Rejoicing in Heaven

I woke up this morning and was lying there contemplating my day and praying for Craig when the phone rang at about 7:15. Will answered it and was making very happy comments, then he gave the phone to me. Craig said through his sobs, "I gave my life to Jesus Christ today!" Praise God, He is so awesome! But I have to know the details of course.

To backtrack, Craig called a week ago Friday to let us know he had been accepted into the Discipleship Training School at the Hurlach Castle in Germany where he's been working. The term was starting the next day with get-acquainted activites. He said he had gone from not really caring about it to being very excited about attending. What changed your attitude, I wondered. His reply was, "Well, maybe it has something to do with this God that everyone keeps talking about!" It's three months of school and three months of an outreach in Venezuela. Yesterday we got a short e-mail from him saying he was glad he had decided to stay and was learning a lot. So today, I asked if he had learned things during his classes this week that answered questions and doubts that he had. No, that wasn't it. He said all week he has felt a heaviness from God on him. Today his DTS team leader was talking to him about his own relationship with Jesus, and Craig said he finally realized that he needed to choose to follow Jesus. He expressed how sorry he is for the life he's led and kept apologizing for crying during our conversation, saying he didn't think he'd ever cried from joy before!

The scripture from Luke 15:10 has been on my mind today. ".....there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." They are rejoicing about my son today! I came across this picture of Craig and Nathan at their high school graduation and had to smile, thinking of how much Nathan is rejoicing today as well! His sister Becky told me Nathan called her and said he had been gone for the day, and when he got back to the castle, Craig came running out the door and jumped on him, yelling, "I've got Jesus, I've got Jesus!" Nathan's love for his friend and his obedience to God are making a huge difference in many lives.

The theme verse at church this month is one of my very favorites, Ephesians 3:20. I have been praying for years that God's power would be at work within Craig, praying to the God who is "able to do immeasurably (or "exceedingly abundantly") more than all we ask or even imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." I did not imagine that God would work in the way that he has, but it is very exciting to see his power at work!

Wii Fun

Nick has been enjoying the new Nintendo Wii he got belatedly for Christmas. Eric explained to us about the Wii system, how it's purpose is to bring people together. The play on words (we), the visual of the word Wii being several people together. As usual I don't remember all the details that Eric so thoroughly explained, but the Nintendo company is certainly wonderful to have family togetherness as their goal. The Wii Sports are played by actually swinging the controller like a bat, doing the bowling motion, using a tennis raquet, and wow, you should see Nick box. He becomes exhausted with all the jumping around. Will, on the other hand, is able to down his opponent while standing still and using minimal hand motions.



I don't understand why at the beginning of my turn everyone was yelling at me to attach the wrist handle. Like they think I would accidentally throw the controller at the screen like some crazy people have done?

Tonight Doug's family came over for last minute tacos. Duane talked his dad into bowling with him. Doug was good. He can really focus when he plays sports. Fun times. It's cool to have brothers and nephews. Oh yes, sister-in-laws and nieces are good too.

Whatever Works

Do you know how to have fun when you have to clean the bathroom? When Nick looked for a cleaning rag in the hall closet, he came upon some interesting items. The umbrella was a pinochle prize from several years ago and who knows why the snow goggles are in there. He kept them on the entire time he cleaned the bathroom! I guess fun is where you find it!

Happy Birthday Will

I am so behind on blogging all the important events of this week, but I must not neglect the most important one of all, the birthday of the dominant male in the househole. He bought his own present, the phone that the Verizon guy told Nick was the best one - the "Envy". Nick is certainly envious.

You may wonder why Nick is kneeling between Eric and Will in the picture. Nick becomes frighteningly exuberant whenever the opportunity presents itself to play with matches. He volunteered to light the candles, and somehow managed to drop a full box of matches on the floor. He was there for awhile. When the matches were finally picked up and Nick had successfully lit the candles, Will took his sweet time blowing them out. My faithful standby balloon cake decoration that has served me frequently since I first used it on Eric's sixth birthday sustained severe damage. A large hole was melted on the side of the pink balloon. Quite sad.
Nick knew exactly what his father needed for his new phone and got him a memory card for it. He wanted to treat his father the same way his father treated him at Christmas, so he wrapped the very small item in a larger container, using excessive amounts of tape, and put it in an enormous bag. Of course, excessive tape is no problem for a guy who always carries a pocket knife.

Will is having so much fun with his new toy. He was so excited that he text messaged Nick to let him know he got it when Nick was in class at school! Cell phones aren't allowed to be on in class, but Nick is smart enough to have his on vibrate when he's dumb enough to have it in his pocket.

Happy Birthday Linda!

