May

May was quite the full and busy month. The younger boys had program practice at school most days in the beginning.

Thomas and sons also did some work at a retreat in PA, being gone a few days and leaving Melvin, Christopher and I to see after things here. This included mowing the church lawn. Inexperienced me took Melvin and mower to church with truck and trailer. He did the mowing.

One Monday Verina and I with a few of our children and Mama did up a cow. That means we cut the meat off the bones, ground some of it and packaged it all for the freezer. It is so nice to have meat in the freezer once again.

Stephen spent a week in Texas May 8-15. His friend Samuel teaches school in Lott. Stephen has been wanting to visit him for quite some time so he decided this was the time.

To his dismay as he took in Samuel's year-end events he missed everything here at home. Year-end school events were in progress here as well. And we had a baptism at church that Sunday for four young people.

Christopher, Melvin and Matthew dressed up for the program. 
(I'm not good with photography. The lamp appears to sprout from Christopher's head. :( )

The whole group, singing

Two of my sisters from TX planned to spend a week here in May to help our parents move into their new abode across the yard. Thomas' brother Caleb planned to come to WV for a couple of weeks. 

My niece from TX (right) came along and spent time with Verina's daughter (left). Christopher looks on

This is an unusual sight in my kitchen :)

We asked these travelers if they could plan their arrivals at approximately the same time so we could make only one trip to DC. This they did, with all flights potentially arriving on the evening of May 15.

Things didn't work out quite so well in real life. Caleb's and my sisters' flights came in late and Stephen's was delayed. As we sat around eating and waiting for him, he kept being delayed. He boarded his flight and then all were deplaned.

We finally decided we would head for home and when he came in later, his friend from home would come get him. As we traveled homeward, he called and said his flight was cancelled and rescheduled for the next night at 10:30 PM.

The cause for all the delays was thunderstorms in DC. No flights were coming in and none were going out. Stephen stayed on standby from early morning the following day until 3 PM when they gave him a seat.

Melvin and I went to pick him up. We were thankful that his flight was a bit earlier in the day. With all the evening storms, we were afraid the scenario would repeat if he came later.

The week was a very rainy one. We slogged through lots of mud and water as we worked on final things at the new dwelling and pulled the moving trailer in there.

Freshly painted bedroom with a blue accent wall

There was painting to do and brother Tim came to replace the carpeted bathroom floor with marble tile (he had leftovers from a job). 

This shows the new floor as well as the cabinets that Matthew painted

Work completed and time to rest

My role during this time was to feed everyone. This was a full -time job. Sister Verina helped by making some meals. One evening we enjoyed a mother-daughter banquet our church put on.

Verina, Rosetta, Mama, Rachel, Me

During this week Thomas' mother was also preparing for a yard sale. I asked a friend to help her out and Caleb helped as well. We had church spring cleaning which we are responsible to oversee. Verina's father-in-law was also very ill, so the family was a bit stretched, with outside cares on top of the heavy load here.

The Lord always makes a way through.

I had an interesting experience that week. We had been praying that the power company would come and get electricity hooked up to the trailer. I woke up Friday morning and thought about it. I don't remember if I was praying but in my spirit I had a knowing, "The power company is coming today." 

After awhile I decided to share that conviction. Thomas doubted me. "It's been so rainy and they have power outages to deal with." But as he headed out to a job a while later, he called back to report that they were indeed on their way! 

How happy we were to have lights in the new place. Dim, rainy days and loud generators don't make work situations the most pleasant.

We ended the month in PA. Thomas and sons had one more floor of the hotel to paint and they wanted me to go along. I did and thoroughly enjoyed the time there. 

And I've been working on this post way too long. Here it is the middle of June already. 😊

19 Days Later

Nineteen days ago. That's when I last posted here. It feels like a LONG time ago. The days and weeks continue to march on in rapid succession, leaving little room to breathe.

The white tulip magnolia blossomed out. One by one the other spring flowering bushes and plants are bursting with color. Melvin has been taking pictures of everything. 

One of these times I will have a post devoted solely to daffodils. Before we lived here, I never dreamed there were so many different kinds of daffodils. Everything from early blooming to late blooming.

We had another snow on April the 2nd. Plus, days since where there was snow on the air. After reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I wondered if this is that 21st year.

We finally set out some of the more cold hardy plants. They are in the garden that has a privacy fence around it, which gives them more warmth. The temperature this morning was close to freezing again.

