Holding on...

Posted on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 07:51 by Chas - 4 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Good Morning!  I hope everything is well for you this morning.  We are doing alright... trying to be patient, keeping our trust in the Lord and waiting on His good timing.  Today is supposed to be the day, but with Shannon having to work out of town, as long as he is on this job, he has a job.  So, that is a good thing.  His boss said to him that it would be best for him to stay on this job as long as possible, because when he finishes there will not be any more work for him.
So for now, I am holding on.  Holding on to the promises, holding on to His strength, holding on to my family and knowing come what may, I am truly and abundantly blessed.
My Cup Runneth Over...

How Did You...

Posted on 2008-Sep-2 at 01:49 by Kim Wolf<>< - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

We found out when we met the Gregg and Sono Harris family. They used to live in Dayton, Ohio and they led me to the Lord, introduced me the that handsome man in the pic who would later become my husband and told us that they homeschool their son. Yep...the cute little kid in the pic is Josh "I Kissed Dating Good-bye" Harris when he was about 8 years old! He was my little buddy and the 1st homeschooled kid I'd ever met.

... KW

Back from Vacation!

Posted on 2008-Sep-2 at 12:49 by Kim Wolf<>< - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

I always feel pushed and pulled in both directions when it's time to come home from vacation...ESPECIALLY when we have been to one of our favorite places!

We LOVE going to Lakeside, Ohio - on Lake Erie - every year.  A family that is some of our best friends has a cottage in Lakeside that we go to every year.  And...every year...even though it is one of the hardest places for us to leave...it's always so good to walk into our own home.  Isn't it funny how the Lord gives us such a heart for our homes?  The whole way home I am internally whining because we have to leave the cottage and our daily walks along the lake shore, the fun vacation food (diets DO NOT EXIST on vacation!), sight-seeing, cool lake breezes even on hot days...and then as soon as I walk into my home I'm so glad to be here!

The Lord is good in giving us a heart for our homes.

Here are a few pics of Lakeside...

Jenna outside the cottage.

This was in 2000 at Marblehead Lighthouse...just east of Lakeside.

I'll have to scan some more recent pics of our trips.  Hope you enjoyed these.

Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

Up-Date on Thesis!!

Posted on 2008-Sep-1 at 12:23 by Kim Wolf<>< - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link

I am excited to say that before we left for vacation that my pastor/dean e-mailed me and said that he really liked my thesis.  I also found out that I will be graduating w/HONORS!!!  WOOHOO!!!  Oh, how I would like to show my high school teachers THAT bit of news!  lol 

Another cool thing...our friends - whose cottage we were staying at - came up to the cottage the day we left.  So, we had lunch w/then before we headed out.  The husband of that family is also on the board of directors of the little seminary I'm attending.  He said that they had a meeting just before they left and that Joe (our pastor/dean) even commented to everyone about how good he thought my thesis was!!!  I am competely shell-shocked!  My biggest worry was that it wouldn't be "academic" enough.  Maybe I'll post it sometime...but it's LOOOONG.  We'll see.

Thanks SO MUCH for your prayers!!

Blessings, Kim Wolf

Angels watching over us

Posted on September 1, 2008 at 11:36 by Karen - 4 Comments - Post Comment - Link

We are experiencing the calm before the storm here.  So far it's just drizzeling rain and a little windy.  We are expecting it to be bad between 5 and 7 pm.    I didn't think I'd have time to post today but I'm glad I do.  Several family members have phoned to check on us this morning and I called my daughter to check on them.  As of now at 10:38 am we are just watching and waiting.  I do wonder about Kitty and have been praying for her. 

Thank you all so much for your kind words and thoughts and prayers.   I'm over my pity party about feeling that I wasn't missed while I was away.  I would delete the post altogether if it weren't for the nice things you had to say. Thank you all for putting up with me.  How special YOU are!

I have this thing that I do...I feel I have the need to get things neat and spic and span before we go out of town on a trip.  And I've found the same rule applies to hurricanes!  It would probably be called a nervous habit!  My hubby seems to be the same way.  I think I started out that way first maybe and gradually after almost 26 years of marriage we have grown into in some ways the same person!  LOL  So he's been working hard around the place outside and I've been working inside.  I just finished up the last thing that was in the laundry hamper and all is put away.

  I notice I'm running that central air conditioner pretty steady today, remembering what it was like after Katrina without it for over a week in scorching heat!  ugh... :  [  Would you believe after  being so proud we had gotten a generator since Katrina that when we tested it this morning it didn't work??  It has worked fine until this morning!!  So my hubby had to go and get another one (sob, whimper) and we are fortunate that there were any in stock at all.  So that shows  the stores are more prepared this go 'round thankfully.  So that's 1000 bucks we'll have to work towards paying off after JUST getting our credit card paid off for the first time in years.  (wah-ha-haaaaa-haa-haaa!)

