The Ranch

This post is long overdue!

Some friends of ours are full time "house parents" in the boy's house at a local children's home. It's actually not just a wonderful home, but also an amazing ranch and hands-on school for children from crisis families.

"Seamark Ranch, a non-denominational, Christ-centered children’s home and school is committed to sharing the Gospel, hope, healing, and a brighter future with children from families in crisis"

Seamark's Website

A while back, they invited our whole small group out for dinner and a fabulous night at the ranch. The kids enjoyed meeting and feeding chickens, donkeys, and horses, all of which are raised and cared for by the children who live on the ranch. For dinner we ate giant fresh carrots and potatoes that had been grown there - delicious! It was a really cool enlightening night. What a huge and amazing work is being done there!

What they do there is incredible. Our friends, the house parents, are not only raising 2 girls of their own, but also 8 (? - it was 8 last time I checked) boys! I find myself struggling all the time to raise my own children faithfully - God's way. What an awesome calling it is to bring other's children into your family, to raise them, and to introduce them to the faith. HUGE!

Speaking of raising children, we have been hit hard by the terrible two's (also known simply as sin) in the last week. It has sort of blown me away because Anabelle has always been an easy and sweet girl, but oh my the tides have turned. Just tonight alone (not counting the many offenses from earlier today) she bit Evie on the shoulder breaking a blood vessel, and then presented me with a clean plate - proof of a fully consumed dinner - only for me to find her entire meal scattered about the floor after she had been given dessert and put to bed. How did she get away with that you're probably asking? I guess because I was being a spacey mess and forgot that I CANNOT TRUST HER. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me - right? Now is the time when I need all of you to give me the "CONSISTENCY" speech. Trust me, the child gets PLENTY of grace, I need to work on the consistency! Help!

One more thing... I received very sad news that a young man ,who my brothers and I knew as children, passed away unexpectedly last week. Please keep the family of Ben Speer in your prayers, he was 22.