Friday & Saturday last week were beautiful, warm days. But we were away. Thomas & sons left early Friday morning for a job in PA. By mid-afternoon I was on my way to PA with a group from church and Melvin & Christopher were at my sister's place.

The Urban Youth Workers' Retreat was held at Roxbury Camp in Orrstown, PA, beginning Friday evening and continuing through Sunday noon.

Thomas & sons met us there, coming from Penn Valley where they had to repaint the first floor of the new hotel the retreat has been building. They were up there April 5 & 6 to do the job but it ended up being a streaky paint job. Hopefully with the second treatment, it will be good to go.

At UYWR we enjoyed a rich time of teaching and fellowship. The main sessions were addressing brokenness and were taught by Phil Beiler. Very timely instruction for me. 

Other workshops were taught, giving us instruction in relating to different needs in our communities. Attention seekers, RAD's, ADHD, LGBTQ,and abuse. Do we as Christian people have answers to the needs around us?

Of course! It's Jesus! The closer we get to God, the more effectively we can minister His love to those around us. We must embrace painful situations in our lives, accepting them as God's way of breaking our earthen vessels so His light can shine out.

Laundry, house cleaning and cooking are calling my name. Hopefully I'll be back before another nineteen days have passed.

Words of interest-
Vassal
Genera
Imprimatur

J.A.M.

Work has been underway for the 2016 J.A.M. Our church has been reaching out to the children in Romney for a couple years now with the young people doing a lot of the work. A church in Romney allowed us to use their building for our Thursday evening gatherings.

A typical evening went something like this. Gather at 6 pm for setup and prayer. The main area had to have a number of rows of chairs set up for groups 1, 2 & 3, the big girls and the big boys. Groups 1, 2. and 3 were quite young children. Then we had 10-13 yr old children in the big girl/big boy groups. 

At 6:30 the vans went out to pick up the children. As they arrived we gathered on the front lawn until we were all there. Then we organized into our groups and went into the building in an orderly fashion. Each child received a bracelet at this point. If they still had their bracelet at the end of the evening they received a sucker. The way to lose your bracelet was to be naughty.

The first activity was singing. Oh, how we love to sing! Next we got to watch the drama for the evening. The young men usually had a skit of some kind to teach a specific lesson. Following the skit we divided into groups for different classes. The younger children took turns going to the snack room, the craft room, the Bible story room and the game room. 

After the rounds were completed we all returned to the main room to sing another song and say the memory verse. Then we stood to sing Bind us Together and say the Lord's Prayer before heading back to the vans to go home. If their bracelets were still on, they got a sucker from Mr Allen on their way out the door. Sometimes everyone lost their bracelets if Mr Allen had to whistle 3 times for silence.

After the children left we would need to pick up all the chairs, sweep floors and return things to their original positions. When the drivers returned from the home deliveries we held a debriefing meeting yet before going home ourselves.

So what does that have to do with jam? J.A.M. stands for Jesus and Me. We want these children to be touched with the love of Jesus and for that to make a difference in their lives. Sessions ran once a week Thursday evening from the beginning of March to the end of October. 

We have had a few months' break now and time to reflect and regroup. We prayed about a different facility and God opened the doors for us to use an empty store building in Romney, owned by one of our church men. We have built walls to make a number of rooms for the different groups.

This year instead of different rooms for different activities, one group will stay in one room for their activities excepting game time. The way they planned the building will make dispersing simple and streamlined. Each row can pretty much march out of the main area directly to a room on their left without waiting for anyone else.

Having our own building will make it so much nicer in a lot of ways. The setup can stay set up from one week to the next. We have more space and therefore more children could be invited. The time will be changed to Tuesday evening because so often there were school activities on Thursday evening that kept the children from coming. 

One of the young ladies from church knows sign language and is wanting to work with children from the deaf school in Romney. It is exciting to be able to reach out in more ways.

Following are a few photos from today. The boys & I and Grandpa went to help with the painting. Thomas, Stephen and Austin finished the drywall earlier this week. Others were helping with the painting too.

Melvin

Kaleb

Kilmeny

Matthew

Austin

Grandpa

Grandma Judy

Ms Joanna (Oops! The mirror caught me)

Thomas

Ms Martha

Here you can see all the doorways on the right and the stage in the foreground. Thomas was putting leveler on it.

Another room where the window is and Melvin getting a snack in the foreground. (Banana with peanut butter)

What did you do today?

What ministry has God called you to?

Don't think any place of service is small!