Apartment Ministry Update

Our church resides across the street from an income based apartment complex.  After visiting mission arlington on a mission trip 2 summers ago, our youth decided that God was calling them to reach out to the people in this apartment complex just like they did at mission arlington.  So we began having cookouts, playing with the children, and just letting the parents know that we are here for them if they need anything.  For a year, the youth and other volunteers worked very diligently every other Sunday going over there and ministering to the children and families over there.

Once we earned the trust of the managers and the people there, it became evident that there was a need to have an after school program where kids can come, get their homework done, have a snack, do crafts and activities, and learn about Jesus. So that is exactly what we did! By the end of the school year, we had roughly 12 children coming every Tuesday and Thursday after school to this new ministry.

By the end of the school year the manager approached us and suggested we start holding bible studies for adults as well. So now an entirely new avenue has opened up for us where as a complex they are basically inviting us to minister to the entire family! You can expect women's bible studies, men's bible studies, and possibly some financial classes to materialize over there this year as God is throwing the doors wide open for our church to love on these families.

So gearing up this year, we had a back to school bash/cookout where we passed out school supplies, clothes, and shoes, and beared the huge expense returning back to school requires.  So many single parents came and were overwhelmed and appreciative of our support and help. We wound up distributing school supplies to about 50 children!!!

Today as we were meeting to plan and try to put some organization down for the homework club and just our ministry over there in general, we were talking about how many families within the complex have to visit the food pantry, are on food stamps, don't have time to cook because they are working 2 jobs, or just can't afford to eat healthy food (canned ravioli and TV dinners make up their diet). So we began brainstorming ways that we can feed families in need, and provide them a balanced meal doing it.  We are going to try and begin making easily prepared meals that can be frozen and distributed as needed rather than sending them to the food pantry where they get usually the leftovers of unwanted pantry food.  I just keep thinking, we aren't doing people any real favor if we feed them, but kill their health simultaneously.  With the new craze of meal planning, crock potting, and making freezer meals, I thought surely we can put all that to good use and help the hungry.

We definitely are not trying to take away from the wonderful food pantry's ministry, but are trying to live up to our role as a church by shouldering some of the responsibility! Friday is our first freezer meal prep night... If you are interested in helping in any way, that would be awesome, message me for specifics on where and when and what to bring! Or if you would rather prepare meals in the comfort of your own home, please message me so I can give you a preparation guide, and I would be glad to come get the prepared meals from you! Our goal is to prepare as many healthy freezer meals for families in need as possible and keep our freezer full so we can help a family on the spot!

Big announcement

Jake and I are excited to announce some plans the Lord has laid on our heart.   Since Jake got home from India, we have actively been pursuing the way God wants us to go about adopting.  We found a faith based agency in Kerrville, and are happy to announce that we are actively in the process to becoming a certified home to foster-to-adopt.  We have hesitated making this public knowledge, we didn't know whether we should wait until we were certified, have a baby in our home, or just not make it public at all.  We have slowly been revealing this to some close friends and family, and was told that we should document our journey so people know how to pray, encourage, and it could possibly help others considering adopting understand the process and journey.

We have requested a placement younger than landry (0-1) just because we feel more comfortable with Landry being the oldest, and the fact that we have already parented this age. Other than that, we are pretty wide open, so there is no telling what kind of baby we will get!!! We are beginning to think about the changes we are going to be making to add another little person to our family like buying another crib, trading in our vehicle for a more functional transport, and thinking about double strollers.  As a mother, I have that desire to get as much prepared as possible, but without knowing the age or sex of the baby, its kind of hard to do much else.

Here is what we have done so far:

• selected our agency (divinity family services)
• submitted our HUGE stack of paperwork
• had TB tests done
• passed health inspection of our home
• passed fire inspection of our home

What we have left to do:

• 1st Aid/CPR training
• take our 3 classes
• homestudy
• fingerprinting

If all goes well, hopefully we should be certified by the end of september, which means we could receive a baby as early as october or it could be years, only God knows what is in store for us.  We are trusting in his timing and his guidance as we prepare to welcome a second child into our home.  Please pray for us as we embark on this journey with a lot of unknowns!

A boy and his dog

It has been especially entertaining at our house lately with all of Landry's expressions and playfulness.  One of the more entertaining events to watch is the growing interaction between Sadie and Landry.  They really play together, and it's adorable! Sadie and Landry's favorite activities both involve a ball, so it's like a match made in heaven!
Here are some pictures of them playing catch back and forth.