My sister Linda will be 54 years old tomorrow. To celebrate, we had her, my parents, and Galen and Carol over for dinner. In order to keep it to one table for mealtime, I invited Doug's family to join us for cake and ice cream a little later.
Isn't she cute! When I asked her if she could blow out 54 candles, she tilted her head and looked at me over her glasses like she really had to think about it. We compromised and I tried to make a 5 and a 4 out of candles. Doug and Duane were able to make it for dessert but the womenfolk had other duties. Linda told Doug it was too bad Alisha (Anisa) couldn't come to her party, and she told Duane it was too bad his wife couldn't come to her party! I think she enjoyed herself today and I hope she has a great birthday tomorrow.

First Basketball Win

Going in to last night's game, Nick's team had lost 4 and almost won one that never got finished due to the power outage. As we were getting out of the car, I told him we were going out to dinner with Galen and Carol after the game. His face lit up. "Can we go to Applebees?" Well, son maybe that depends on you! I want to see you play aggressively! Get those rebounds and put them in the basket! I had forgotten what a motivator food is for that boy. In the past, the suggestion of eating wherever he chose after a game would light the fire in him, but Subway or Taco Bell were his dream destinations. He must be growing up.

His coach has the team divided into two separate teams, and each team alternates playing a full quarter. They don't practice much, being a Boys & Girls club team, and many of the players tend to run down court and shoot from outside instead of passing the ball much. Nick, of course, is not one of them, he knows his only sweet zone is within two feet of the basket! But last night they did a little better at working the ball in.

Galen and Will were leaning towards Pings, but at the beginning of the fourth quarter Galen said, "Well, if Nick makes 20 points this quarter, we'll take him to Applebees!" Sadly for Nick, he only had 9 points that quarter. The game had been quite close all the way through but the last quarter Nick's team forged ahead and won by 12. And Nick seemed to quite enjoy his dinner at Pings.

Christmas Traditions

I like Christmas traditions. One of my favorites started thirteen years ago when I was the calm, well-organized mother of three small children and also had seven or eight day care children in and out of my home on weekdays. Christmas Eve arrived and I was still working like mad to get everything done. I had something special planned for dinner but I just didn't have the time or the energy left to do it. So I picked up the phone, called Izzy's Limousine Pizza and ordered our family's favorite, Izzy's Special with thick crust. I lit all the candles in the house, and when the pizza arrived we turned off the lights (except the Christmas tree lights) and had pizza by candle light. The boys loved it, so we have done it every year since. Sparkling cider was added to the tradition a few years later and is also a must. It also wouldn't be the same without Will grumbling about too many candles and muttering dire predictions about burning the house down. (Well, once many years back some greens around the advent wreath at the kitchen table caught fire as we sat at the dining room. It was a bit exciting for awhile but other than a lot of smoke, no harm was done. And it gives Will some credibility.) I gave him more ammunition this year as I was dishing out pizza from the box and knocked a full glass of cider over, but hey, I didn't catch the box on fire. And Nick didn't get too wet.After dinner, the kids usually open a new game. I changed it this year, because last year's game hasn't been played since last Christmas Eve and we have a ton of games. I pulled questons about Jesus from our Bible Trivia game and we got into two teams and answered those questions. I learned that my kids know both more and less than I thought they did. I like to have Jesus questions at dinner during December but I never got around to getting them out this year. Then they normally open a new movie, but this year I didn't buy one of those either cause there just didn't seem to be any worth buying. I rented a couple and let them choose. We watched Superman Returns. I told them I had just read a review that there was some symbolism about Jesus so we were watching for those. My favorite line in the movie was when Lois Lane tells Superman, "We don't need a savior." He replies, "I can hear everyone, and the whole world is crying out for a savior."

Christmas Eve and morning were a little strange with only two boys to open their gifts, but Craig called from Germany around 9:00 am and we all got to talk to him. I asked him what he'd had for Christmas dinner and he said, turkey, stuffing, the usual. Nothing German? He laughed at me. "Mom, I'm having Christmas with a bunch of Americans." Oh, of course. Nathan's in-laws are there and they are doing a little traveling this week. They went to Munich and Dachau last week.

For the first time in awhile. we had our Troyer get-together on Christmas Day. I started something new last year at Christmas dinner of having place cards for everyone with scripture from Luke 2, Matthew 2 and prophecy from Isaiah 9. I managed to set them out in order and after dinner everyone got to read a few verses as the Christmas story was shared. That is our newest tradition.

After dinner the usual game playing took place. Little Cody is quite the expert at dominoes - he kept us all in line. I let Nick beat me at ping pong. Anisa got a lovely picture of me playing with my tongue out, but it's slightly blurry since I was moving so fast.

Galen once again proved what an outstanding brother he is, bravely being the sole person to try the hot picked brussels sprouts. He said it wasn't too bad. What a guy! I don't believe those little treats will become part of our Christmas tradition.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!