A Letter to my Brother

My younger brother emailed me today.  And I emailed him back.  And then I thought I could post that email here so you could have a glimpse of what's going on in my small life.  Because I can't get to this space very often these days.  Twenty-seven days until a jet plane swoops us away.  A new blog will be started once I come up with a catchy name for it.

Hey David,

I hope your apricots were tasty.  Izzy is known for its fig production, if you ever happen to buy some figs.  We had an amazing, powerful time at a conference in AZ last week.  Met about a 150 people who are interested in Chickens like we are.  I loved hearing Chicken believers share from their hearts.  We pray for the spirit to use us and guide us.  I have a lot of peace about moving, even though we are still homeless once we get to Izzy.  I met a woman in the bathroom at the conference who said she'd take care of finding a place for us to stay while we look for a permanent home.  Workers in Chicken are pretty awesome about helping each other.  I'm hoping Mat Kearney makes a return trip to Chicken AND lets us know about it.

Paul's last Sunday is this next one.  Then we're appearing/meeting with tons of folks at our big supporting church a couple states over, then a Sunday off, then preaching at G'castle Church, then we leave 2 days later.  We have lots of dinner/lunch appointments with friends and family in the next month.  Our house is pretty bare.  I'm having a hard time letting go of children's books that I want to bring.  Homeschooling requires a lot of books, but books are heavy.  Paul keeps telling me I have to move more of our learning to online, which is true, but I still think a love of reading is encouraged by having books around.

We had a neat encounter with a Korean worker who wants to plant blueberries at her retreat center an hour from Izzy.  She offered us land to plant them.  I hope to write about it on my neglected blog.  I have much to write about, but I'm in a tired funk.  But!  Tonight a 70 year old lady in our town invited us for dinner and she specifically fried chicken livers for us - for the sake of my iron needs.  Ha.  I ate three, yes I did.  So I'm looking forward to much energy tomorrow.

How do you add a search for Izzy on your news feed?  That's such a great idea.  I check their weather about everyday.  It's warmer than here.

I miss you tons.  Thanks for writing.

Stacey

Small to Not-So-Small

Our small family is on the brink of two new journeys so I thought this would be a good place to keep The World updated.

First, we are going to welcome another child into our family, thus making it not so small. On December 4th, we formally began the adoption process, again. We are open to either gender, age 0-3.  I'm predicting that he/she will join our family late summer 2011. (That's so it will feel great when it all comes together earlier.) Peter's concern about this new addition: "Chocolate bananas. There's only 4 in a box and there will be 5 of us!" We gave him some time and he figured out we could buy two boxes of Trader Joe's chocolate-covered bananas. Phew.

Then, once The New One and all of us are settled nicely together, we are aiming to MOVE to a far off place.  Perhaps you've heard us mention it. Maybe even seen our pictures from our trip there. So if you know anything about blueberries, or know someone who knows something about them, could you let us know? Random it may seem, but Dear Paul has a plan. At least the excitement that could lead to a plan. Then we'd really be set.