the goal of gardens

Late spring and early summer, 2010, has left us with one question: Where did they all come from?! Whereas the winter left us wondering if the dwindling numbers of kids meant we should spend some more time with adults, the spring found them coming out of the wood-works at the same rate that dandelions were springing out of our soil. So many of them! As tiring as it can be, it is a joy to have them bouncing around our house throughout the week. If we manage to pull together the hoped-for camping trip (most of the kids have never been), it will make for one chaotic campfire!

This new influx of kiddos brings up a need for prayer, however. Most of our new tykes are 100% BOY. They are great kids, but we are consistently seeing some things in their lives that we, as women, can't offer as much guidance on. We have a few guy friends who come by every Thursday to hang out with our kids, but we are in need of more, particularly on the weekends. Please pray with us that God prompts the right guys to come and spend time in our neighborhood.

In other news, we are attempting to make our "yard" look less like a dirt patch and more like an actual yard this year. Leah and Kim got a bunch of kids to do hours of work, weeding and then laying down grass seed. This week, I am having some of them help build a raised bed to put at one end of the yard (our soil has arsenic and cyanide in it....no veggies to be planted in that junk). We got the lumber last week, and I am looking forward to seeing them take part in the sawing and hammering, the dirt and the seeds. The idea of a yard and garden are just a glimmer of what I feel like God is showing me about how we can be involved in these kids' lives. I am realizing that we need to be constantly intentional in how we love them and in the lessons we offer and skills we teach. In this case, I want the kids to see that they can begin a task and complete it, and for them to actually see the fruits (maybe veggies) of their labor. I feel God asking us to begin inviting these kids into bigger stories, into places where they achieve and experience more than they might normally reach for, and to offer them the skills they will need to keep reaching for things on their own. I pray that he'll show us the best way to do that.

Here begins trailer life in the summer. This means that we currently live in an OVEN. So I will end with a simple plea:

E.T. send popsicles.