our new pet

Ok, so maybe our new pet is a little unconventional....and uninvited for that matter. Its a moose, actually there are two of them that wonder through our yard on a daily basis lately. They like to eat the trees and leave little "gifts" behind for us.

Such strange and fascinating creatures. They look like they are made up of spare parts. Tall , gangly, huge noses and humped backs...sorry moose. I make sure to check that they have gone away before the kids go out to play. The weather has been nice so I am NOT about to keep them cooped up inside. I've warned them not to go near them and if a moose shows up to get to the house.

Since we are being overrun by animals I thought I'd show you the monkey breeding program we have inside the house. Little Silas has learned from the best and is following in his brothers footsteps. I found him up in the cupboard in our back entry way.

Silas! Get down from there!...oh wait let me get my camera first!

Feeding time at the zoo. Silas is making his own pizza and apparently helping someone else get theirs started too. My kids have a thing for black olives...I can barely get them from the can to the pizza without causing a stampede.

Life in our zoo is never dull, just today for example I found Silas in Ailis's room surrounded by markers, decorating himself...oh and he had pooped in there too ( I told you it's like a zoo in here)...shhh don't tell Aili. Potty training is wearing me out. He has amazing bladder control, he can hold it for hours ....but the bowels are a different story. We are making progress though....someday... he'll figure it out eventually. Please somebody remind me that he will someday stop pooping his pants!

Roman spent a good part of the day today studying the atlas. He decided "when he travels the world" that he might need to take it with him and once again promised to bring me back jewels and treasure for my own enjoyment. Looking forward to it.

We had to disappoint him a little recently. We had applied a few months ago to work as dorm parents at an International school in Malaysia. It was kind of out of the blue as we had never really considered doing it before. Until we knew anything for sure I was hesitant to share it here in blogland. The possibility of moving to Malaysia was big part of our lives for the past few months...its taken up a lot of thought, prayer and emotional energy. I have been following another dorm moms adventures and she suggested that we look into it. Well we looked into it out of curiosity and one thing led to another.

It was a lot of paperwork, making ourselves vulnerable and waiting to find out what our lives would look like next year. Actually we would have been leaving in July ,....that would be 3 months to pack up our lives and move across the globe. Exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Wrapping our minds and hearts around the idea of being in full time youth ministry to kids from many different countries was a lot to pray and think about.

We found out just a couple days ago that there wasn't room for us this coming school year.
There were about 16 people that applied for the 2 positions and it sounds like we made it to the final few that were considered. As far as a 'rejection' letter goes it was the most encouraging and affirming letter I think I've ever gotten, it definitely made the news easier to take.

I think that satan uses opportunities like disappointments or "rejection" to tell us that we are not good enough, God can't use someone like us and we may as well give up.

Immediately those thoughts started to crowd in. I could picture people saying "Of course they didn't pick you...who do think you are anyway!" I immediately recognised those thoughts for what they are and am refusing to let them back into my mind. I honestly feel very much at peace with the outcome. We sought Gods guidance throughout the process and prayed that the administration at the school would find the right people for the jobs , whoever they might be. We trust Gods timing for us. We are definitely not ruling out being dorm parents in the future.

The kids knew that we might be moving to Malaysia and since the move would happen very quickly we were preparing them for that possibility. They were excited and were up for the adventure. Before we applied, Roman looked at me out of the blue one day and asked "mom, someday could we live in a jungle next to the ocean?". hmmm..how about Penang? Needless to say he was excited to explore Asia! He was a little concerned about pirates and giant sea creatures coming up out of the ocean though....you know the rational fears one has when moving to a new place. Aili was more concerned with leaving friends and family in Canada.
We are now looking forward to our summer here, camping, sailing and enjoying our home for a while longer.

We shared our Mexico trip in church this morning. Some members of the team put together an amazing video put to music and each person shared a little bit. It was greatly encouraging to see how the trip and the experience impacted each of the people who went. I have never really led anything before....never mind a group of 15 people to a foreign country! It was out of my comfort zone and beyond my organizational experience. I really enjoyed it though. I realized that sometimes all it takes is to follow God out of where we are comfortable...easily hiding in the background...to discover that he has something more for us. He can use us in ways we never thought we were capable of. He is the one that is capable. All we have to do is be willing to be used by him.
So we are once again setting our sights on returning to Mexico this fall...kids and trailer in tow.

And once again I am excited to see what God has planned for us this time.