This weekend I had the privilege to travel to North Carolina to meet DJ's host mom. This amazing woman, who is one of the most joyful women I've met, loved on our sweet boy for a whole month during the summer of 2016. The love of Jesus just oozes out of her. It was such a joy to finally meet my sweet sister in Christ in person and give her a hug. We have texted and chatted on the phone numerous times. Not only did I get to meet her, I was able to meet her sweet family. Michelle has four of the sweetest boys. I enjoyed my time with them so much.
I love the way God weaves lives together for a bigger purpose. Because of hosting, we now have extended family in North Carolina. Not only do we now have this special family in our lives, Michelle has played a huge role in helping me advocate for orphans. Michelle is a HUGE orphan advocate and has a heart to match her passion for orphans. I was so excited to visit Sage Harvest , a local business that is run by another passionate orphan advocate. Profits from this business go to help support orphan causes. I met the owner at church the following day and to see her passion for children was contagious. God used my time in North Carolina to stir a deeper commitment to Him and to what He wants me to be doing.
Michelle and I have talked for months about getting together and finding a race in North Carolina to run together. Since my bucket list is to run a half marathon in every state, it seemed to be the perfect idea. Only God can work out details like He did for this race. North Carolina was state #25, that means it was my half-way mark for my goal. We decided to make the most of this race and run for a cause. There is a super sweet boy that was hosted the summer of 2016 with DJ and Shan Chen. This sweet boy is still waiting for his forever family. We decided to run for him and to raise money for his adoption. We hoped to encourage his family to RUN to him like we were running for him. God is so good! We decided to run in faith that God would bring in the money we were hoping to raise ($2620 - $100 for every mile the two of us were running). The morning of the race, we were at around $600. By the end of the race we were at around $1000. God is so amazing in how He works. Yesterday, we reached our goal!! Thank you to everyone who supported Little Leo and his adoption! Little Leo still needs a family! Could you be the mama to this sweet little boy? If you want more information, Michelle has a great post on her blog about him.
We finished!!! Michelle is the best cheerleader, even while she is running. Her joy is contagious...I even learned, at the end of the race, that smiling can make everything feel better.
We visited the Billy Graham library. It was beautiful to learn more about the faithful man of God he was during his life here on earth.
After the race, I stayed with Michelle and her boys. I taught them how to make cinnamon rolls, which was a blast! We all got very messy.
The night before the race, we took our freedom from kids to heart. We found a cute French bakery and had dessert for dinner (a decision I regretted every mile the next day during our race).
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Having Wayne home has been such a blessing. He has been helping me teach the kids and balance everything. It has been especially helpful the past week since we have had numerous doctor and dentist appointments.
Sophia on her date with Wayne for her 11th birthday!
We are studying Zoology right now at our Thursday class. We recently dissected owl pellets. This weekend, the kids will get to experience farm life at my parents house and will dissect a chicken!
Micaela was a little grossed out by everything, but Sophia thought it was great!
Reports on birds.
Naomi found a honey bee that was struggling and brought it to the flowers to help save it. She just loves animals.
We made bird nests for snack at class. Hopefully fun projects like this will help the kids remember what they are learning.
Thank you for continuing to pray for our family!