Good morning blog readers..

or did you all leave me?

It's a beautiful day in Northern Michigan-well, maybe I shouldn't go straight to beautiful. More like snowing and blowing and blustery. However, from my warm dinning room-it's beautiful!!

Life is great. Sure things are still crazy and hectic and on any given day you can find 5 kids holding a "free" sign in my front yard, however- we are making it work.
Wait- you all know I'm kidding on the free sign...right?

God has been doing AMAZING things in our lives. If I wrote the things that God has blessed us with on here- you would say no way. However, it's big. Wait, it's HUGE. When we took on 4 extra children in our little home with our income that comfortably fits us-but-had-no-room-for-4-more-people, we were making a HUGE leap of faith. This is the kind of faith honestly I had never been tested on before. Never in my life had I stepped out not knowing what will happen tomorrow. We had to have faith in God. We had to trust in Him and believe that He would provide for us. And? He did not let us down. AT ALL. Actually, quite the opposite. He really opened our eyes to what He is capable of. The awesome work of His hand has been breath taking. I have a million situations where God has made Himself sooo present in our lives over the past 5 months, but today I really feel I need to share this one specific story.

When we took on the 4 extra children, we had NO idea they were coming. We were called at 10am and they arrived in our home at 4pm that afternoon. Going from a family of 3 to a family of 7 was tough. Our first HUGE hurdle was a vehicle that would actually fit all of us. My Mother and Father in law were extremely generous and allowed us to borrow their suburban for a while until we figured it out. We just weren't sure when we could do that. We had a few sums of money coming into our home and while we planned to use it for a vehicle it just wasn't working out for us. With no financial support for the kids, money seemed to be used up at a VERY fast pace. The children had been in our home for about 3 weeks when we attended a training required to become foster parents. At this training we were told that not only would we receive NO financial help until the end of November, but also they would not pay us back from the day the children arrived. We? freaked out. I wish I was kidding. I broke into tears right then and couldn't stop. How could they NOT support the children they placed in our home? How could we not be compensated for money we had already spent? and of course, how were we going to buy a vehicle when we needed every reserve for other things. It was not fair to continue to drive a vehicle that was not ours(especially with the winter months ahead of us, our parents needed a vehicle to get through the snow). We could not buy a new van because the little income we had needed to be saved for everything else! We came home, sat at the table to put everything on paper...and cried. It wouldn't work. We could not make it happen. There just wasn't enough. These 4 precious children were taken out of their home and placed into ours. And while it wasn't the ideal situation, we were still family and still connected to them. Having them leave our home and into a home with strangers seemed cruel beyond our thinking. We continued to cry and honestly, throw a fit. We were scared and angry and hurt and defeated. If we couldn't figure this out by tomorrow(Sunday)they would have to be sent off on Monday.

Then? We sat in silence and realized...we were approaching this the wrong way. Who did we think we were? Why did we think WE could figure it all out. We knew what had to be done and who could take care of it all. The next minute, we hit our knees. We prayed. God knew what these children needed far more than we did. He loves them a million times more than us. And the bottom line? They were His children. We begged and pleaded, give us wisdom, tell us what to do, show us. We were lost and needed his guidance. Maybe God had a different plan for our family and this was not the path we were supposed to take. We went to sleep knowing that God would take care of the situation and on Monday afternoon(mornings are crazy) we would call our social worker and have them sent to other homes that maybe could do a better job taking care of them.

Here..is the coolest part of the story.

Monday mornings are crazy in this house. I have 5 kids(and 1 grown up) to get up, ready and out the door, there is ALWAYS chaos. This morning? Not so much chaos. Everyone was cooperating with me, dressed early and easy to work with. I dropped Daniel off at school at 8:45 and headed to the grocery store. I arrived home at noon thinking to myself...Lord, how am I going to send these children away? At this moment Steve called. He rarely calls during the day and it was from his cell phone. He was in tears. "you will NEVER believe my morning" ummmm...layoffs/people mad/someone's hurt/a million things went through my mind. "I just got an email from Kurt and he has a van for us....and you won't believe this-- it's free"... Who did this van belong to? Where was it coming from? If someone is giving it to us-what shape is it in? WHAT? We didn't' have all the answers, but someone Kurt knew(Kurt was the head coach at Midland Dow High school and Steve had worked a few football seasons for him) was selling a cottage and was going to get rid of it. Kurt had told them about our story on Saturday and they said instead of selling it-they would just give it to us. HOLY CRAP..for real? GOD IS SOOOOO GOOD!!!! These people had and still have NO idea who we are. NO IDEA. We hadn't talked to Kurt in a year because this school year Steve came back to McBain to coach. God worked through so many people and really made his face shine on us. More importantly-we knew this is exactly what we should be doing...

Thanksgiving weekend we received our new van. It's an older van, but is in fantastic shape. It has no rust, new tires on it and best of all? It fits us all PERFECT. We even took it to Missouri for a week to visit my Grandmother.

This is just one of the ways God has shown his face on us and blessed us. I have a million more miracles he has given us and I plan to share those as time allows.

Just remember this. Believe. Have faith. Put your trust in Him...He will never let you down!!!