Sadie, ready to fetch!

Both waiting patiently while Daddy rescues the ball 

WOHOO! He got it! 

Winding up! He actually threw it to where she caught it right in her mouth!

This boy loves his Sadie

playing

It warms my heart to see these two play and love on each other they way they do.  Sadie is always so concerned over Landry, and Landry is learning to "be gentle," love on her and play with her.

6 Freezer Meals in 30 minutes

I have been eyeing people's blogs lately on pinterest that involve preparing meals in advance for the crock pot and freezing them.  I love the efficiency, cost effectiveness, and simplicity of it all.  But to be honest, I have always felt a little intimidated to try it myself.  Not sure why, I guess it seemed like a daunting task because they do it on such a large scale (i.e. a month's worth at a time), but today I decided I was going to go for it while Landry napped this afternoon.  I wanted to start small to see how I liked it and if we liked a few recipes before I jumped wholeheartedly on the freezer meal bandwagon.

I chose 3 recipes from this ladies blog I had previously pinned on pinterest http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/02/freezer-cooking.html, put Landry down for a nap and got to work!
The 3 Recipes I chose are Teriyaki Chicken, Meatballs, and Sausage and Peppers

First step was labeling the gallon zip lock bags, including the crock pot instructions.

Step 2 was gathering all the ingredients needed for each recipe.

Step 3 is to dive in, one meal at a time


Here are the ingredients for the sausage and peppers... Of course I had to use Opa's sausage from here in Fredericksburg!!! Split the ingredients evenly between 2 bags, mix, seal, and done!

1 big can of diced tomatoes (optional), 1 red onion, 1 red bell pepper, 2 green bell peppers,  4 cloves minced garlic, and 6 sausage


To cook the sausage and peppers:  thaw bag in refrigerator the night before, add a drizzle of olive oil to the crock pot, cook on low for 6 hours, and serve hot noodles or french bread with mozzarella. 

Here are the ingredients for the Meatballs... I used frozen meatballs store bought, someday I will venture to make homemade ones! Split the ingredients evenly between 2 bags, mix, seal, and done!

20 oz BBQ sauce, 16 oz grape jelly, and approximately 36 meatballs

 To cook the meatballs: thaw bag in refrigerator the night before, cook on low for 2-4 hours, and serve over rice with side of veggies.






Here are the ingredients for the Teriyaki Chicken...  I had half a bag of whole carrots, so I peeled, cut, and used those instead of baby carrots.  Split the ingredients evenly between 2 bags, mix, seal, and done!

2 cans pineapple chunks (undrained), 4 chicken breasts (halved), 1 cup teriyaki sauce, 1 red onion, 1 bag of baby carrots, 4 cloves minced garlic

 To cook the teriyaki chicken:  thaw bag in refrigerator the night before, add 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce to crockpot, cook on low for 8 hours or high 4 hours, and serve over rice.

The finished products! 6 meals in 30 minutes!

Wow, that literally took me 30 minutes from start to finish.  Basically cutting veggies, dumping cans and sauce, and adding meat.  Not too difficult and certainly not nearly as daunting as I thought it would be.  Of course, these ladies do it on a much bigger scale with a month's worth of meals and take 1 afternoon to do it.  Maybe that's why I felt so intimidated, but I can't wait to try out these 3 recipes.  Our family now has 6 meals prepared that we didn't have before, so I feel like that was 30 minutes of my day well spent.

Fun days with Landry

God has really blessed Jake and I with a beautiful little boy.  He never ceases to amaze us.  Now that our hectic and crazy summer has settled down, maybe I can start recording family memories a little better! This past week we have simply enjoyed being home! Landry is getting settled back into a routine, which means more sleep for all of us!

He is becoming increasingly curious about EVERYTHING, which is both fun and stressful! Fun in the sense that I love seeing his little eyes, fingers, and hands explore and discover new things, his personality is really starting to shine.  He has so many expressions, currently his favorite thing to say and do is point and say "OOOO cool!" We probably hear that 15 times a day :) He has developed a laugh that cracks everyone around up, it is like a little woody woodpecker laugh.

