...humor gets us through...

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind! Joelle has made the move fun with her cute sayings. For example, as we were driving away from Virginia she was upset and said, "You guys don't understand how hard this is for me. I was BORN in Virginia, so I'm the only American in this family."

Later in the trip, she felt Barry was being impatient with her so she said, "Barry, Patience is a curd." Erin said, "That's not how you say it." And Joelle responded with, "Patience is acquired." She was close. And, yes, patience is acquired through much practice. After we laughed for awhile I explained it to her. She will never forget that "Patience is a virtue." :)

Since we got here, Joelle has turned out to be my accident prone child. The first night we arrived in town we had dinner at the Hazell's home and the Hill family joined us. After dinner, the adults (and older children) played a game upstairs while the young kids played in the basement. We were close to finishing our game when a loud thud boomed through the house. At first I thought it was thunder as it had been raining outside, but within a few seconds a very familiar cry was heard from downstairs. I ran downstairs to find Joelle had run into a support beam face first! She said her neck and back hurt, but, she was okay with only a bruise and scratch in the middle of her forehead and a scratch on her nose.

The next day she scraped her knee on brick and had a quarter size scab on her knee. There's been a couple other scrapes and bruises and for each of these she adds a band-aid. The band-aids she's been using leave "gick." (Joelle's word, of which we had a nice laugh about.)

Lastly, on the list of Joelle's funny phrases, she was sorting out large hangers and small hangers. Barry came into the room to get some hangers and he asked if she was almost finished. She placed her hand flat in the air, shook it a bit and said, "Ifty-bifty." Apparently this one means, Fifty-fifty. :)

*In my last post I said that some friends had "promised" to come visit. Actually, no one promised, but I hope you all plan to visit anyway. :)

...our budding activist...

This afternoon Barry, Joelle and I met some dear friends for lunch at Chick-fil-A. After eating, Joelle and her friends went into the play area and played for quite some time. When it was time to leave, it was brought to my attention that Joelle was up in one of the tubes crying. My friend's son told us Joelle wasn't hurt, but that another child (someone we didn't know) had yelled at her causing her to cry.

Joelle later explained that this young girl had thrown a piece of trash on the floor of the play area in a hard to reach spot. Joelle gently told the girl that she should've thrown the trash in the proper place so as to keep our "environment" clean. The girl disagreed, because it wasn't "her" trash, and she didn't care what Joelle thought about it. Joelle and the girl commenced to arguing about the situation until the girl finally yelled, "You're not the boss of me!" Not only was Joelle upset that the girl had yelled at her, but she was also sad that the girl didn't care about our environment.

After Joelle shared all this with Barry and I, she was quiet for a time and finally said, "I should've told her about Jesus. I'm going to be a Missionary that cleans up our environment and helps animals. I want to help our earth."

I thought it was really neat that Joelle seemed to recognize our spiritual needs in relation to our actions towards our earth. Maybe she didn't actually come to THAT conclusion, but it's what I took from the conversation. :) Isn't it SO true that our relationship with Jesus influences every decision we make!? What we believe about Jesus guides our choices - big choices, small choices, every day choices. If we don't see Jesus as Loving, Caring, All-Knowing, Trustworthy, Creator God, etc... we will not care about others, we will worry in our circumstances, we will fear the unknown, and we will have no care for His precious creations.

And, if we don't see Jesus as needed Savior we will not recognize our sin, turn from it and repent. Jesus says in Matthew 10:32-33, "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven."

As she matures, Joelle will learn tact and discretion in sharing her opinions with others, but I certainly see the Lord leading her to be bold for Jesus; not just our environment! :)