Hi everyone. Haven't been here in a while and decided to drop by to see how you are all doing. Hope all is well.
Pretty much same oh here. Enjoying my family. Kids are well - they are getting so tall! My son is 7 years old and 4'7" tall! My daughter is also growing, but not like him. Their English is fluent, and they are properly Americanized in food and culture. My son still has an accent, which is cute as heck. Hoping this fall to get the adoption recognized by our state, so they will be able to get their American citizenship. Meanwhile, my daughter is enjoying dance, and son will be starting baseball soon. They are such a joy.
A few weeks ago, I had to have my first "Lutheran" conversation with my son, A, LOL. He wanted to try basketball, and some of the churches around here have a league called Upward Sports - I don't know if any of you heard of it. It's inexpensive, with really good quality uniforms, and my daughter S can also do cheerleading at the same time. The closest church to us that had it was a Southern Baptist church. Other parents with A's baseball and soccer teams (CYC) had suggested it. So they did the season, and enjoyed it greatly. Then came the awards night, which was basically a church service. After the "service" I saw A and the coach sitting on the pew talking seriously. S and I waited a good 5 minutes then they got up and came to us. The coach told me that A had some questions about Heaven, and that he thinks he is ready to become a Christian, and if we could wait there while he got an Elder and he can do the "sinners' prayer." Totally caught me off guard, so I probably didn't handle it the best way. I mumbled something about how we are Lutheran, we believe salvation is a gift God already gave us and we can only reject it, A is already a believer, thank you very much, and I gathered the kids and high-tailed it out of there. Later after we got home, I sat A down and told him that I'm happy he has questions, happy he isn't afraid to ask them, and that he isn't in trouble for talking to the coach. Just, if he could instead ask Daddy or I, or, and I named off a bunch of people at our church. Since then, every night before I tuck him in, he has questions - and they have been pretty tough questions. Also, I think there are a group of Baptists praying for our salvation right now, LOL.
I've been skimming around and see a lot of prayer requests, and I will keep all of you in my prayers. If you could pray for a situation going on here, my husband's sister is a teacher a middle school locally. In January, one of the students accused her of molesting him. Long story short the student was dating my niece, niece broke up with him, and he made up the incident to get revenge. She has been on administrative leave ever since. Both internal and criminal investigations have not been able to prove any wrongdoing (and I don't believe for a second that she did what she was accused of). However, the superintendent has told her either she could resign, or go before the school board for termination proceedings. The teacher's union hired her an outside attorney who usually represents school districts. Within 24 hours of that, the superintendent was willing to negotiate a retirement package. SIL needs to decide whether to take the package (which is supposed to be approved by the school board soon), take her chances with the hearing to win her job back, and if she does get fired, then she has to decide whether to sue the school district. Both her criminal attorney and the union attorney have told her she may have a case, she just needs to decide whether she wants to go through everything that one goes through in a lawsuit, given everything her family has already been through. It's been absolutely horrible for her, her husband and children. It has been in the local news, though her name was not mentioned - but she is in a small district, and everyone in the district put 2 and 2 together as to who hadn't been to school the previous weeks. Her daughter had to be pulled out of the school and put in parochial school. Her husband one day supports her, and the next wonders aloud if she actually did it and how dare she tarnish his name (he is kind of a bump on the log to begin with). Thankfully her 2 boys are too young to know what is going on.
Thank you, and take care!