Heavy heart

I was going to do a post of our goings on last week but to be honest, our week was fairly uneventful.  We learned, we played, we cooked, we loved.  

What I really want to post about is the heaviness of my heart right now.  At church, they are already going through applications for the next trip to Africa.  Unfortunately, my application was not in among them.  As much as I wanted to desperately go.  Jeff and I knew that it would not be possible this time around.  

This is Izak. He is 12 years old. He lives with 70+ other kids in a children's village in Meize, Mozambique.  We sponsor him.

I had the opportunity to get to know him for 9 days back in November when I visited his home.  Look at that smile.  The smile got me every time.  He is a beautiful boy.  Although I didn't speak his language and he barely spoke mine, we bonded.  Whenever our team was in Meize, he was by my side.  He acted as my bodyguard sometimes when other kids got too close or grabby.  He was also so sweet with the younger kids and I could tell he really looked up to the older ones.  In those short 9 days, I fell in love with this boy. 

 I miss him dearly.

Yesterday, we found out that a sponsored child in his orphanage had died of Malaria. All we knew was that it was an 11 year old boy.  When I read the email, my heart sank.  It filled up with worry that maybe it might have been Izak.  And when I found out that it wasn't him, I was relieved but filled with so much sadness.  You see Izak seemed the type of kid that everyone liked and was friends with everyone.  Chances are Izak is grieving the loss of his friend now.  Those kids in that community were like brothers and sisters to each other so not only have they lost their friend but their brother as well.  

I get so frustrated that we can't do more for these kids.. We sponsor them, we get secure in the fact that they are taken care of, and loved in the place they are in.  But we can't protect them with money.   We can't love on them from so far away. We can't prevent them from getting sick or hurt.

 All we can do is pray and trust that God knows what he is doing.  

One thing I do know from being surrounded by these kids is that they know Jesus, they are happy and they are loved.  

I guess I'll just keep praying.  It's all that I can do.

And take heart that little Joao is now sitting at the feet of Jesus and being loved on by the Father himself.

Weekly wrap up

I'm hoping to post every weekend on our activities for the past week. We will see if this sticks.  We have had a very eventful week.  

Obviously it was Easter this past weekend.  Sweet Pea was quite excited to go look for Easter eggs in the backyard.  I think this is the third year we have been able to have our egg hunt outside and I really prefer it!

Not only was it Easter but it was this boy's 8th birthday!  I can't believe how grown up and handsome he looks in this picture!

We had several box days this week!  After tax time, comes the constant research on what school books we will use for the next year and then the ordering!  We had boxes arrive three days this week and we are still waiting for our big order.  Which will probably come on Monday which is the one day that I won't be home most of the day.  Oh well.  We will get it soon.

More reading practice for "I".  He is my first child that will just pick up a book and read for fun (without me suggesting it!)  This book that he is reading here, he has been reading all week because he loves superheros.  In fact, he is reading it as I type right now.  He is a great reader for a 5 year old boy!

This week "T" was learning about the Black Plague in his history.  We decided to dress him up in a black plague doctor costume.  He had a great time with this costume.  He even met the mailman to receive a package in this get up!

This week I also tackled a job that I have been putting off for a very long time.  Cleaning out the school closet and the living room closet.  Our living room closet is not opened often at all, mainly because we have our couch in front of it.  It basically was our junk closet.  We kind of threw everything in there that we didn't know what to do with.  As a result, it was a disaster and too overwhelming for me to even think about cleaning it. Thankfully my newly 8 year old boy is saving up his money to buy himself an ipod so I offered him 5 dollars if he would help me clean them.  He gladly excepted the challenge!  He worked so hard that I gave him 6 dollars! lol  

 I didn't think to take a picture before I started cleaning it but this is half way through.  I had to do both closets at the same time pretty much because some things had to be transferred to different closets. 

There was so many things in that closet that I had to lay things in piles on the back of the couch.

The school closet was another disaster..  This one I usually clean and organize every couple of months and try as I might to keep it that way, it never stays that way... especially with four kids and a husband who believe that any paper they see must belong in the school closet.. after all we use paper during school time.  As you can see, we have a problem with the kids knowing how to stand books upright so they lay them down where ever they can find a spot and everything gets crazy very quick.  

Sooo, "T" and I starting pulling all the books and papers out.. Papers go in the big white trash can and "T" made piles of books down the hallway according to who they belonged to.  The picture below was just the beginning of it all.. eventually there were book piles all the way down the hallway.

It was a huge mess and it took us from 2 in the afternoon til 7:30 that night (with a supper and Karate break)  Eventually though we got it all organized.  Top shelf consists of extra packages of paper, notebooks, file folders, envelopes, books that are for later years and science kits.  Next shelf is my stuff to the left and "J's" books will fill the right.  Next shelf down is "T's" books to the right and books that we do together on the left.  On the next shelf , "K's" books and the crayons are on the right and "I's" books and the math manipulatives on the left.  The drawers in the middle consist of stickers, art supplies and card games.  The drawers at the bottom is art supplies and construction paper.  We also have some art canvases and the astronomy lab kit tucked in there too.  On the door, I used an old shoe rack to store all the office supplies like pencils, pens, glue, staplers, rules and other such stuff.  I'm very happy with how well it's organized but I know it won't stay that way.. booo!

Yesterday  between chauffeuring "J" to and from rehearsal and a birthday party, I sat "I" and Sweet Pea down to make a bird feeder out of a milk carton.  In the midst of cleaning my closets this week, I came across a Tupperware bin of bird seed.  Here the kids are painting it to make it pretty.. Apparently birds like pretty bird feeders.

So there you have it.. That was this week at our house!