why am i doing this?

I have a great friend who is a blogger! She's been doing it for months and her blog ALWAYS make me laugh (she has 4 kids; need I say more?) Well, she convinced me that I needed to set up a blog about Malawi and all my "life." I can't write like her--> I don't think like her and I don't take the time to blog. But, I've tried to keep up with it as best as possible and now I think I finally have something to share.

We've moved and although things could've been worse; we've had some bad days. Christian was in tears the first day of school. He had to eat lunch with 7th graders because of some scheduling problem. Tears over the weekend when his acquaintances weren't available to "hang" and he's missing his Franklin friends. I know, friendships all take time and there's going to be an adjustment period, but I don't want him to hate it here. My biggest fear is that he's NEVER going to make as good of friends here as he had in Franklin and I know they will never be like his Franklin friends I just want him to have good friends that will keep him accountable and true to himself. I don't know the kids that are "potential" friends; I don't know their parents; I don't know if these are good kids. I am not in control....... I am not in control.....

I've been praying about the church we've visited the last 3 Sundays. It's good, but not like home. The minister hasn't spoken (he's on a month sabatical), but I've liked the ministers he's chosen to fill in. The music is a little slow--> nothing can compare to all the talent at People's Church, I will forever be spoiled & ruined! Sophie loves her Sunday School and Christian thinks that this middle school is probably the best around, but not as good as People's Church. So, I'm thinking that we're just settling. I've been praying that God would make it obvious that this is the right church or that we should move on to visit other churches.

I'm guessing about a year and a half ago I started reading passages throughout the bible trying to figure out why there is so much pain & suffering in the world. Our God is huge and He can do anything; so, why doesn't he? Why won't he save the children from starvation? Why doesn't he protect the young mother dying from cancer? And, I never really came up with a real concrete answer and I guess I was ok with that because I know we are supposed to have childlike faith and we'll never have all the answers; my job is to believe. And, I'm not in control...

So, this Sunday at church we're doing a series called the "One thing I want you to know...". And, Kyle Idleman, wanted us to know the one thing is that God is in control and he does care.

He went to scripture and looked in the book of Job. Job has lost everything; his animals, food & his children. His body is in sores and his wife tells him to turn his back on God. God doesn't care. Job, cries out to the Lord. And, finally God answers, but with questions; not really answers. God asks where was Job when he created the world? Where was Job when he told the waters where to stop? What is the way to the creation of light? God is in control; not I, and although there is suffering I have to know that God is in control. In Psalm 8, David is contemplating all that God has created and then that he has created man a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory & honor. God, does love us and he does care.

Kyle Idelman, gave this analogy that really opened my eyes. He said that he had just taken his son (he's 4) to the doctor to have shots. He could've explained why the shots were important and how it would prevent him from getting sick later down the road, but his son was so upset about the pain right now that he couldn't see the future down the road. Picture a father holding his son tight telling him to keep his eyes on him; don't look at the shots; eyes on me I'm in charge. My mind can't get around all the suffering in this world and I wish we could solve it, but I can understand the example explained to me at church and I think that was my answer I was looking for and maybe our new church home.

And, on a lighter note..

The pictures above are from the football game Christian played last night. They are the Frankfort hot dogs and I had to take a picture because my coffee clatch friends will need something to laugh over.

We're here!

We're in our house and the boxes are slowly, but surely leaving! I've found that once I got the boxes unpacked in the living room/kitchen and bedrooms that the rest of the house is unpacking more slowly. No pictures of been hung, so it looks a little blah! And, some of the rooms aren't quite arranged the way I would like. I finally found Sophie's comforter today in the Christmas decoration boxes! She has patiently waited for her comforter and every time I was sure I had the right box it was linens to another bedroom! We had to take out two door frames to get couches into rooms. Now, we're meeting with handymen that can fix it and maybe do some bookshelves in our office. It seems so crazy to me that the builder would put in a smaller than normal door frame going into the basement when he knew the basement was going to be used for a family/game room.

This is the front of our house on move in day. I never thought I would have enough stuff to fill a whole 53' semi.... I've realized that I can't part with any of the kids old toys from when they were toddlers.

This beautiful scene is in our backyard everyday. The horses from the riding stables come down to the back of our yard and we feed them apples and carrots. The brown horse is the bully and he tries to chase the other horses away so he can get all the carrots for himself.

Here is our half pipe getting loaded on Johnny's flatbed truck. Scott's friend volunteered to load the half-pipe and drive it to us; he's probably rethinking this whole deal! I had a hard time watching them load it and then unload it, but it made it in one piece. Christian is so happy to have it.

Our yard is 1/2 an acre and I had to take a picture of Jay using our neighbors riding lawnmower. Initially, he had Christian mow it with our 20" mower which took him about 2 hours to mow our yard (he had nothing else to do anyway -> kept him from getting bored!) But, it started to get too long and so Jay was going to mow it, but our mower kept bogging down because the grass was too long. Our neighbor took pity on him and let him borrow his John Deere. Jay came in the house saying, "we've got to get one of those!"