit in the dark with sleeping ones surrounding me. It has been a long evening. Everyone else is gone at church so it’s just been me, the 'babies' and Solimar, my mature beyond her 8 years, helper for the last few hours. Usually we all go, or at least most of us, sometimes, some of the littlest ones will stay behind with one of the women who works here, but because of various reasons, we decided Solimar and I would stay back with them all tonight.

In many ways it’s been chaotic.

It’s been hectic, it’s been loud, there has been crying, screaming, and time-outs (namely from one precious darling).

There has been dinner spilt on the floor, there have been 3 potty accidents, there has been lightning, and thunder (the cause of one of the accidents). There have been power outages (fortunately nothing real long). There have been bumped heads and pinched arms, bedtime tantrums and cranky whining, but now. . . that has all stopped. No one is picking on the other one, stealing their spoon, pushing them off their spot on my lap, a beautiful peace has come over this place.

and that is an answered prayer. I was making dinner and all I kept praying to God for was peace. Oh Lord, just let the chaos subside! and here I am. and here it is. The silence is a glorious thing, but I guess, if we aren't surrounded by the noise first, it’s hard to appreciate the pureness of silence.

The other night in our evening devotions we were talking about silence, and how life is so full of noise, that we forget to bring ourselves into periods of silence so we can really focus on and listen to God's voice coming through it all. I don't do that nearly enough, but right here and right now, God has given me this gift of a time to truly enjoy sitting and enjoying the peace that He brings.

Little Miss Walking

We have another person walking in our home :)

We have had this walker for a couple months now, but only recently has she decided that it is an adventure she is willing to undertake. The way she prefers to use it is backwards, but we're taking little steps and letting her be more comfortable with it (not screaming everytime we try to stand her up in it!) and she is really starting to get the hang of using it. She is loving it going backwards, and is now even starting to get the hang of walking with it the right way (the open end in front of her) too! Although when she's walking with it the right way she enjoys stopping and using it as a seat just to show off :)





Keep Ruby and her walking legs in your prayers!

He multiplies food.

Everyone knows the story about when Jesus and his disciples feed the 5,000 men plus their women and kids with five loaves of bread and two fish. Its one of the great miracles talked about in the Gospels. It truly is amazing to think about how food can simply multiply but I am here to witness to you about how food multiplies here in our little house in Nicaragua. I have always known that God has been multipying food here, but never had a concrete way to testify to it. There have been many times that I am sure He has multiplied our food. Being as we are, we cook for many and always like to have a little extra in case we have unexpected visitors (a not all to uncommon event) and I am constantly amazed at how while serving out the food, there is always enough and it is always plentiful. It doesn't matter what it is (although I notice it a lot with eggs) but God always stretches it to be enough.

Now though, I have a concrete story to back up my theory for anyone who may think I just make it up. God grew our hot dogs. You may laugh and think that its goofy, but it is 100% true. Mary and I were getting lunch ready of hot dogs. Hot dogs come in packages of 24. We get them at Pricemart (think like Sam's club, so real packaging, not just Nicaragua buying where you are told you have 24 but may actually get 20) and the packages come with 24 hot dogs. We buy them frequently, and thats always been the case. BUT Mary and I could just not figure out why after we had counted out all the plates of food, we had one extra hot dog. . . We counted and recounted the plates to make sure we had the right number for the people who were there, and would you know it- there were 25 hot dogs. I fully guarantee you that there were 24 hot dogs in the package and when we cooked them God multiplied it and gave us one more.

If you weren't here to see it, you still may be skeptical, but let me tell you, Mary and I are truly witnesses to a miracle. GOD gave us another hot dog.

The Gospel

Sunday we watched this video at church. We are not finishing the race as winners when we become Christians but instead we are simply begining our part in it all. Jesus has passed on to us the Great Commission, that is our journey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPIOkdNL-QQ

clowns and birthdays

Recently we had a team come by to do a great activity at the school. They dressed up like clowns, sang, did facepainting, put on skits and had jumpy thingys :) Everyone had a blast! Plus it was Amanda's birthday so at the end of the day we got to celebrate with cake!

listening to the music as close as possible to the speakers!