the priviledge

Quick update after a very full...few days.  Saturday night our new round of VP's (visiting professors) made it in, and Sunday morning bright and early, Matt was scheduled to preach at a friend and colleagues church.  This is what I shared on Facebook about that crazy full morning, and it really was such a special time of worship together.  

"When they say the service starts at 6:30...the MAIN service, you know it's gonna make for a rough morning. And when your girlies are groaning in bed in the dark of morning while you're trying to braid their hair, you're wondering why in the world you're doing it. But when you get there, and there are people already sitting on every step and standing in the aisles and back, and when everyone is singing like they've never BEEN tired, and when you're ushered on stage and everyone quickly forks over their chairs with beautiful smiles, and when the worship is vibrant and the community is rejoicing, just to be worshiping the Lord together, yes, at 6:30 am...you are just so grateful for the privilege."

Every chance we have to preach the Gospel, it IS just such a privilege.  We are NOT our own, and it is a privilege most to be His, watching Him accomplish His work, His way.

Saturday morning Matt had a weekend Intro to Old Testament class to teach, so the girls and I went to hang out with some friends...we call this "Gator Rides with Ms. Shelley and Sarge"...and then Miss Sofie lost her FIRST tooth.  Lily quickly announced, "Let me tell you now, our tooth fairy stinks!"  

So thankfully the tooth fairy remembered this time and gave her a whole dollar, which she carried tightly around all morning, took it to church, and put it right in the offering plate.  My sweet girl...she keeps us on our toes, but God's got the perfect plan for her life, and I love seeing Him flow out of her heart so passionately and at totally unexpected times.

Then there's this one.  oh my.

We had a great start of classes today (I'll have pix soon), but as you think of it, please be praying for Haiti as Hurricane Irma seems to be coming, ready or not.  We are on the very Northern-most part of Haiti, on the coast, and I don't need to tell you what crazy amounts of water or winds do to our little island.  

It is one thing to have several rainy days and have to stay indoors.  It is something else to live in a intricately woven stack of sticks, or to live at the base of the mountains, waiting for mudslides and garbage slides and overflowing canals and sewers, waiting again for cholera, again, and malaria and flooding in your home, etc.  Hoping and praying that it will peter-out or redirect, or be more hype than horror.  

Tonight we had Charles Lake, Steve Tsoukalis and Don Little for dinner, got to hear about their first classes, and the girls got to hang out with four of their buddies they rarely get to see!

Thank you for always being our uplifting pray-ers.  I'm beat and off to bed.  Someone thought at 4 am that there was a frog in our bed and may have screamed a little and then neither of us could go back to sleep...It may also have been a toy car.