My new favorite thing

So it really is just like they say that as your child grows each stage gets better and better. Sometimes that is hard to imagine like when that tiny hand grasps your thumb and everything else in the world goes away. And some other times you grasp onto that hope like a woman on a sinking ship, like when you are in the middle of potty training and you are cleaning up the third accident of the day and it is only 10:30am and nap time is 3 1/2 hours away.

Well we have entered a new stage with Kelton that I just can't get enough of. We have always prayed with Kelton, before meals, before nap, before bedtime, after spankings. But now Kelton has started to pray on his own. I can honestly say that my heart has never felt this before. The emotion that it is filled with to hear my child talking to God is truly beyond words of description. I can only imagine that it is just a glimmer of what it is like to see your child make the choice of their own free to make Jesus the Lord of their life. But for now it is pretty much the coolest thing EVER to hear him talk to God. I'm not quite sure all of what he says but I'm pretty sure that God understands every word. The purity of those moments is nothing short of holy.

Guiding and teaching your child to love and honor God is an awesome responsibility. One that I am not sure I am all that well equipped to do, accept for the fact that God was the one who hired me for the job. And the cool thing is, is that He is still teaching me how to love and honor him and allows me to pass those things on to Kelton. And being in those holy moments with Kelton hearing him talk with his heavenly father just inspires me to enter into my own holy moments with my heaven father.

Lights on, Lights off

There are some parts of living in a foreign country that make life interesting. Some of them you can understand and others you just have to accept. I guess this morning was one of the later.

This morning started out just like a normal Sunday morning. We got up finished our final perparations for worship and began our service just like we always do. Everything seemed to be going fine until about half way through our songs all of the electricity in our building went out. (for those of you who have not seen our building we have no windows in our meeting room and the only light is what comes from our lights or the front door.) Not knowing if this was an unannounced work day for Coelba, our power company, or if it was something with our building we started checking our breakers and the diner across the street. As it turns out it was our breakers. After Keith worked with the breakers for a minute and we moved everyone into our front lobby the power came back on in the building. We invited everyone back in and were able to worship for another 10-20 minutes before the lights went out again.

By the end of the service the eletricity went off three times and was promising a fourth if we did not finish quickly, our main breaker was sparking, and Travis had preached most of his sermon using a flashlight. All in all not the day we had planned, but then again what day is. In the end I think we all made a memory this morning and more importantly we were still together as the family of God. As for our electrical problems that is something to look into this week and just part of the package of our building, but we will get it all straightened out.

Back Home

We made it. We are home now. We arrived yesterday about 2 in the afternoon (11 am for those of you in the Central Time Zone). It is nice to be home and it feels very natural. We are pretty tired. The last few days before we left were fairly busy and the actual travel time to get back home was a little long, so it will take a few days to catch our breath.

Our time in the states was wonderful. Thank you so much for those of you who had us over for dinner, lunch, breakfast, or just gave us a little bit of your time. Although tired from traveling we are very energized and encouraged from our time with you. We cannot say thank you enough for the love we received. Please know that we love you as well. (We know there are few that we did not get to sit down with and we are so sorry. Know that we love you and hold you very dear to our hearts.)

Thank you all. Thanks for the encouargement, the love, the support, the mexican food, thanks for letting us come back. We are looking forward to getting back to work.