Joys Senior Prom

This year Joy is graduating from Conestoga Valley High School. She is our fourth child to survive 12 years of school. Graduation is on June 7. Joy attended her High School Prom, escorted by Nathanial Millen. She looked wonderful and they both had a great time. Congratulations to Joy on her graduation!
      Dad and Mom.

The finishing touches...

Waiting for her escort.

Comfort and style...

The perfect gentleman, Nathanial Millen.

 

Details...

...details...

...details.   The details are hand-made by Joy.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Mom had a full day today - Margaret's second day of a soccer tournament was today, and those can tire you out, even if you're not one of the players! Dad was able to gather our whole family together for the evening, however. After dinner and dessert (the cannoli cake pictured above), we relaxed in the living room and each shared something that we are thankful for in our mom. Sprinkled with jokes and laughter, each of us had a turn to relate a specific trait in her for which we are very thankful to God.

Here are some wonderful and beautiful graces that fill our mom (paraphrased).

Margaret: How you give up things for yourself to give to us.

Joy: How you are interested in all of our activities - what we did, who was there, what we talked about, etc. How you draw us out and get to know us better.

Erin: How you really care about our lives. You don't want me to waste my time or my life. You keep up with me, asking, "What are you doing? Shouldn't you be working on this or that?..."

Vinson: School and homeschooling. I see the value in what I didn't value when I was ten, in the hard and frustrating things. Even if you're not going to use times tables, the ability to work through things and learn is valuable.

How even though we haven't moved out yet, you miss us. It's nice to be missed. We are not a burden to you; you are not anxious for us to leave.

You have a warm house, Mom.

Sarah: How you care the most about our souls being established in Christ. How you are sensitive to the Spirit's leading, very discerning of your own heart, and submissive to the authority in your life (Scripture, Dad, church leadership).

How your life is very sacrificial. You die to yourself daily to serve others and follow God. You are an amazing example of how Christ humbled himself and gave himself up for us. Your life shows us the gospel.

Dad: I'm blessed to have you as my wife. There is much fruit from your labors that I never would have thought of when I first married you. Seeing your children rise up and call you blessed, I say, "Lord, you've blessed me with this woman who is laying her life down." You understand that it's only God's work. It's a joy.

Thanks for being interested in people when I was interesting in things, and for rubbing off on me. And thanks for raising these kids.

We love you Mom!

Here's a snapshot in words of one of the amusing interactions that had us all laughing together. I wrote it down at Margaret's urging.

Joy, finding out that I was taking notes: "I was wondering why you were typing and looking up at us like this..." she tilts her head up to her left and stares, then exclaims as she realizes, "you can't see my hands, but I'm typing!" (They were under her blanket.)

struggles and triumphs in reading

Tonight at the dinner table (just Dad and the girls) we listened to a record that had Mom's high school choir from LMH. They sang a song called Hospodi Pomilul (Russian?). You should have heard Mom and Joy trying to pronounce that!

While on the topic of pronunciation, reading and such, our conversation drifted to how far Vinson has come with his learning disability (dyslexia) since elementary school. Nobody would really even know he had/has it; he is quite the reader today. My mom and Vinson both went through so much for so many years of his schooling, and it's amazing to see how far God has taken him. Mom commented on how she never would have believed that he would be in college and awarded with a spot in The International Economics Honor Society (Omicron Delta Epsilon). I seriously had forgotten about those home school days of prolonged excruciating labor that Vinson and Mom would go through, and it was so cool how she brought it up. It really does show God's powerful grace.

Congratulations to you Vinson!

spring is here

The weather has been so nice, and our family was able to work outside yesterday - the first day of spring and free Rita's! Dad and the girls were around during the day to work outside, but Erin was working at Sharp Shopper and Vinson went to Go Saturday, an outreach with our church. We planted a few seeds, did some weeding, and pruned and picked up sticks. Dad was able to burn a lot of brush, use our new-to-us riding mower for the first time, clean out the gutters, put the chimney cap back on, pull out an old invisible fence cable, and do other such things. It was nice to be outside during the day and get fresh air and sun, although my shoulders did get sun burnt (which happens very easily for me, especially in spring).

Here is a shot from Cori Bitterman's bridal shower this afternoon. The girls from Sola (our young adult ministry) organized the shower and brought the food/desserts. I have enjoyed going to bridal showers in our church with my mom since before I was even a teenager, and it's even more special for me now because it is my close friends who we are gathering around to encourage as they enter into marriage.

