Weekend update...

Well, Richard returned yesterday from five days of Jr. High (aka: 6.8) youth camp. It was his first experience ever with any sort of camp. He said he really enjoyed it and I do believe him (inspite of the 300 10-12 year olds!). He has amazing patience and is so much fun, so I'm sure he had a great time with the kids. I'm just finishing up all of his laundry. Evidently "mud mountain" is real and no, I never want to go there.

While he was away, the kids and I went to see Nana and Poppy in Poplar Bluff. After days of hearing Richie pray to Jesus about playing "golf on the Wii at Poppy's house," his greatest dreams were realized as he spent about 12 hours swinging his controller in the air violently and lobbing virtual golf balls back and forth over the green.

One other thing that happened is a neat story of God watching out for His kids. About a year ago, our business had a client who (long story short) ended up owing us some money. (Actually, it was a lot of money.) This client had an office for which he had purchased some very nice furnishings. As part of the settle up with him, we were to receive our choice of several pieces of the furniture. However, due to this person owing other people a fair amount of money as well (including the landlord and the bank), we never received what he had committed to us in order to settle his debt. It was difficult for Richard and I to walk away from that situation, but we had left all of this behind us months ago.....

......Well.....on Saturday, Dad asked Mom and me to run up to a repo auction where they were selling some furniture. He wanted Mom to see if there was anything there that she wanted for her house. When we got there, we realized that all of the furniture they were selling was the furniture from the office of our former client. The bank was selling it off. Sooo.....long story short (again), we ended up with two of the pieces that we had originally really wanted and my parents got two as well! Of course, we did pay for them, but only a small fraction of what they had been purchased for. It just spoke to me of how God always watches out for us and how even when we have let things go long ago....our just God remembers and will return to his children what is rightfully theirs. He may do it only in heaven in some cases, but sometimes he does it here on earth and....man....what a blessing!

p.s. What's really amazing is that I have not been home to P.B. since CHRISTMAS! It's the longest time away from home in my lifetime. What were the chances that I happened to be in Poplar Bluff on the weekend of this auction AND that my Dad just happened to want to go after seeing a random ad in the paper AND that I went with mom up there on an other wise full day. It's so unlikely that I would have been at that auction that I know Someone else was orchestrating the whole thing. Amazing.