Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2:7-10 The Message

Monday, May 5, 2008

Good new bad news

Well today warranted yet another visit to the Orthodontist in Fallon. Good news is Becca has her braces off and retainers in. She is now on a 10 week appointment schedule. Bad news, Grady is going to cost $5000, yes that's three zero's. Ouch! So, even though I made him appointments to get started this summer, I am thinking it will have to wait until next year's tax refund arrives. Bummer. I was really hoping to squeeze him in between Becca's treatments. She will have phase 2 when she is probably 13. Grady's treatment will only last 12 months but he will have to wear retainers pretty much forever:)

We'll have to do some creative budgeting to make it work out for ortho payments. We can only spread them out to 12 months, ugghh!

Other than that bit of news, things are pretty quiet. Busy, but quiet. We are looking forward to going to Staff conference the first week of June. It will be nice to have some time for us to be encouraged. No vacation after conference this year. We'll be heading to Washington the first week of August so we need to start saving up for that trip. With the price of gas continuing to rise, it's $3.82 as of today, that will be our biggest expense, both going to conference and to Washington.

Since we'll be here this year for the last week of school, Butch gets to speak at the Baccalaureate service for the Seniors. We haven't had the opportunity to be a part of it before so it will be nice to be around. I do know that it will be very different than the services we know from Washington. The evening begins with dinner, then the awards banquet and finishes with the service. Graduation is the next night. We have 14 Seniors this year. Not bad for our small town.

The kids are doing well. Spencer has now officially passed me up in height. I think he's 5'10". We haven't measured recently to get an exact height. When they did the baby math he was projected to be 6'4". He's only got six inches to go. Scary. He's only 13!

Becca is a bit apprehensive lately about going to middle school next year. We had briefly discussed home schooling and decided it wasn't what God wanted us to do at this time. Well, Becca is still trying to convince us.

Grady is well... Grady. Easy going, happy go lucky Grady. He is doing well. His grades slipped a bit this quarter but are now back to all A's except for science. It's a B. He doesn't even really have to try at this grades. His science final though is challenging him. He is supposed to collect 25 different bugs, identify them and pin them to a board. He doesn't want to do it and at this point, probably won't do it. He figured out how much it would hurt his grade and decided that it wouldn't affect it all that much. I told him he should ask for an alternate final but that would mean he would have to talk to his teacher. He'd rather take the zero.

Pray for our summer ministries. We'd like to do a Block Party again but have hit a few snags in planning. We will meet again in a few weeks and will hopefully make progress. Pray for wisdom and direction for this event. Last year we reached over 100 people and it brought a lot of kids to VBS that probably wouldn't have come. If it's God's will for us to do this type of event, I know He will give us the ideas and people to plan it.

Pray for Vacation Bible School as well. We have begun our fundraising, asking the people in the church to sponsor kids to come. It will cost $15 per kid and so far, we have 5 sponsored. Not bad for the first week. Our goal is 75. We also need the people in the church to step up and help out. It will take about 25 people to make it run smoothly. We have a youth group coming to help us out and Butch's mom is coming as well, but it is our desire to see most of the staff be those in our church. God is good and I know He will provide the staff that we need. Pray that people's hearts would be moved to get involved.

Lastly, contuine to pray for Nate, Tricia, and Gwyneth. Click the link on the left to find out more about their journey. They have come so far, but still have so far to go. The pictures they have posted are so precious, it's hard to believe that Gwyneth is 4 months old. And Tricia has had her new lungs for a month now. Time flies. Prasie God for His sovereign grace and provision.

Have a blessed week,
Jennifer