"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

For our precious mommas for which no words can express our love and gratitude:

From my mom's heart I have learned of grace, forgiveness, unconditional love, creativity, child-like faith,eternal hope, endurance.... Thank you mom for being such an example of God's love to your kids and to your husband.

From mom Shari I have learned the art of hospitality, to see the best in everyone, the joy of genuine faith, the goodness of order, and in this moment I am learning from her the joy found in obedience as she has followed her husband to the far off land of the Ukraine!

Thanks to the Lord for these amazing women and for creating the role of "mother"-- I know of know greater love other than His than that of a mother for her child.


In other news: Joelie starts school tomorrow! We are excited, sad, thankful, emotional...well, I'm emotional. Joel says I've been more emotional about him starting school than when he went to Colombia and was in real danger of death! I must admit that he may be right. I think it's because he and I have gotten to spend soooo much time together this past year and four months since he got out of the military and I'm just really going to miss it. My love language is time and so this has been heavenly for me to have him to myself so often. We've been dreaming of this day for so long though, and I really am thrilled that it's actually happening.

Nothing too exciting happened this week after the road trip. Just working on the house, working on my data entry....We did have our friend Tonga over twice.He is this huuuuuge guy, from Tonga (his really name is Uaisele), that Joel'll be in school with and we had him over the last two nights for dinner and to play cards. He's great and reminds me of a Tongan David Zapp(hi Dave and Becca if you're reading this!!)Tonight we're having dinner with Erick, who is in the class ahead of Joel. He's an interesting guy and fun conversationalist, so we're looking forward to that.

Oh, I've been meaning to tell you that Joel has a blog documenting his journey to, and now through, PA school. It's appropriately titled www.joelsjourney.blogspot.com , so check it out if you have time. I'm hoping one day he'll get it published into a book for people interested in the PA profession. He has worked on it diligently and think it'll be a great venting place for him during these next 27 months. Gotta run, coffee shop closing. Jen