Great news for a great family

Most of you remember all the efforts that we went to recently to help out a very deserving, needy family.  I say that "we" helped because you were all so kind to send prayers, items, and money.  Months later, Cynthia is still being blessed with your generosity.  We have been able to buy birthday gifts for 2 of the 4 kids who have had birthdays.  They otherwise would have gotten nothing...not for lack of love, but for lack of money.

A couple weeks ago Cynthia called me to tell me that she had a job interview with housekeeping at a very nice hotel in town.  She found out last week that she got the job, and she was ECSTATIC!  Russell, Emma, and I took her shopping the night before she had to report to work, and we got her not only the essentials for her job, but also the essentials that people sometimes just need.

Cynthia has now been working for 13 days.  I don't know how many of those 13 days she has worked, but I know it's been a lot of them!  She is exhausted and happy, and her feet hurt, and her heart is full.  Her supervisors are thrilled with the quality of her work, and her family is chipping in a lot to make sure that the kids are looked after.

God continues to work in Cynthia's favor every day.  Just this morning at church, another member (who has been instrumental in helping her) and I were talking about getting Cynthia bus passes for work because it's an awfully long walk that she makes.  As soon as our conversation was over, I turned around to face a sweet mom who handed me an envelope full of money that she and her son had been collecting to give to someone who needs it.  Gosh, how in the world will we buy those bus passes?

Cynthia's oldest little girl turned 7 on Saturday, and my friend Leigh and I took over some birthday presents and a cake.  She was SO excited about her presents and before I could even get anything out of my car, I was given the biggest, sweetest, jumping-into-my-arms-so-I-better-catch-her hug.  She opened one gift before we left: two school uniform shirts.  She excitedly grabbed them out of the box, dashed out of the living room and into her bedroom, putting them into her drawer right away.  She may end up wearing them this week with the tags still on them.  When she came back, she cleaned up the box and trash from that first gift. Precious girl...and she still had a few presents to go.

God is so good.  Our pastor spoke this morning about speechless moments similar to what the disciples must have experienced when they witnessed the Transfiguration.  So maybe I haven't witnessed the Transfiguration...but I certainly have witnessed God working in ways that have left me feeling like I don't have the words to fully describe my joy and wonder at God's goodness and timing.

It's not that I don't care...

...it's just that I haven't had much to blog about lately, in case you were wondering where we've been.

Emma was sick for about 11 days.  If you want my honest opinion, I think it was RSV based on the duration and the severity, but last year when she had RSV, she wound up in the hospital for a few days...and quite unnecessarily.  With the unusual epidemic of nastiness that has been going around Greenville, I wasn't about to take her to the pediatrician's office and expose her to something else and THEN risk going to the hospital when there was really nothing anyone can do about it.

Here are some highlights of Emma's life lately:


Trying to love on all her Minnie Mouse's at once:

Organizing toys (as if I didn't love this child enough, her organizational skills and drive to sort have me completely overjoyed.  I swear she did this all by herself.):

Lola feels that she is Emma's best friend and protector.  Emma has a slightly different perception of their relationship...Emma views her as more of a nuisance that she tolerates because we tell her to, but that doesn't make Lola any less sweet to Emma.  If Emma calls our names more than twice and we don't respond, Lola starts whimpering and her volume grows as Emma's volume grows.  When Emma cries or throws a temper tantrum, there's always an equally upsetting noise coming from Lola. And lastly, let's just say that it's a good thing that Lola only weighs 14 pounds.  Whenever Emma cries from her room, Lola barges past us to get through the door first.  After Emma went to sleep one night, I guess Lola missed her and settled for the next best thing: her Minnie collection:

I turn around and Emma's hair has suddenly grown 6 inches since her last haircut.  This means her pigtails have gotten really long and make her look so much older.  *Tears*

Stay tuned for the next post...I have great news about the sweet family we've been helping out since November.