Busy, Busy, Busy

I really hesitate to talk about how busy I am because I think we often use busy-ness as an excuse. I can always find time that could be better used. In fact, this weekend in Sunday School in our discussion about the book, "How to Stop the Pain" we talked about how we use 20% of our time to produce 80% of our results. That means 80% of our time could be better spent.

And, that little rant was not even the point of this blog.

Actually we've been in a season of more activity than what I'd consider normal for our family. We started year two of Silvey homeschool in mid-August, and Nolan kicked Mpact (youth ministry) off for the fall semester around the same time. And we've been running since then.

We celebrated Isaac's 6th birthday at the end of August with a family party at my brother and sister-in-law's house, and then Nolan and I along with Caleb and Isaac went to Wonderland Park for the afternoon while Benjamin and Willow went to spend the day with Nana and Grandpa.

Mpact had it's 8th annual "Operation Reality" weekend retreat in September. It is always a lot of fun. If you are familiar with "Disciple Now" retreats it is essentially the same idea. College students with a group called Glowing Heart come to P-town for the weekend and lead small groups in Bible based discussions. More than 70 junior high and high school kids attended this year's retreat. They stayed at host homes in our community and were grouped by grade/gender. In addition to the Bible studies we made time for attending the football game Friday night, big group rec time Saturday morning, and a concert Saturday night. The college students went on and on about how much they enjoyed our students and how much potential they showed this year!

The Wednesday following Operation Reality was See You At The Pole - a student led prayer gathering around school flag poles before school. That evening all the community youth groups got together and blitzed the community with prayer. I was inspired to see 140-160 teenagers show up at the high school gym with no incentive (like free food or a concert) to be put into groups of 3-4 and given an area of town to go door-to-door to pray with people. It was the most moving thing I've been a part of in a long time! The testimonies they had when they returned an hour later were amazing. And the town is still buzzing about those "sweet kids" who came to pray with me! It was also good for our kids to see that even in small-town America there are people with real, material needs and people who want nothing to do with God - even if it means slamming doors in kids faces. Way to go teenagers - you truly made a difference!

The next week our church hosted Dr. Art Mathias of Wellspring Ministries out of Anchorage, Alaska for a four-day conference. His scripture based healing ministry is powerful. If you are in need of physical or emotional healing, I'd encourage you to check out his ministry and book, "Biblical Foundations of Freedom."

I also found time to finish up my midwifery course in mid-September and am trying to finalize my decision on which school to continue my studies through. This has been one of those times that I'd really like some real clear direction - like writing on the wall or something of that nature. But, no such luck, it seems like it's been more of a waiting game.

I'm also continuing my midwifery apprenticeship and have had the pleasure of working with Rebekah Dorsey, CPM, LM for the past several months learning how to do prenatal appointments. I'm looking forward to attending my first home births as her apprentice in November when we have three mamas due - and many more in the months after that.

Home school is keeping us on our toes this semester. We had quite an adjustment this year as Willow isn't napping through school anymore. That means Willow and Benjamin need a little more attention and our school schedule had to change a bit to fit those needs. What we figured out was that Caleb and Isaac have several things that they can do with minimal input from me - such as handwriting and spelling words - that they do while I keep track of B&W. We save the more teaching intensive stuff for the afternoon while the little ones are asleep. We've had to give up some of our afternoon activities, but we know it is just for a season. We also started a new curriculum this semester - Sonlight. And, I am very pleased with it. One thing that I've really enjoyed about home schooling is being so involved with what my kids are learning. It's amazing how often things come up in coversation and/or activities outside of our "scheduled school time" that allow for reinforcement of what we learned about in school. I love it.

Caleb and Isaac are also playing fall sports through our local activity center. Isaac is in soccer, and Caleb is in flag football. That means practice two days a week and games in the morning and afternoon on Saturdays. It's been a lot of fun, but I, for one, am glad the season is just four weeks long! Caleb and Isaac probably feel differently, as they have had so much fun! I'll just remind them that basketball season is just around the corner.

Well there's the update for the past few weeks in the Silvey household. I hope all is well with each of you!