Late Friday afternoon, we got a call asking if we would be willing to keep J's brothers for the weekend. Even though I used to think that I would love to have six children, and I used to think that I would love to run a children's home, I wasn't certain that I wanted five boys over the weekend. After talking to Dean, we decided that we would welcome them and I made the necessary phone calls. It wasn't until after I had made all the arrangements, that I remembered we were supposed to be getting a snow storm and I wondered if I was sane.



The boys were all happy to be together and had a nice evening before a long, drawnout bedtime. Our three quieted down quickly, but the other two took more than an hour to get quieted down. I finally fell into bed grateful that I could rest. The next thing I knew, J called out "mama, it's snowning." At that time, there was just a dusting of snow, but by the time we finished breakfast, we had about three inches. All the boys wanted to go out, so we rustled up boots, hats, coats and gloves for all of them. It wasn't until that they were all outside that I looked at the thermometer and saw that it was 18 degrees.



They didn't last long and at least two lost gloves in the snow and were in tears before getting warmed up. I set them to the task of painting which again didn't last long.



By the time the day was over, we had 10 inches of snow and all of the boys had been unhappy with at least one other boys sometime during the day. Bedtime went a lot better - I think they were all pretty tired. Now today we're home again since church has been canceled. The boys have been out and wet clothes are in the laundry room. We'll have worship together and I'm sure that before we're down to three boys, they'll all want to go out and play in the snow again.

Our emotions have been stirred this week as we have heard of the earthquake in Haiti. At first there wasn't much information and many of us have wondered about those we know there. As I was waiting in a store yesterday, I was watching the news and saw photos for the first time. I almost broke down right there in the store and found myself resisting the urge to take out a photo of Jeremy and Justin and to tell those around me about my connection to Haiti.



Even though Jeremy and Justin's family lives in mountains towards the Dominican Republic, we have still been concerned about them. Even though we pray for them on a regular basis, we had special prayer for them last night. Our boys are dealing with the news differently, but both of them have listened with interest to the reports that we've shared with them. We have no hopes of getting news from them any time soon. We will continue to pray that the Lord will supply all of their needs and in his mercy bring his Word into their lives.