Well, with all the trees out here where we live the power will likely be going off soon so I better say goodbye and watch the weather channel while I can.

ta-ta for now~

Much Love

Posted on Monday, September 1, 2008 at 08:11 by Chas - 9 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Honestly... how sweet are you guys? Thank you so much for your heartfelt comments on my last post, well, all my posts... you guys are terrific.  I truly know God's Hand is at work in our situation.  I am confident that we will be victorious through this trial.  xoxo
Something rather exciting is coming up 'if' I can get things moving.  There is a craft show at the end of this month that I am going to enter.   I KNOW!  I have never entered a craft fair before.  No, it is not one that you win a prize or anything, just one that you rent a booth and set up.  I have some things in the works...
Pumpkins of course... it is the perfect time of year for them... and I just LOVE them!
My dishcloths...
The quilted table square I have made and hopefully a few more...
Maybe some soft shoes...
My sweetie snowman...
Maybe a few of these Lil' Pumpkin Onesies...
My head is SPINNING! I am so excited and I just want to get things made so I can do this.  If this year I do alright I could really plan and enter next year and be able to make things ALL year until the time of the fair. 
If you are interested any almost any of these items you can visit My Etsy~Heritage Acres Farm Goods most everything is there.  Have a great day friends, enjoy this Labor Day with your family!
Love to you all,

Fellow Believers, please pray. The hurricane is coming

Posted on August 31, 2008 at 10:19 by Karen - 5 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Please pray for those of us who are bracing ourselves for the hurricane.  I don't know who all here at HSB that includes but I do know our friend,Kitty is in dire straights living only 50 miles inland in Louisiana.  They have no where to go and she has a very sick mother in her home that has been having hospice come in and care for a little each week.  She can't put her in a nursing home or hospital - they have all been evacuated.  Not to mention she has her children and everything she owns.  When I spoke to her she said she believed in the power of prayer and is pleading for us to intervene on their behalf.  I'm in SW Mississippi and for the first time in my life our area has a mandatory evacuation of those living in mobile homes. 

Thank you, and I will report as soon as I can. 

Leanne’s Mission Trip, Part Four

Posted on 2008-Aug-31 at 04:33 by Crystal Miller - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Leanne and her team members spent some time (while not doing concrete work ~smile~) with the children of the orphanage.  Here are a few pictures…

They made a trip into the town of Assuit, where the orphanage is located, and it was quite an experience.  They had to have "tourist police" escort them.  Here are some pictures of the town.  The water you is the Nile River.

Transportation varied quite a bit!  In the pictures below you can see a cart being pulled by a donkey and cars driving along side!

Assuit is an agricultural area and there was lots of green fields Leanne said it was obvious to see where the farm land ended.. everything beyond was brown.

I have more pictures to share from the orphange, other sites they saw in Assuit as well as the pyrimids and Cairo.  I hope to be able to get those in the next "mission trip" blog posting.. 

Leanne has a bit more to share with you about her time at the orphanage … 

Egypt
Leanne Miller 

     Once again we were up at five thirty every morning in Egypt. We had ten minutes to get ready and be outside, where we then waited for the boys (they slept on the other side in the boys’ dorms), who were always late. We worked until eight and then stopped for breakfast. It was a nice break with our thirty minutes of quiet Bible reading time included. Then it was back out to work. We worked for about four hours until lunch break came around. The last part of our workday was never steady in how many more hours we were going to work because you can’t leave an almost finished slab of concrete to dry. That is why sometimes we worked nine hour days. We had another Bible study when we were done working, then bath and laundry time, and sometimes we had another Bible study, though this one the boys and girls separated. Dinner followed shortly, we had a little bit of free time, and then one of the team members, whoever had kitchen duty that day, would lead another Bible study at night. We had library reading time after that and then it was off to bed.

   The Orphanage hired a man to do the finishing touches, like smoothing out the top so when it dries it is nice and smooth. His name was Niem. He believed there was a God but that was the extent of his faith. He had a bad opinion of Americans because he’d worked in a lot of touristy places where he’d met a lot of Americans, who didn’t talk, act or dress in any way that would give him any other kind of opinion. The way we dressed (as do most Christian organizations we had a dress code we followed) especially caught his attention, and when he asked one of our Egyptian leaders, who oversaw our work, why we dress like we do he was able to say we dress modestly because of our God. Anyway, his opinion of Americans was completely changed and it was an opportunity for someone to share Christianity with him. It was really neat.

   As well as working we also put together presentations for the children.  On Sundays we had two presentations we did. One in the morning and one in the evening, and we also had one on Wednesday’s in the evening. A presentation consisted of around eight songs (we even learned how to sing a song in Arabic!), a puppet show, and two testimonies. Once in a while we would even do a skit. One of our leaders would then give a massage. Everything, except the songs we sang, was done through a translator. It only got complicated when our translator (we had more then one) didn’t know what a word meant and then one of our leaders or team members would have to find a way to describe the word. I never spoke through a translator, but I have played games where you have to describe a word and it isn’t always easy to do.

More to come…  

Ssd, sad news....

Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 10:53 by Abundant Blessings Farm - 3 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Another tragedy

Posted on Saturday, August 30, 2008 at 10:52 by Abundant Blessings Farm - 7 Comments - Post Comment - Link