Living Lessons

 Beautiful feet for a beautiful girl

 Victoria is already 2 weeks and 1 day old. Thanks to the "Pink Girls" who came over with these flowers in celebration of her two weeks

 Linda was actually feeling good enough on Sunday to go to church. We decided to dedicate Victoria to the Lord . (although long ago we had already done that). Reminds us that we need to all be dedicated to our Lord, for we are not our own, we have been purchased by our Lord.

How do you handle your stress? I get my girls to give me a backrub...well, sort of. Sure do love my girls.

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Sunday at church, we had Abby take a family picture. The one below was taken with our camera, but I am sure Abby's will be much better. Such a blessing to be able to worship God together...anybody looking forward to heaven?

 

 By chance (yeah, right) I have been reading a book by John Piper called "Don't waste your life". The chapter I was reading two weeks ago was entitled "Magnifying Christ through pain and death" Paul said, for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. So whether in life, or in death, we are to glorify our Lord. Here are some quotes:

Christ is made supreme when we are so satisfied in him that we can "let good and kindred go, this mortal life also, and suffer for the sake of love. His beauty shines most brightly when treasured above health and wealth and life itself.

No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience Him in our losses.

What a tragic waste when people turn away from the Calvary road of love and suffering. All the riches of the glory of God in Christ are on that road. All the sweetest fellowship with Jesus is there. All the treasures of assurance."

 

So we take up our cross and walk with Christ on the Calvary road  of love and suffering.  We have much to be thankful for.  Thank you so much to all of you who have kept us in your prayers.

Our first week with our new blessing

Thanks Nick for bringing the kids down to visit

 This week we were studying out the earths mantle, so we made a model out of ice cream

Reuben working on some new snowshoes

      

 Swinging in Feb? yup, we sure have enjoyed the warm weather.

  

 Lunch time...again . I sure have enjoyed our little daughter.

 Caleb and Victoria

Rachel and her new sister

Greetings everybody. The Lord has blessed with a week like we've never had before. I can hardly believe that it has been almost one week since we came home from Fargo. "By chance" our bible reading schedule is taking us through the book of Job this month.  We certainly haven't experienced anything close to his life, but with job, we want to bless God for his goodness and kindness. He never knew why God did what he did in his life, and neither do we, but we trust in His providence in our lives. Thankfully, we haven't had any "friends" like Job . So many of you have blessed us with cards, gifts, food,calls, visits, prayers ect. We are blessed to have such a wonderful extended family. Thank you. Victoria continues to do well, and we are exploring other options medically..please keep praying about that. In the meantime, life goes on at our home. School work, music lessons, laundry, hockey, play, you know what I mean. Here are a few photos from this week.

More pictures of Victoria

Praise God for another wonderful day. Victoria is doing well, though we can see that she does struggle at times for breath. Linda is having her staples removed today, so will visit with our Dr. some.  She is recovering well, but if you know her at all, you will know that I must keep my patient in bed, so she doesn't get going too early. Please pray for the wisdom of God for us in terms of if there is anything we should be doing medically.  There is so much info out there, praise God we serve a God who has all knowledge. 

Living by faith friends,  in the presence of God Almighty.

Pictures of our Beautiful Daughter ,Victoria Faith

Its getting late, so we will start with these few pictures. As you know Linda and I went to Roseau last monday for an ultra sound. Our doctor wanted us to go to Fargo to see a specialist and get a better ultrasound, so that was schedualed for Wed. We took off on Tuesday, had the ultra sound on wed., were told the condition of our little daughter and decided that if they could do a c section that day or the next , we may as well go ahead with that. Victoria Faith was born Feb 10, 2010 at 3: 40 pm (around) . She is just beautiful. If she didn't have an extra large head, she would be just like any newborn. She has a condition called haloproscencephaly (spelling?). She only has a brain stem and a little tissue where normally there is a full brain. She is not expected to live long, but we are glad to be able to take care of her for Jesus until He decides He wants to take care of her. God's grace has been so sufficient for us these days, but of course the tears do flow. Do we know why? no, but we trust our heavenly father and are thankful that Jesus conquerored death for us. Is it hard? yes, so keep us in your prayers. Will try to send more pics tomorrow. Live for Jesus today, we never know how long we will live for.

Just before surgery

My lovely wife.