A Hello

Late last week I lost my much loved cat Grace after 10 years.  As sad and heartbreaking as the loss of a beloved pet is, we are thankful that it was a swift and peaceful goodbye after a long love-filed life.

Because my dear husband knows me so well and knows my heart needs often better than I do, Steve took me to the Monadnock Humane Society on Friday afternoon to look around.  These are the wonderful people we thank for Ben's little fur-baby Fender.  It's an amazing place and the staff is outstanding.

In my head I thought we'd look for a long-haired kitten, as we had seen with Fender and Saffron that a kitten introduced into a new household is a fairly easy thing - albeit a lot of work on our part for care and supervision, etc.  They only had one little bitty baby (short-hair) and she was on hold for another family.  So we wandered all around the facility and discovered several good sized rooms full of adult cats.  One room seemed to have an abundance of long-haired beauties lounging around, so we went in to visit.

We read bios taped to the wall and matched name tags on the fuzzies to their stories.  Then a volunteer came in and explained to us that this large group had only come to the shelter at the beginning of December as a transfer from Canada.  There had been about 100 cats seized from a hoarding situation and they had been held as 'evidence' in the legal case for a very long time.  The wonderful people at MHS had taken a portion of the group to find loving forever homes for these beautiful cats.

After petting and holding a few, we found her... they called her Tabouli, but I call her Gypsy and she seems to like her new name.

She is very petite (just over 7lbs) and has green/gold eyes and beautiful black fur marbled with caramel colored markings.  They say she is a black & orange Tortoiseshell but I think she's just plain pretty.  Adjustment is going to be slow for everyone, but I think we are all going to get along just fine eventually.  

A Christmas blessing to swell my heart from the man who loves me so and always wants to make me smile.  I am a most blessed wife.

Blessings on the journey,

Almost Ready

Happy Almost Merry Christmas - less than a week to go!

This is our new Christmas tree.  We bought a pre-lit one this year and are happy with the fact that that we didn't have to fight with light strings and all that this year.  We did have a minor kitten mishap where Fender ate through one strand on the tree 2 days after we set it up, but thankfully Steve is handy and was able to strip out the bad section and re-wire so it all works again. Yay!

I'm way ahead of myself this year with all shopping done and all but 2 gifts wrapped - even the stocking stuffers are bought & wrapped already!  This never happens and I'm not sure what I did that God has so thoroughly blessed this year in these areas.  I'm beyond thankful for this gracious gift of not stressing about these things.

I managed to finish two special projects and it's killing me to not post photos.  Sometimes being done ahead is a nuisance when you really want to share. :-)

Today I did the first of my holiday baking things and had a minor mishap getting the cake out of the pan.  Thankfully there is a nice glaze that goes over the top and it'll be sliced onto a platter to go to work with Steve tomorrow.  So no one will notice a few cracks and given that it is a rum cake that I only ever make for Christmas, I doubt anyone would care anyway.  Win-win!

Tomorrow and Friday I'll do a few batches of various other yummy goodies to send a platter to youth group with B for the Christmas party on Friday evening.  Then I'll be making a batch of cinnamon rolls on Saturday for our church Christmas breakfast on Sunday morning.  This is our first Christmas at this church and I'm feeling very blessed to be able to offer to do something useful to share.  

Enjoy the last week... be kind to yourself and don't stress!  Things will get done or they won't... but none of it impacts the true love and gracious gift we've already received - Jesus!

Blessings,

Compassion at Christmas

A few weeks ago we received a call I hoped would not come.  Though I had read on the Compassion International blog about how things are handled when a child leaves the program, I never thought we'd experience it ourselves.  I was saddened to be wrong, especially so as we'd only been sponsoring Blanca (in Guatemala) for a few months.  The staff at Compassion was very kind and told us what they knew about the reasons for Blanca's leaving the program. We also received a nice closing letter from the communication director of the center in Guatemala.  We were so glad to know that Blanca had accepted Christ as her Savior during her involvement in the program and we will continue to pray for God's hand on her life.

 

Having lost Blanca, the kids & I talked about the need & desire to choose another child as soon as we could.  I had told the staff on the phone that we would log into the website and choose another child ourselves instead of having them choose one for us.  

J and B decided to find a boy that had a birthday near to B's if possible.  So that was the focus of the search, though the kids were also insistent that we only search the children who had been waiting 6 months or longer for a sponsor.  They both think that it is important to find a child who has been waiting... hoping and praying for a sponsor.  To allow a waiting child to know they were chosen... for that child to know they are worthy of someone's love & prayers... especially in time for Christmas.  What a gift to be able to give!  That God has smiled on us to allow us such a privilege...truly humbling and awesome.

So we prayed and we searched and read profiles and found him.

 Fernando (Nando) from Indonesia.  He is 11 and his birthday is just about 2 weeks before B's.  Perfect!  Such a serious face, though I can just imagine that his eyes sparkle when he smiles.  We are praying that God will allow us to build a long relationship with Nando, as we are also building with Fred in Kenya. 

We just received our sponsor packet and can now send a family photo to Nando so he will be able to see us and begin to connect.  I've written to him once already through the Compassion website.  It's an awesome resource they offer to be able to write online and have it go directly to the country office to then be translated and sent out to the project locations for the sponsored child to receive.  It's a quicker process, though I still also write longhand and send paper letters as well.  

These boys are part of my heart now.  God has allowed us the amazing opportunity to make a real difference from a world away.  A chance to connect personally through letters and for a small amount each month... to impact their lives with food, education & opportunity.  Such a gift...for us!

Perhaps you might consider giving (and receiving) such a gift? There are also other ways to help!  You can go to the Compassion Catalog and choose a gift that will make a difference in the life of a child & family for as little as $10.  

There are many programs that offer the chance to give such gifts during the holidays.  Samaritan's Purse and World Vision both have similar programs and are an amazing way to be the hands and feet of Jesus at this time of year.

Blessings on the journey~