Please Pray

We are asking for prayer for a precious little girl! She is the three year old daughter of a sweet friend.

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Delainey was diagnosed with Synovial Cell Sarcoma at the age of 15 months. By the time she was 18 months, she had her arm amputated just below the elbow as treatment. The cancer came back in May of this year. More of her arm was just amputated, and now the fight continues to get dozens of little tumors out of her lungs. The doctors are using chemotherapy…..

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…and Delainey will have a VERY TOUGH surgery on October 8th. The goal will be to surgically remove those tumors from her lungs. PLEASE can you pray? This precious girl and her family need to be covered in prayer. Pray for the chemo to do its job. Pray for the Lord to guide the hands of the surgeon. Pray for peace for Delainey’s Mama and Daddy. Please join us in prayer!

“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9

May the Lord use this ALL for His glory!

Heaven’s Gain

Heaven gained a beautiful soul last week…..

(my dear friend, Jill, on the left)

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A dear friend who fought cancer is now in glory….

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I can’t even wrap my mind around the fact that her time on earth is done…..

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But I know, without a doubt, that heaven is an even brighter place because she is there.

Soap Box Derby

During the father and son time at camp this last week, the guys built soap box derby cars! The boys had a blast doing this activity – especially because they got to race them on the last afternoon there!

It was warm and beautiful the first two days of camp.

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Loading up the cars to take them to the top of the hill for the races on Thursday!

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There were only three sets of tires, so they had to be changed out for each race.

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Grant raced for our team. He did great until he ran straight into a sign post! I guess I should be thankful that Eliza was napping and I wasn’t there!

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I thought the verse on the side of one of the other cars was very appropriate!!

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This is just one of the many awesome things about camp! Thank you, Wissmans, for this awesome activity!!

A few more of us are sick this morning, and so we are home from church. I pushed through a fever all day yesterday, but actually feel worse today. Chad feels worse today too. Eliza is starting to get it, but no fever so far! The fever turns into a chest cold…..seems to me we just did this….so we are praying for fast recoveries this time around!

Praising the Lord for an amazingly beautiful fall day!!

Camping In Style!

We just spent this last week at Family Camp! As usual, it is one of the highlights of our year! Such a joy to see friends we haven’t seen since last year! We come away from Family Camp challenged, encouraged, and refreshed! It has been an energizing week!

Getting ready for camp is a HUGE job. We have been so busy that it was also a last minute job! We raced around trying to get everything packed and enough food made. We also had to get the farm in shape to walk away from it for a week. Many hands make light work!

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I was taking a picture of the piles all over the kitchen when a certain someone photo bombed the photo! I think this photo is hilarious!!!

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I thought I had purchased all the things the children needed for camp, until Chad came and showed me how his sweatshirt from this spring fit him. Seriously! I need to quit feeding these kiddos!

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So thankful that my wonderful hubby rents us a beautiful camper to stay in while we are at Family Camp! It is such a great little home away from home! When Blake pulls into the farm with the camper, Lane thinks Family Camp has arrived!

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It was so fun to have some time with just Eliza and Lane this past week. The older children would stay up later, so Blake and I enjoyed having these two littles all to ourselves before their bed time each night! Seeing the bond grow stronger between Eliza and Lane is such a beautiful thing!

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Isn’t that hair flower adorable?! A friend from church made a whole pile of cute hair things for Eliza!

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Eliza did not even blink at a different bath tub. She loved it!

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We ate a lot of our meals in the camper. Usually at dinner time we would carry our food over to the dining hall and eat with the other families. It was fun to cook in such a compact kitchen!

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In the mornings it was SO cold! Hot oats while still in bed was the way to go!

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We even took our Keurig! Hot coffee to warm up was a necessity, right?

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I guess I don’t need to tell you how Eliza did! She was our little happy-go-lucky rock star!!! She is still amazing us all! She slept in one of the bottom bunks, and still slept twelve hours a night and took two hour naps. This girl will sleep through anything!

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We came home on a very rainy day yesterday, and half of us are sick. I feel so bad for Chad – he has been burning up with a fever and has slept almost the whole time since we have been home. I am sure this illness will make its rounds through us all – one of the joys of life with many!

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As I started this post, my technical self wondered how many photos you can put on one post?! I think I better split these photos up into more than one post. There is much, much more to share about our wonderful vacation to Family Camp!