Both of these events, working in the yard and celebrating Cori's upcoming marriage, are evidences of God's grace and faithfulness. Spring is a wonderful time to celebrate new beginnings and praise God for his mercy that is new every morning.

Exceedingly Blessed

Yesterday I turned 23 years old. And yesterday I was overwhelmed with God's kindness to me. He gave me much joy and humility in my day, and that was such a blessing. I loved that my birthday fell on a Sunday this year, because that's the best day of the week! Joy was so sweet to come with me in the morning and keep me company, as I have a few responsibilities before the service.

My mom is amazing. She knew so well how to care for me and bless me on my birthday. She contacted a couple of my girl friends and asked them to get a few others to surprise me by taking me out for lunch. She also threw me a card shower. I was surprised by both, and I actually didn't know the card shower was planned until today (although I wondered at the amount of cards I got). She is so sweet. I couldn't ask for a better mom. Steve Heitland announced my birthday before he started his sermon and told people to be sure someone took me out to lunch and/or dinner (very thoughtful of him and unexpected, as well as quite amusing...it kinda makes me laugh!). My mom watched me like a hawk after the meeting to make sure that I didn't leave or let anyone else snag me for lunch, because I did not know what they had planned!

old and new

This past Saturday my dad started installing some cabinets into my bedroom! He originally made them for the Millens, and they spent many happy years, I’m sure, in their living room. Now that the Millens are done with them, we are putting them into my bedroom. Although they are somewhat large in my small room, I am very excited to have something so nice and made by my daddy in my room. I’m hoping it will work out better for keeping my stuff too. It will be quite fun to arrange my things in them and make use of the bookshelves. Although I don’t have enough books to fill the shelves, I hope to bolster their contents with my picture frames, dishes, and other such objects.

I think the best part of it all is just the fact that I’ll have something made by my dad in my room. And I really enjoy the process of him working on it, and helping along the way as I can.

Here are some photos from Saturday. I helped him install. He’s done a bunch of work since the last photos I took too, and they are almost ready to be painted!

This is a before shot. My dad is so sweet and gracious. We had the cabinet on the right of this photo completely out of the room and in the living room when I remembered that we did not get a before photo. He wheeled it back in the room (we used a small cart) with me just for this shot! This still does not show my old dresser and a stool that I had in my room.

Memories of His Faithfulness

Today I spent a few hours driving around Lancaster county, for several different errands during work and after. The drive was a mix of relaxation, conversation (cell phone), getting lost, being late in traffic, getting directions about 4 times from my dad to avoid rush hour traffic, and almost crashing into a car.
As I was driving home, I could reflect on each place and remember different seasons of my life. The result was that my heart was filled with awe at how undeservingly faithful God has been to me. This was His kindness to my heart, to keep me from simple sentimental nostalgia and instead to captivate my thoughts with His greatness in the working of His hand on my life.

Here is a smattering of places and memories that I traveled to this afternoon:

Lititz pike, driving past the home I knew for almost all of my first 10 years of life. It was for sale. This may have been one of the first times that I could drive by that house without at least some tears (I don't go that way often!)

SKH on Lititz pike - free doughnuts with Grandma on the way to her house, back when she kept us for one day a month to give our mom a break. But we only got the doughnuts if we left early enough!

Lititz, along with it's park, train tracks, and Wilbur Chocolate factory. Feeding the ducks with Grandma Sensenig, or going on family walks with Mom and Dad. Book-it pizza at Pizza Hut. School work in the car as Mom did errands. Piano lessons with Mrs. Wittenburg.

A bit to honor my Dad

I really want to honor my dad for how he served this weekend. He took photos for an event called OneSingleDay put on by our church for singles. He was working on taking and going through photos the entire day, morning to evening. Where the sacrifically serving really came in was that Saturday night when he stayed up until 4:30 am to finish the slideshow so that we could view it at our church meeting on Sunday. I can only imagine the humility and grace it must have required of my dad when he found out that, due to technical difficulty, they could not show it that morning. He had sacrificed so much sleep and poured so much of his energy into preparing the slideshow for that exact time, only to have his plans and services thwarted. And I did not see one display of anger/frustration or self pity, although I know it must have been a battle in his heart. This is the grace of God at work in my dad.

Thank you Dad! I love you so much. You are a wonderful example of a humble servant.

Here is the slideshow. It was a most beneficial day to my soul.