here’s a bit of a devotional to help start your week- enjoy!

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do dogs have milk cartons where they put their missing puppies? because I think we found one.

 we recently found this dog eating all of our cat’s food. we were shooing it away and found that it’s been living under a table that was leaned up against the back wall of our church next door.

 not sure what to do with it now. any takers??

See and download the full gallery on posterous

as we enter a new month and new phase of ministry life, abe and I have decided to add a new format & hopefully more regularity to this blog. we look forward to sharing parenting & marriage insights with you as well as quick & easy recipes & podcasts on various topics. don’t miss out on a single edition – we’re gonna have a lot of fun!

some are probably saying “it’s about time”, but i’ve finally put an official online giving link on our blog for your convenience to partner with us in our journey to staff with FamilyLife.

we’ve been so blessed the past few weeks as we’ve shared with people what God is doing in our lives, in the ministry of FamilyLife and how he’s brought us together. we’ve seen people become excited to partner with us and the ministry of FamilyLife.

well, it’s crunch time people. we’ve only got 15 days left till we leave for Orlando. back in June we were encouraged/challenged to raise $6000 to cover the expenses of New Staff Training and the Follow-up Training. so far we’ve received a little over 50% of that in pledges towards that $6000 goal.  yet we’ve only been given in hand a little over 30% of it.

so, for those of you who needed a reminder to fulfill your pledge or perhaps you were waiting for a more convenient way to give (because honestly, who in the world still uses checks?), here it is.

on the right you’ll see an Online Giving button/link that will take you directly to the giving page on Campus Crusade for Christ’s website where you can give towards our ministry.  it’s a simple process.

1. first, you’ll be asked for an amount and frequency (special needs gift or ongoing monthly or quarterly gift). you can also add a note for us in this step.
2. then, you’ll be asked to give as a guest or log in with your account (if you’ve given to Campus Crusade before-not necessary though).
3. third, you’ll be asked for your contact info.
4. finally, it will ask for your method of payment – bank withdrawal or debit/credit card.

by default it asks for a bank withdrawal using your bank account # and routing #. this is the default method since there aren’t any fees associated with it charged to our account. if you use a debit/credit card our account (not yours) is charged the 2-3% processing fee that Visa/Mastercard/Discover/etc. charges to Campus Crusade.  in other words if you choose to give $100 using a debit/credit card, we’ll actually only receive $97 or $98 because of the fees (you’ll still receive a receipt for a donation of $100 though).

we could care less by which method you choose, we are so grateful to every person who is able to partner with us; be it with $100, $1000, or $1.  we’re simply glad that you’ve obeyed God in what he’s asked you to do, and trust that He’ll take care of our every need.  but for some, you may feel it’s worth the extra effort to pull out the seldom used checkbook to find your account and routing #s in order to make sure that every penny of your donation gets credited to our account.

once again, a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have already given, or are planning to give. we’ve got 15 days left till we leave for our first training and we’ll have much more information and vision to pass along in the coming weeks and months as we enjoy (and labor through) this next season of our lives.

so click on the link to the right or the button below.

i have been quietly amused the last couple days as the first day of school approaches and parents are filling the stores to get the list.

i’m amused for a couple reasons. the first is because there’s like a bazillion things on the list that i never needed when i was in grade school.

secondly, because the kids read the lists and get all in a tizzy if the parents can’t get something on the list. as if they really needed a box of wipes, 4 DOZEN pencils, box of goldfish crackers, 6 – 1 inch 3 ring binders, and a big box of Kleenex for their education on the FIRST day of school.

sometimes the store has run out of an item (like big erasers, in our case), because there’s a bazillion other parents all getting the same items on the list. or perhaps because the parents simply can’t afford to get everything. including backpacks our family spent over $150 on school supplies this year. and that was for only 3 girls. i can only imagine how much we’ll spend once all 6 are in school. or sometimes it’s because the parents protest to buying everything on the list because they don’t think it’s needed for their child on the FIRST day.

and that leads me to my third reason for amusement. because the fact is those parents have good reason to protest. most schools are facing budget deficits and they put these things on “the list” and then put them all into one “pool” for the class to use.

so what amuses me about this is that our church is currently collecting school supplies to hand out to needy families. and so parents (and yes, i’ve heard more than one) who are complaining about having to buy all these items on “the list” for other people’s kids – because their parents aren’t responsible enough to get them – are at the same time feeling good about themselves for buying some school supplies for “other people’s kids”.

it’s kinda funny. :)

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the List.pdf (47 KB)

with lists in hand, we’re headed school supplies shopping.
 
hmm…I don’t remember Kleenex being on the official school supply list when I was growing up.

who wouldn’t be happy and know it if they got to come home to this.

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I love my family life.