Tara here, posting from the land of lots to buy and much to do.
Britt and Paige have been busy with their swim team stuff. Both girls said tonight how different it is to be apart so many hours of the day ... we really did learn to work as a team in Haiti -- we all decided it is a really nice way to live. They are happy to be swimming, just wishing it demanded a little less of their time. The team has been very kind and has embraced them.
Tomorrow night is the first football game of the year. The boys are VERY excited to go. Britt and Paige both get to help Uncle Matt on the sidelines. Paige is the water runner and Britt is a note-taker. Matt is an intense coach, I keep warning them not to expect "Uncle" Matt out there --- it will very much be COACH Matt. The first game is against one of the best teams in the entire state, kind of a bummer ... but I am going to watch the coach, the water girl, and the notetaker ... the football game is the side-show.
Hope and Isaac went to meet their teacher. I need to tell her they are only staying until January 1st, just have not gotten to it yet. She seems very nice. On the way home they argued about how to pronounce her name. It is all very interesting to observe. Hope and Isaac are as different as two kids can be, I think it will be entertaining to hear their take on school and new kids and all of it. Isaac thinks the school looks like a Doctors office. I have no idea what that means, but that is what he said. They start Tuesday. They are all set to go. My friend Lisa did an amazing job of garage sale and Good Will shopping for them. We have not needed winter clothes for a long time. Both Hope and Ike have grown six inches or more, but Lisa found really nice stuff for them and spent almost nothing doing it. I am so over the whole shopping thing, it is a huge blessing to not have to go do that now too. THANK YOU SUPREME SHOPPER LISA!!!!
She also got the other kids things too. We need to come up with one or two winter coats but that is it! Paige took in a major haul from a friend of Britt's and now needs nothing else. We're feeling pretty blessed by all of it!
I had an OB appt today. The Doctor said, "You did amazing your weight is great, we should send all of our ladies to Haiti for seven or eight months of their pregnancy." Take that Dr. Guichard. So odd the totally opposite opinions these two guys have about what I weigh. My C-section got moved by a day, not that a day matters --- but my Dad is leaving for a long mission trip to the Ukraine the night before the baby comes now ... that makes me sad. Sigh.
Troy had an AMAZING day in Haiti today ... but neither he nor I have the energy to fully tell the story tonight. He is in bed already, and I need to head there too. I will share sometime this weekend. Troy sent this devotional to me yesterday, we both really liked it ... it is very fitting for us right now, we thought maybe you would enjoy it too.
Happy Labor Day Weekend,
Tara
SUBLIME INTIMACY - My Utmost for His Highest
Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe,
thou shouldest see the glory of God?"
John 11:40
Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will find something in your common-sense circumstances that flatly contradicts your faith.
Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture heroically on Jesus Christ's statements when the facts of your common-sense life shout - "It's a lie?" On the mount it is easy to say - 'Oh, yes, I believe God can do
it'; but you have to come down into the demon-possessed valley and meet with facts that laugh ironically at the whole of your mount-of-transfiguration belief. Every time my programme of belief is clear to my own mind, I come across something that contradicts it. Let me say I believe God will supply all my need, and then let me run dry, with no outlook, and see whether I will go through the trial of faith, or whether I will sink back to something lower.
Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just now? The test will either prove that your faith is right, or it will kill it. "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me." The final thing is confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly on Him and all you come up against will develop your faith.
There is continual testing in the life of faith, and the last great test is death. May God keep us in fighting trim! Faith is
unutterable trust in God, trust which never dreams that He will not stand by us.
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