BROTHERS!

All of the children were laying on their bellies coloring this afternoon...music was playing, everyone was happy. I looked up and this is what I saw:


Derek had taken one of Kevin's socks, stuffed Ellie's dolly into it, then tied it to a coat hanger...and hung the poor thing from the curtain rod! Ellie didn't even notice until we pointed it out to her. Her reaction was quite funny...she looked up and smirked like she was thinking, "Now Baby, how DID you get up there?" Then she ran towards the baby doll with her hands stretching up trying to save her.

Having a girl after all of these boys sure is interesting!

Ellie's Lizard...part II

Remember when I said, "I walked out of the room and when I came back in...her head was in the pitcher."?

Well, later on tonight...Nathan brought the pitcher to me. I looked at the dragon, and he was not well. In fact he was not moving...at all. I thought he might be playing dead? So I dripped some water on his body(chinese water torture), to see if he would move...he did, just a teeny bit, (nerves maybe?) I left the pitcher in the sink, to see if the thing would start moving if left alone. Then I continued cooking my supper. I checked back a little while later...uh oh...not good, he was on his back. Never saw a lizard do that trick. He was soooo dead. Although I had goosebumps all over my body, I picked him up with a papertowel, and it was then that I noticed...his back leg was missing.

Now, when he was on my dishes...I do remember seeing four legs...I think? I really hope Ellie didn't eat his leg...that is just nasty. I think I'll go throw up now.

I was frantically searching for a camera while her head was in that pitcher...but Kevin had it with him at the Bible study tonight.

Ellie's Lizard

As I walked into the kitchen to start supper....peering at me with little black eyes...was a lizard. He was sitting on my clean dishes. He didn't move. I screamed for Derek a couple of times, and then he came running. He grabbed a gallon pitcher and scooped him up, and put the lid on. The menacing thing was about 4 inches long, and 1inch wide. Just creepy. Funny my boys are always catching these things and chasing them...but they give me the willeys! (Whatever willeys are?) Nathan discovered the little guy and started carrying around the pitcher. That's fine, as long as he leaves the lid on right? But then, how can he see him? So off the lid comes. I walked into another room to get something, and when I walked back into the kitchen...Ellie had the pitcher. Her entire HEAD WAS IN THE PITCHER!!! She was giggling! I was not. My only little girl is NOT GOING TO LIKE LIZARDS!! Yet, there she was...face in pitcher...making friends with a reptile. Not good. If that wasn't bad enough, she held the pitcher with one hand, smiled up at me, and then stuck her hand INTO THE PITCHER WITH THAT BEAST!!! I was shreiking at this point, yelling for Derek...I just couldn't touch it!! Then...THEN...SHE DID IT....she grabbed the lizard and pulled him out of the pitcher. And there she was. My princess, my angel, my one girl, with the biggest smile I have ever seen on her little face. The kind of smile, where the eyebrows lift up, and the eyes almost jump out at you. There she was, with that smile....and a lizard in her hand. Precious.

In His Time

My heart is overloaded...weighted down with saddness. Trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy. A dear friend of ours lost their teenage daughter today. She was a Senior in high school. I could go on and on about Amanda. Laughter, she was always laughing. Not just the occasional belly laugh, or a sporadic giggle...she laughed all the time...and her smile was always on her face. It took up most of her face.

I remember the first time she came to my house with her older sister to babysit. I think she was 8 or 9. She was so excited to be helping her big sister on a babysitting job. She would come every so often. Always smiling. Playing with the children. At church I would see her either with her sisters or friends, always smiling and friendly to everyone. She just loved life.

When Nathan was born he had seizures and was transported to Chicago. We had three other children at home, and was desperately searching for someone to watch them so we could both be with our new baby. Amanda and her older sister Allison came to our house, and stayed overnight for a few days watching our children. Allison was in high school, Amanda was in Junior High. We made it back to town one evening around dinner to check on the other boys. When we walked in, Amanda was washing clothes, and Allison was washing dishes. The house was clean, the boys were happy. They are just caring and giving people.

So many memories. I remember always seeing her with her Dad, walking many times with her arm entwined in his. Smiling. How his arm will ache for her to hold it one more time.

The only comfort I find is through tears of grief...and in knowing that God has a time for us. A time to be born, and a time to die. It is already written down in heaven...our time, her time. As it is appointed unto a man to die...so it was appointed unto her to die. It was in His time....not ours.

The still small voice.

David has come to me two days in a row now. Both times he had been playing outside, both times he had a very saddened look on his face. Both times he said, he heard someone in his heart telling him to leave his family. He didn't want to leave his family, but this "voice" kept talking to his heart. After a discussion on Samuel and David in the Bible...I told him, "The Lord may be talking to your heart, but he doesn't want you to leave NOW...he just wants you to know that He is speaking to you...and He wants to know that you hear HIM. "

It is an odd thing to see one so young, concerned because God is speaking to him. We have never talked to the boys about God speaking inside of your heart. We've taught them many things, but never specifically this thing. It frightens me. It reminds me that God has chosen all of my children for a very special purpose, that I know nothing of. This causes me to tremble, thinking that I have in my home a servant of Almighty God, and though still a child, God has great plans for him. How I long to be a Godly mother, and point my children to the Lord.

My little monkeys

The boys have just adapted so well to Jamaica. It amazes me. Of course I should've known!! Lizards, moutain trails, wild fruit growing everywhere...besides all of the little girls chasing them just to rub their head! They love to rub the "white boys" heads, and touch their skin. Poor Ellie has been pinched by nursery babies many times. Babies who may have never seen a white baby before.

It has been a time of learning for them as well. They have seen poverty first hand. They have held the babies that have no food. They have seen the one room where an entire family sleeps. They have walked the mountain trails, with bags of food to feed the poor...the poor. I mean really poor. Not "American" poor. Not lazy. Men, building apartments, mixing the mortar in a whell barrow. Carrying cinderblocks, passing them up, to form a wall. Men digging with shovels...men doing anything they can to buy for their family. Selling tangerines walking from car to car for hours. Men painting on the side of the road...hoping someone, anyone, will buy one of their paintings. Even the women are hard workers. They come to the market on Monday...some sleep in the market until Saturday, then ride the bus home. The Jamaican people are hard workers, but they are still very poor.

It has been good. My children have learned through seeing. Hopefully they will never forget.