Wayfaring Stranger- A Family Project

This was a project that we were able to complete this summer. We had a lot of fun working on it. We sewed the costumes, worked on the music, recorded it, filmed it on a very wet and rainy day and then Jonathan edited it. We have much room for improvement in all those areas but we enjoyed the results - we hope you do too!

Life Is Ever Changing....

Mara and her apartment mates

Whenever I take a long hiatus from this blog, which has happened far more than I would wish this year,  it is always hard to know what to write about first when I blog again. I decided I should start with some big things.

  Our life has changed quite a bit around here because Mara has moved away from home. She is now down in Texas and Adventures In Missions. We have now been home without her for 2 1/2 weeks. It still feels strange not to have her at the dinner table, not to tell her goodnight and have her sweep the floor. Our floor is struggling to stay clean with Mara gone. She is with 33 other like minded young people who have a pretty intense schedule for the next 8 months to work at learning their Bible better, to learn some skills needed for being a missionary and grow in their walk with Jesus Christ.

  Mara is sharing an apartment with 3 other girls. It is in an apartment complex with all the other students as well. The learning opportunities go far beyond her actual classes as living with people she didn't know and making many other new decisions have been learning experiences as well.

 She is happy to be at AIM but it hasn't all been fun and easy as the major fatigue along with dizziness that she had been experiencing a lot earlier this year has come back pretty full force with the busy schedule she has. So I am doing a lot of praying for her, trying to advise from afar and seeking to give it to God and not worry. I covet your prayers for her as well. We had visited a doctor several times this past year and had gotten a lot of tests done (blood work, echos, etc) but the only thing that the tests brought out was low Vitamin D and B and low Iron. She started taking supplements for all those and also started using electronics less (mostly because her college classes were done) and her headaches really got a lot less frequent and she had some more energy. We were really hoping she was better but unfortunately she wasn't truly all the way. We don't know if there is something more causing problems, that mono is still hanging on from a year and a half ago or what the deal is. She has the classic symptoms for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but there are no "fixes" for that and I would like to see it fixed. But for now she is working to find ways to manage it and we are seeing what we can do about fixing it and we pray.

 I would not be accurately reporting to not mention another change of sorts this year. Thomas, a special friend of Mara's was in our neighborhood this summer and we got to see a lot of him. It was fun to get to know him better and we are assuming that we might be seeing a lot of him in the future as well. Sorry for the weird photo for this one.

 Life is changing for this boy of mine as well. On Monday he started classes at the Local Technical College. He is taking the Electrical Construction course. Jonathan is a junior in highschool (homeschooled) and so is taking this with the PSEO program. Jonathan already been my pretty independent boy as he got his drivers license as soon as he turned 16 and before that he had bought his own car. He enjoys working and this summer put in 50 plus hours many weeks working two different jobs.

  Poor Jonathan started school this week while dealing with a bad cold. So his take on it has been up and down. He came home on Monday saying it was going to be a lot of fun, on Tuesday he was ready to quit and today he thought it was going to be okay. Change isn't always easy for him and I don't think all of this course is going to be a ton of fun but I think he will do fine and will actually enjoy a lot of it.

So those are the big changes at our house. We are left with just two students for our homeschool and Aaron is working a couple of days a week. So then it is just Megan and I.

 Life changes but much stays the same....
Late summer still brings a bountiful crop from the gardens and my parents' orchards. So the canner is being used, the dehydrator is humming away in the kitchen and we are eating many delicious straight from the garden meals.

 This time of year brings many weddings and henceforth a lot of playing with flowers for me.

 We still love spending time together as a family. We still have a Savior who loves us and who died to take our sins away. We are so blessed!