April 15th....TAX DAY!!!!

Wow! It has been a while ay? With our schedule lately, life has been crazy!! I have spent 2 full weeks on our taxes and finished about 1 a.m. this morning. Talk about MAJOR headache. I had to do Fed., MI., OH., Fed SE., State ET. Yes, 5!!!! UUUGGGHHHH! I had to redo them 3 times!!!!!! I am SICK of taxes!!! Okay, now on to catching you up to date.

***Yes, you may have heard that we had a fire here in the house about 3 weeks ago...wow, that long ago? Time flies. GOD did a HUGE miracle!!! He saved us and the house!! We were within about a minute from loosing everything!!! Praise God for His protecting hand!!! That is a testimony all in its self.

***Shaughn sports glasses now.

***The boys played basketball on the church team and loved it!! They learned the rules and started getting pretty good by the end. It was fun watching them sweat and turn red every week. Saturday was their tournament and they both played.

***All 4 boys started soccer last week. 4 nights a week for practices and all games are on Saturdays until May 17th. This past Saturday was their first game and they all won. Nathaniel's coach has an issue with him/us. All because Nathaniel wore his Michigan shirt to soccer practice. Go figure. He tried to throw Nathaniel off the team (just to see my reaction) and then on game day told him (as he was goalie for a while) that if he let any balls through, then he was going to have to wear Ohio State the rest of his life. Well, one got through and the coach tried to remove his own (Ohio State) shirt from his persons and make Nathaniel start right then. He was standing in front of Scott and I and couldn't wait to see what I would say. I told him that Nathaniel may wear red on Saturdays (that is his team's color, go figure)but that the rest of the week he wore Blue! :-) They are so funny here. :-)

***Shaughn is starting softball tonight. He has been recruited for a team from the church and is pretty excited about trying something else new. Great...one more thing on the "things to do list". :-) At least he can drive himself to some events now.

***Shaughn drove, by himself...at night...in the rain, to his friends last Friday night for a few hours. This was his first time going alone. With the night, rain and all of the deer around here, he took it very slow and did very well.

***Matthew has been asked to be on the youth and the churches AV team. The pastors all have seen his zeal and knowledge for the ministry and approached him to join in. The youth pastor wants Matthew to head up this team for the youth and train others. He is pretty excited about it.

***JEREMIAH LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not sure it was ready to come out since I don't think he had any loose ones, but while he was upset with his brother and choose to bite his brothers shirt and pull, out it came. (dahhhh)
Blood everywhere and he was quite upset. But, this morning, after seeing the toothfairy come, he was ok with it all. It was his bottom front tooth. He looks weird now. :-) But, still cute!!

***Scott has been enjoying riding his bike to work. He loves the cost of gas with it better than the other vehicles. :-) Much cheaper.

***Scott and I have a meeting today at noon with the pastor and youth pastor regarding heading up the "Tweenies" age group. Currently they have nothing for the 9-12 year olds and thought if we could start something and get it going and into place before we leave and train others to take overs (real missionary work as far as working ourselves out of a job attitude) that it would help them out greatly. They have a few volunteers to help but no leadership skills to get it going. They felt we had the experience and all to make it happen. They know Scott's schedule and all and understand. Please pray for us to hear God on this as we desire to be in His will. They have about 30-40 kids in this age group with no program at all for them. They are totally left out. Pastor Dan doesn't want this hole and wants to meet that need.

***We are suppose to meet with an Aim Air representative on Monday, April 28th to discuss possible future plans with them. He is a recruiter to give us information and answer questions. Pray that goes well too. :-)

***Scott took the I.A. (Inspectors Authorization) class a couple of weeks ago and it was a LOT of information that was very useful. Scott is very glad to have been able to take the class.

***There have been some families leaving MMS (time up and so forth). Pray that God will send others to fill in the gap. There is much work to do and laborers are few. :-)

***Dave Van Horn is coming in today to do a Leadership Training Seminar for the next 3 days. It is on Crucial Confrontations Please pray for this time!!! May the Lord receive all of the Glory and Honor!!

***Scott is trying to prepare for his time in Alaska and trying to get things done here for that time while he is gone. Please pray that we will accomplish the tasks needed to be taken care of and also have family time and couples time to spend together before he leaves. Last time when he was away, the enemy really hit us hard emotionally and physically. Warfare was thick! This time, we want to be better prepared and prayed up for that time and try not to leave any areas unprotected. We appreciate all of your prayers and love you all deeply.

***I have, just today, been able to get back on the internet. I have been off-line since last Thursday (or Wednesday...I can't remember). My power supply cord died and by computer only has about a 2 minute battery life to it. So, in doing all of the taxes (2006 was on my computer) and using it for that, I lost my computer for a week. Pretty pricey to replace might I add. Who would of figured that. :-) As you can see, my honey took care of me and got me a new one.

***I think that this has happened since the last time I wrote, not sure...sorry if I have already told you this one. At the end of March we ran out of propane in the tank...which is something that we use for heat. Right...we found out when we were freezing and thought the furnace died. When I called to get it refilled, it took a couple of days for them to get out here. Since it was our first time running it empty, there was no charge to refill and re-pressurize everything. Next time we will have to pay. So, we thought that was a God thing. We tried to order our $400 worth delivery like we did in January and found out that the price has gone up. DAHHH. So, we ordered the minimum of 200 gallons and it cost us over $500. That put us up to 38% full. Like, you're not suppose to let it get below 35% and we could barely get it filled to that point. We laughed and said, "it better become spring soon". :-) So, us being city folks who have always had natural gas have learned yet another lesson...remember to check your fuel tank!!!!! often!!!!! don't put it off!!!!! When gas prices go up, so does fuel prices...ddddaaahhhh!!!!!! JOY!!!!

Life is never dull here. Although we think it may be at times, it really isn't. We are looking forward to having a prayer retreat here with you all. We are trying to schedule the details and will let you know of them as they develop. We are also planning on coming up there to BCC and to see friends and meet new ones during the weekend of July 20th...Scott's family and my family both have family reunions scheduled that Saturday, so we are dividing the day up between them both and hoping to schedule other dessert nights in there too. We are going to see if MMS will let us stay or come an extra day or two to be able to meet with individuals about trying to build our support base back up. Please cover this time in prayer too.

Well, I think that is about all for now. I know that I haven't updated recently but know that I have wanted too. Thank you all for coming to the prayer meeting on Sunday. It sounds like you guys had a great time. You were in our thoughts. We love you all and pray that God blesses you today with His beautiful sunshine! We look forward to hearing from you and hopefully seeing you soon, either here or there. Please know that you are welcome and missed!!

God bless you all!
Lela

p.s. sorry, I tried to post a couple of pictures but it wasn't happening. I will try later while I am at the hangar since they now have high speed back. Bless you all. Look back later to see photos.... :-)