Finding Faith in the Battle

I can't believe Chad will be home tomorrow! All in all, it's gone better than I expected it would. Yesterday the kids woke up as holy terrors, consistent with it being a Sunday! I had true fear and trembling about taking them all to church, but I had committed in my spirit that I needed to show them how important church is, so off we went. And after a pep-talk in the parking lot, they were amazing during the whole service!!! All 4 of them! Thank you, LORD! I find few things more frustrating than getting us all ready for church and then missing out on the whole service because of bad behavior, so they really blessed me by shaping up. Of course, that's not to say there weren't hard moments in there...top of the list would be Isaac climbing off the potty while I answered the gate and peeing on my bed instead, or maybe the incident where Isaac tried to steal Ethan's lunch, Ethan wouldn't let him, so Ethan ended up with a fork stuck in his scalp, hanging down between...

Chad is off to South Africa for a meeting and then dermatology appointment. Because of the flight limitations, it's going to be a whopping 12 days of me and the 4 kids flying solo! I admit, I cried all the way home from the airport. I wanted to suggest that the IMB should send all of us wives to a spa to recover from this meeting, but since there's hardly enough money to pay for fuel to do our jobs, I doubt that will happen! I comforted myself to sleep last night by planning a get-away to a bed-and-breakfast for just me once he gets back. In a 1600 sq. foot house with no sound-proofing, it's the only way I'll ever get to sleep past 5:30am for YEARS to come! Yesterday I kept myself busy by chasing children from one mess to another. In my 16-hr day, I pulled Omara away from playing in the toilet, confiscated a machete from Isaac, changed 4 poopy diapers, taught Isaac the lesson that "It's not ok to sit on your sister's head," found Ethan after he ran awa...