And the stressful side is his recent discovery of how to throw a fit and climb. This kid loves to climb UP the slide the wrong way, ON the couch, and is now toying with the idea of jumping OFF the couch.  We certainly have our hands full with this monkey!  He loves to be outside (that hasn't changed since birth), and throws the biggest fits whenever we have to come inside. It could be 110 outside and his face beet red and he is the only one enjoying himself outside.  I wouldn't have it any other way! Here are some overdue shots of the 4th and vacation.

Up the wrong way!

Ready to watch fireworks!

Fun in the splashpad on vacation 

Still obsessed with anything round and bouncy

We love our little boy and have really enjoyed the last few months watching his grow and discover. He finally has 2 teeth (that's it, but we will take it!), and some very blonde hair (very soft and wispy/frizzy) I bet we say the word "No" over a 100 times a day, but I am just so thankful we have a little boy that has the capability to be curious and onery :)

Crisis Pregnancy Center Adventure

For a while now, I have been feeling a calling to get involved with the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Kerrville.  With Landry headed to Mother's Day out twice a week this next school year, I figured I had the free time to start volunteering once a week.  Tuesday, I headed over there to check it out.  I was amazed at the ministry that happens there! Mrs. Bruster was kind enough to give me a tour and take some time to sit down and talk with me about different ways I can volunteer.  I really didn't care what I did there, I just wanted to get involved.

The center just received a sonogram machine and have a sono tech there to give clients free sonograms, what a blessing that is! They need someone to volunteer to help the sono tech and of course I was more than eager to help with that opportunity.  Another opportunity I might get is to give the girls their pregnancy test and then sit with them and counsel them about their options if pregnant.  Both of these opportunities excite me greatly! I can't wait to get started and see how God might use me.

I hope that through this blog, others might wonder about the Crisis Pregnancy Center and desire to pray for this awesome organization, learn more about what they do, or perhaps spark interest for some to give or volunteer also.   If you don't live in this area, hopefully it causes you to wonder what is around your area that is similar. Here is the link to check it out!

http://thepregnancyresourcecenter.org/page10.html

Have a blessed day!

The beginning of something beautiful...

The little boy is napping peacefully, the pot roast is on for supper, and while I'm whipping around the house tidying and cleaning, I just felt led to stop what I was doing and blog about the things the Lord is doing in our family. MAYBE, just maybe, I might stay blogging longer than a month haha, we will see!

 Jake just returned from India, completely changed. I knew this was going to happen, call it a wife's intuition, but my heart was churning while he was away as well.  I think it was preparing for what was about to happen when he returned and what I intuitively knew it was going to involve.

 As a wife, to see this image and hear the countless stories of my husband's interaction with these adorable orphans, how could I not allow God to change me, my motives, and my actions just as much as my husband's experience in India changed him, his motives, and his actions?

This is Anon and Carti, two boys that completely stole my husband's heart in India.  Just hearing stories about them has caused me to fall in love with them!  wish they could have been my souvenir! Throughout their trip, Jake talked about me and Landry to Anon and Carti and showed them pictures of us.  Jake told me that the last day they spent at the orphanage, Anon came up to Jake and handed him 1 rupee and said, "This is all the money I have, can you please take it to Landry for me?" The fact that a little boy across the world was willing to give Landry all the money he had and hadn't even met him just makes my heart overflow.  My little boy was so loved by a child that has nothing, not even parents to love him.  Jake is going to have the rupee made into something special like a necklace so we can give it to Landry someday when he's old enough to understand.

On the drive back from Fredericksburg, Jake and I had a tender conversation about his experience and through that conversation we have decided that God has placed it in us to adopt. We can't impact the lives of every orphan in the world, but we can change the life of one or two. Many people will probably question this decision or might think it's quite bizarre considering we already have a child and he is quite young.  People can think what they want, but Jake and I have peace in our heart that we want a unique and beautiful family pieced together by the Lord!  We could be the most ragamuffin bunch of Edwards, but I'm totally ok with that!

We have been investigating and looking into many options already, both local and foreign.  I feel that eventually we will probably adopt both locally and internationally, we just are waiting for God to tell us which to do first! We are praying, waiting on the Lord to guide us, and learning about all the different agencies.  WOW there are a lot! It's overwhelming really, but I know that God will lead us to the right place and to the right child.  Please pray for us as we begin this journey that God would make clear to us where to begin.