Always Listening

It is hard to make it through our 2pm church service each week with 3 kids who really aren't used to being quiet.  So we have a church bag with quiet things they can do and play with in order to make it through the service.  

Before I had kids, I had quite lofty expectations for them. I really didn't want my kids to have to be entertained during preaching.  I wanted them to want to listen, but my expectations were quickly thrown out the window.  They are kids after all and in order to survive we've created the church bag.  

At first the kids depended on coloring or drawing or doing word finds to make it through the services without causing too much of a ruckus.  I haven't really pushed them to listen more or anything, but I have seen them slowly maturing and wanting to listen to what Pastor is saying.  Let me take a moment here to say I am so grateful for great teenagers in our church that love our kids and that our kids look up to.  Alissa, my girls talk about you non-stop and they love you and want to be just like you. :)  I think that is part of the reason they want to sit in their chairs and want to pay attention and look things up in their Bibles as Pastor is preaching and aren't really interested in being otherwise entertained.  It would make sense that I see H wanting to pay attention more than the younger two, but the others will soon follow.  It makes my heart smile to see her wanting to get in and follow others as they follow Jesus.  I know they need people to look up to, besides us, and I am so glad they have some good role models to follow.

D is totally obsessed with paper, so his current mode of entertainment is drawing, tearing, makings all sorts of things out of paper.  But it certainly doesn't mean he isn't listening during service.  Last week after service he told me he was going to have a good attitude because bad attitudes come from the devil. (Thank you Bro Lowry!!) So even if it seems like he is fiddling, I am glad that God is speaking to him right where he is at and it isn't all too mature for him.

Last Sunday K decided she would go to staff prayer with me. The verse Silvestre chose to speak on was Romans 8:37 which says we are more than conquerors.  The song she has fallen in love with on our scripture memory CD is that one. The smile on her face was huge when she turned her head around at me to let me know he was talking about her song.  It is so awesome to see them making connections between what we are teaching and learning at home with what they are hearing at church.  It supports the things we are teaching them and they are so proud when they are learning something we have already been talking about at home.

And while this post is a little random and has a bunch of things about the kids thrown in I should share about the little friendly competition we have going on between H & D.  Let me explain that H is my reading and writing child that could care less about math and D is just the opposite.  Loves memorizing math facts.  So since H (read first born, competitive) needed some encouragement to work on memorizing her addition facts and D knew them better than her, we set up a little flashcard war and so far it is working great.  The only downside is that D gets upset when he isn't winning, but we keep trying to remind him that he is grade behind her and is supposed to be losing.  But he sure is giving her a run for her money.  The flashcards I had to beg H to work with me have become something fun for her, so now she asks to practice them and I am so thrilled! Not because I am a nerd (although I too love a little competition and I do love math) but because she is motivated to work on something that isn't her strong suite but that she can conquer if she puts her mind to it.

So there's my update for the past couple of weeks.  We have had the kids 15 weeks and will be contacting our adoption attorney here in the next couple of weeks to start that paperwork rolling.  We are getting there.  Please be praying for the kids.  We are changing some middle names to family names and changing their last name and we really want them to be okay with that.  We've discussed it and it depends on the day if they like it, don't care, or are against it. I know it can be really confusing to kids, but we really want them to know they are a part of us forever and it will never change. And they need to know that their birth parents will always be a part of who they are.  We encourage them to be honest about how they feel about them and we don't scold them for sharing.  That is a part of their history and we love them enough to not make them hide it or feel ashamed.  It's a very weird place to be for us and them, so prayers would be greatly appreciated.