A Good Reminder

I mentioned in the previous post how when Daniel sings "How Great Thou Art," it puts Michelle right to sleep. I took some video of that today. I wasn't planning on putting it on the blog because you can't really hear Daniel singing. However, when I reviewed it on the computer, it brought tears to my eyes. Why? Because Michelle looks so tiny, fragile and vulnerable but so safe in Daniel's big arms. It was a reminder to me of two things. First, forgive me for making a spiritual analogy, but it immediately made me think of how loving and gentle the Lord is and how safely and tenderly we each are guarded in His arms. Secondly, it reminded me again of just how thankful I am for the ministry of NLCH -- that Michelle now has a safe and loving place to grow up.

Babysitting Fun

Little Michelle is living with Kendon and Wendy but we have been lucky enough to get to watch her for a few hours yesterday and today while they had other responsibilities. She is such a happy and easy baby. She is content just to look around and play with whatever toys we give her. (See picture, left, with DVD case) She lets us know when she is hungry and when we see the little yawns and she starts rubbing her eyes, we know she is ready for a nap. Daniel has found that "How Great Thou Art" puts her right to sleep.

After Wendy came and got her this afternoon, Daniel and I both said, "we miss her!" What a blessing she is, as well as her sister and brothers, to all of us here.

Here are a few pictures from our time together:

You know Daniel must really like her if he is willing to do this!

Despite her tiny size, Michelle is very alert and interested in her environment. She was much more excited about these books than we thought she would be. She stared at each page and followed by moving her entire head as Daniel turned the pages.

Getting Acquainted

We've been able to spend a little bit of time getting to know little Michelle. She's wonderful- and very, very little: eight months old, and actually weighs five pounds. We found out today that she was born when her mother was only seven months pregnant, and only weighed one pound at birth. It's a miracle that this little girl has made it this far.

Wendy bought her some clothes meant for premature newborns, and even those fall off of her. They took her to the doctor yesterday, and at first he thought there was no way she could be eight months old. After examining her and seeing how she acts like an older baby- able to follow things with her eyes, smile, etc.- he concluded that she really must be that age. She is just so little!

Her older brothers and sister are getting settled very well and making new friends. Since these kids came to us through the court system, their future with us is not 100% certain, but things look good right now. We certainly hope these four precious kids can stay part of the NLCH family and grow into the new lives that the Lord has for them here.

Welcome, Oscar, Iris, Randy, and Mishell

We were excited to welcome some new little ones to NLCH this evening. We don't know a whole lot about their story at this point other than that their mother is a drug addict and alcoholic and basically was not in the picture for these kids' lives. A grandmother was caring for them, and brought them to Child Protection Services, who brought them to us.

Please pray for all of these kids, especially little Mishell. She will see a doctor tomorrow, but it's obvious she's not in good health. She is eight months old and only weighs 5 pounds. Good signs, however, are that she is alert and lively, so we're hoping that the main problem has been lack of nutrition, which we can take care of for her from here on.

This is Mishell.

Oscar is the oldest, 10.

Randy is 5. (He brought the bear with him.)

And Iris is 9.

Juan

Kara had posted earlier about Juan going to spend Christmas with his mother. We usually don't allow that to happen since the kids' home situations normally are not anything that is best for them to return to. We made an exception with Juan, however, because he at first had decided to leave NLCH so that he could better care for his mother after Chepe's death.

The plan was that he would spend about a month with her, then return to NLCH in early January in time for the beginning of the school year. We were pleased when that happened and he did return on the agreed day. We knew going in, however, that this visit to his mother's house couldn't be a very positive experience. We were just hoping that his reaction to it would be positive. We did not know what it would entail, but knew that how Juan reacted would be very important.

Unfortunately, he returned to NLCH with the desire to leave for good because of things his mother allowed him to have and do while he was with her (like allowing him to drink and buying him a very expensive cell phone). She's very poor and can't keep that up for long.

So Juan left almost a couple of weeks ago now. We pray that he can know that although we're offered so many different choices of how to live, that he will never find the life that he really wants to live apart from the way of Jesus.

We still miss Chepe, now we miss Juan too, and continue to pray that somehow Chepe's death will be used for good in Juan's and his mother's lives.

Happy Birthday Sheila and Rony

Please accept these pictures of Sheila's 11th and Rony's 14th birthdays as our apologies for our longest-ever absence from the blog...

NLCH Christmas 2007

It's tough trying to find where to start in describing what Christmas is like here. It's certainly different than anywhere else and our memories of Christmases here will always be very special to us. This post would be too long if we tried to talk about everything that goes on here... from getting all of the presents ready, to all of the activities of Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning. Our friends and coworkers, Lee and Staci, did a good job of giving a summary of everything on their blog here. Rather than try and do that again, I'll just talk about a few of the highlights. Then, Kara may want to fill in more details later.

Our first highlight and one of the things that will make this Christmas so memorable for us was being able to watch the three of our boys who celebrated Christmas for the first time with us: Juan David is the little guy in the picture above, and in the pictures below to the left, Javier and his brother Eliseo. On Christmas Eve, I was giving Juan David a piggy back ride and asked him what he had done for Christmas in the past. His answer was, "They gave me a little motorcycle toy and we ate cookies." It's good to know that he celebrated Christmas with his family before coming here, yet it was also exciting to know that he'd never seen anything on this scale before.

Javier's and Eliseo's story is different. They'd probably never had much of any kind of Christmas before. They were both really excited in the days leading up to the 24th, especially as they saw presents start showing up under the tree. I stood near these boys as presents started being handed out so that I could see their reactions as they got their first gifts. I expected pure excitement, like in the picture of Juan David at the top. They were excited allright, and Eliseo's reaction was similar to Juan David's. He was so excited about his presents that he took them back to his room, laid them out on his bed and slept with them there all night! Javier's reaction, however, made me just about lose it right there in the middle of more than 40 kids opening their presents at the same time.

His first present came to him and he took forever to open it. I thought it was just because, having never done it before, he didn't know it was okay to just tear into it. After seeing him be so careful with other presents as they came, though, we started to realize that he was doing that because he even liked the wrapping paper so much that he wanted to keep pieces of it. Staci said that as he sat on the floor unwrapping one of his gifts (really slowly) that she saw him tearing up because he was so overwhelmed and happy.

As I watched these little guys be so excited about some simple presents, I couldn't help but think of Jesus' saying, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Sure, we can say that Christmas is about Jesus and not about the presents; but watching these boys' faces as they got some new clothes and toys... there wasn't much doubt that Jesus was heavily involved in the process and pleased with the result.

Another highlight was that Kara's parents brought down all of the gifts to fill the kids' stockings to open on Christmas morning. The two of them packed their own things in one small carry-on, while bringing about 240 lbs. worth of luggage full of things from people in their church to fill the stockings. It was a ton of work on their part and from their church, but the kids got some really good stuff.

Obviously things fell into place for the church to be able to help in this way this year- with us being here and Tim & Linda coming down to visit and being able to bring all of the things with them. But thanks to their willingness to help out and lavish these kids with gifts from people whom they'll probably never even meet, just in the effort to reassure these kids that they're not forgotten or rejected but children of the King... again, I just can't help but to believe that Jesus is pleased with that church's Christmas offering this year.


In case you want to see more NLCH Christmas pictures, we've uploaded a bunch of them here.