Moving Northward

 

Big changes are coming very soon for our little family. After much prayer and many sleepless nights, Brett and I have accepted a position as senior pastor at a small rural church in Vermont. VERMONT! It is somewhere we never imagined ourselves going. We love the south and for a long time we were considering churches in Texas near Brett’s parents, or else here in NC. I am not really a cold weather person and never really like snow. But for awhile now Brett has been considering the idea of church planting. He has a heart to reach out to those who are unchurched—though he enjoys discipleship and ministering to those already in church, he (well both of us, really) really wants to lead more people to know a relationship with Christ.

(Our new church—I’m looking forward to New England in the fall!)

Vermont is one of the most unchurched states in the country. There are many church buildings in the state, but few are well-attended. The church we are going to is probably one of the larger churches in the state and there is only about 80 regular attendees. The church has only been established around 5 years, and back then they started with only 15 members. So, it is almost like a church plant, and there is a lot of room for growth and reaching out to unchurched. The current pastor there is moving out of the country to do international mission work. They are therefore a very mission-minded church and eager to grow.

So we are very excited about the upcoming adventure, the challenges it will bring, and seeing what God will do in our new church. We are also sad about leaving behind our church family here, in spite of all the problems we’ve faced. The kids have a few friends here they’ve made at church and school, but they’ve never gotten so close to any of them that they are going to be devastated to leave them behind. Right now they are mostly excited about the move but they have a lot of questions and I don’t think it will all really make sense to them until we’re there and settling in. I think even then they’ll wonder when we’re going back “home”. I personally haven’t really made many close friends here, either, although I’ve found a comfortable place in our MOPS group, our Classical Conversations group and church. I will miss being so close to my family, of course. It will be a 12-hour trip. However, there are so many great ladies at the new church that have already reached out to me and our family and I’m excited about opportunities to build new relationships.

This is our new house and the view from the front yard looking toward the church. Thankfully, this is the church’s parsonage, so it will save us the hassle of having to look for a home there, and in fact, everything becomes so much more convenient for us because the utilities and most other bills are paid for us there. It is actually two stories and probably slightly larger than what we have now—there are two living areas, plus 3 bedrooms & 3 bathrooms. Several guys from the church are coming down to help us load up the moving truck which they will then drive up to Vermont for us so we can take the trip on our own time in our own car. Everyone there has been so accommodating and helpful in our move. So now we have already begun the process of packing up everything we own. We will take a few days of vacation to visit family & friends before our official move date of May 10th.

What an adventure we have ahead of us!

Easter Egg Hunting

 

Last Saturday was our annual church Easter egg hunt. This year all 3 kids were old enough to “get it”. We had to have it inside because it was rainy but it actually ended up being more fun & challenging that way!

First we loaded them up with sugar!

Then we made a little craft and heard the Resurrection Eggs story.

 

We managed to get everyone together for a photo.

Then we were ready to go! Little kids were downstairs. Leah’s age & up were upstairs. At first I thought Abigail knew just what to do. She saw an egg, grabbed it & put it in her basket. Then she took it back out, opened it, and demanded I open the chocolate. Once she’d gotten that all.over.her.hands.and.clothes, she didn’t really seem interested in finding anymore eggs. We helped her a little.

 

 

Leah and Andrew had been excited for days, so they knew exactly what to do. And they got quite a haul of candy!

 

I managed to get some shots of Leah with a few of her closest friends. I plan on working on a secret project for her involving photos of everyone she loves!

 

What a fun way to celebrate the holiday!

Easter Traditions

 

This weekend we had some great family fun with our annual Easter traditions. First, we decorated Easter cupcakes. We did this after Abigail went to bed, so it was a little easier. We baked them together before bath and then after bathtime, we decorated them. By “decorated,” I mean that Andrew & Leah ate enormous amounts of frosting and put small amounts on the cupcakes.

 

 

 

The finished product!

 

Then Sunday we dyed our Easter eggs. We only did a few this year and we didn’t do anything fancy, but it was still fun. Leah asked about this activity for days before we got to do it!

 

Abigail + breakable eggs and colored dye was a little too scary for me, so I gave her a bowl of water and some plastic eggs. She had the water dumped out within a minute or two. But she was satisfied with her level of participation!  

 

 

 

After they dried we put stickers on them. The finished product:

CC End-of-School-Year Program

 

We made it through a whole year of Classical Conversations and I think I can truly say Leah loved it! Every Monday Leah loved getting up to go to “school” and getting to see her friends and getting to learn! She loved her tutor, loved her classmates, just loved the overall atmosphere. I rarely saw her unhappy. She learned so much through the course of it!

Here’s just a few of the things they memorized this year:

- 24 different sentences about events in history (through songs)

- 161 different events of history (through a “timeline song”)

- Latin verb endings

- tons of facts from astronomy & physics, such as: What are 5 kinds of stars? What are the phases of the moon?

What are some parts of the sun? What are the names of the planets? Newton’s Laws of Motion…

- 7 continents & 4 oceans & locations of many countries around the world

- English grammar like the definition of an adverb, noun, conjunction, pronoun, etc.

- skip counting in math

- Ephesians chapter 6 (the whole chapter!)—although we didn’t spend as much time on this as we probably could have & I don’t think Leah could tell you the whole thing from memory

They also did some great science experiments, they learned the basics of playing the tin whistle, and learned about some famous composers & artists. They also learned tons of non-academic stuff like taking turns and working together and listening to teachers.

Tuesday night they had a little closing ceremony to wrap up the year. Leah’s class was the youngest so they got on stage first. I think Leah had a huge grin on her face the whole time. (She’s made for the stage!) There were normally 8 in her class.

They demonstrated a few of the things they learned in the English Grammar portion of our memory work. They learned the 8 parts of speech by playing duck duck goose. They learned the purposes of a verb with little hand motions.

If you watch these 3 videos in succession, you’ll pretty much have seen their whole portion of the program. I just don’t like doing really long videos because sometimes they don’t upload right.

 

Then they each got a little certificate of participation.

I tried to get a few shots for Leah to remember her friends. These two girls were her best buddies all year: Megan & Charlotte. She even got to go to Megan’s birthday party last month. And Ms. Mandi was the best tutor we could have asked for. I’m sure it took a lot of patience to deal with 8 four-and-five year olds every week and she was always calm and loving and did great at encouraging the kids on their positive characteristics.

 

We definitely plan to continue this program next year, and Andrew will even be in a class! It adds a great depth to our homeschool studies.