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Thursday, July 9, 2009

Women at the well


Good morning, all. I am watching 100 Huntley Street, a ministry of Crossroads Ministries and they are talking about northern Uganda in Africa and the work they are doing there and what is needed. This week, they have focused on different areas of ministry that have helped families become self sustainable, or well on their way. Today's focus is on water. I saw a report that showed women walking 4-6 km each way to go and bring polluted water to boil and give to their children. This obviously takes a long time to do that, apparently takes about 3.5 hours. Not only do the women, but normally young girls do this as one of their chores. Because the girls do this, they are unable to go to school, thereby continuing the cycle of poverty for everyone. The report was followed by a discussion by the people involved in the missions program. The wells were either destroyed by the LRA, the so called "Lord's resistance army", on purpose mind you, or from being abandoned for many years.
As a wife and mother, I cannot imagine having to do that everyday with my beautiful daughter, because I have no choice. Not only going there and bringing large containers of water on my head to keep my family alive. But bringing polluted water which makes us all sick. I know what its like to be slightly dehydrated from having bronchitis last December. I had no energy and was light headed. And I have all the resources here in Canada. I cannot imagine being much sicker than that and having no other choice but to do that daily. So it gets me thinking, what can I do to help with that? Each well to be repaired costs about 25oo dollars and it sustains from 1500-2500 people and it impacts the community exponentially. Just think of it, give a mom more freedom to do other things, and can actually send her daughter to school for the first time, and have energy and strength and health. Then they can farm or have a small business that will give the family a good income that will change their lives. Wow! How empowering would that be for a woman in need. An idea came to me that I should raise the money to donate to them. How that will happen I have no idea at this point, but I believe that one person can make a difference. If it is led by Jesus, then it will succeed. It says in Psalm 37:3-4, "Trust in the Lord and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. (4) Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." (NLT) Wow, powerful stuff there. On so many levels.
It goes on to say in vs 5, "Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust Him and He will help you." Whew, goosebumps here.
Will you help me as I go along this journey? I would really appreciate the prayers and support. With everything else going on, homeschooling, business and normal stuff that a family goes through, I'm not sure if I can do it all. But I do want to do something. Something for my fellow man that will glorify God. Thanks for being my friend. Until next time, God bless and take care.




Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Hello again!

Hey all. Sorry its been so long since my last post. Frankly, I have let fear get the better of me. I have been sort of busy the past little while and well struggling with what to write. I promise to be more diligent with keeping the posts current. Please forgive me.

Things have changed around here somewhat. I am now a SAHM (stay at home mom, just in case you didnt know what the acronym stood for) and loving it. (Well most days.)
My husband and I have decided that since we have such a great need to fill, especially in these tough times, that it would make more sense to give our business a real shot in the arm and run with it. At one point in the spring, I had two part time jobs which were good for the most part. I still wanted to be at home, but since being laid off in January at my last full time job my income has gone down considerably. So, we needed to have an extra income. Anyway, I will be the administrator for the business and we have an actual name now! Yey! It's called Blessed Financial and I am so proud of my honey. He is really focusing and making plans and I think there will be no need to have me work out of the home anymore. That will be so nice.

Since I am staying at home now, we have decided to home school our daughter. She is currently in the local Catholic school system and its a good school with great staff from what we have seen. Madison however is not happy with the lifestyle we led last year. Obviously, she has never said that in so many words. But the attitude we've seen from her is enough to make us want to rethink our decision. We, rather I looked into it first when she was a toddler and liked the idea. However you may think of it, is ok with me. We never got serious about it but researched on the internet and subscribed to a provincial home schooling magazine but that was about it. Then when she was getting closer to becoming school age we really needed me to get a full time job outside of the home. So, we put her into a Catholic french immersion program and it took some adjustments on all our parts that first year.

The past year, it was brutal. My husband took a part time job that started really early in the morning and we got bright and early and got her ready to go to the daycare at 6:30 am, where they'd drop her off at school at about 8:30. She hated that with a passion. We decided to change her program from French immersion to an English program that seemed to be a little better. Although she didnt seem to have as many friends as before. Sad little thing. Plus, she has had some health issues as of late and think that it would help with her functioning properly. More on that at another time. So now its summer. Hallelujah on that! Will has been hinting that maybe we should take another look at it and go from there.

He even went and picked up some textbooks and supplies from a family that didnt need them anymore. So that was a blessing for sure. Since that spark of enthusiasm came into the house, I have been doing lots of research. Thankfully, the lady had some books for the parent to read and one of them is about a pioneer called Charlotte Mason who has an interesting and surprisingly similar approach to what I would do as a homeschooler. (Look her up on Google and you'll find a bunch of stuff about her. )Not sure about it yet. I would like to use what we were given. There are lots of textbooks from geography and science, history, language arts and arts. I have also learned about unit studies and what that entails. Now THAT I would sink my teeth into! It takes the idea that learning should be fun. You pick a subject matter that is interesting to you and your child and study it from a wholistic point of view. For example, lets say that you want to study horses. You would look at the anatomy of a horse, which would be the science portion. Then you go horseback riding, that would be phys ed. Then you would study the different breeds and where they come from and how that place uses them or used them in the past. Geography and history and or culture. Get my point? Interesting right? Then the child writes an essay on what they've learned or something along those lines. Or draws a picture of the horse. It seems easy enough to do. Just wondering of course now how to incorporate the schedule, prep, planning and which school board we are going to register with. We are going to a park here to meet some local home schoolers and hopefully get guidance there too. I have so many questions! (Hope I don't bore them or make them run away!)

But then my human fleshy side starts to kick in. How in the world am I going to accomplish all that this will require of me? I will be taking care of my family, a house full of chores, budgeting, a business, and homeschooling too? Yikes. Thats enough to make me want to hide under the covers and not come up for air in days because of being so overwhelmed! I will be ok I think because it seems Holy Spirit led and where He guides, He provides.