2012 Goals - January Update

Each month I want to post an update here to let you all know how I am progressing on the four goals I made for 2012. It is a way of giving me some extra accountability to stay on track.

So here are my four goals for this year and a quick note on how we are doing:

1. Read through the Bible - With the plan I am using this year I will read cover to cover. I am at Leviticus 3 which is right on track with the schedule. I missed a few days but was able to make them up to stay on track.

2. Listen to through the Bible with my children - We have made it to Exodus 15. My goal for this month was to make it through Exodus so we fell a little short. I find that often we get busy doing stuff and I forget to turn it on for us to listen. As the month progressed I started doing better and I think we will be able to catch up soon.

3. Read 2,012 pages of great Christian biographies & classic literature aloud to my children - So far we have read 139 pages. In order to make our goal we need to read about 168 pages per month but for about a week I was sick with sore throat and scratchy voice and was not able to get much reading done. We started reading about 30 min a day after lunch but it not ends up being at least 45 and a couple times we have read an hour. We finished reading a biography on the life of Hudson Taylor we started last year. When we finished that we read a couple of stories written by Hans Christian Andersen.

4. Declutter 2,012 items from our house - This month I have decluttered 1,016 items from our house! Scott took our kids for a day and allowed me concentrated time to work on some major purging of things around here. While I have the 2,012 goal for this entire year I would love to reach it much sooner in the year as we are praying God would lead us to a church soon and I want to have the house decluttered as much as possible before a move. It has been so freeing to get rid of so many items cluttering our lives.

Four Goals for 2012

Four goals I have for 2012:

1. Read through the Bible - I have done this several times but it has been a few years and decided this would be a good year to do this again.

2. Listen to through the Bible with my children - I plan to play audio of the Bible for my kids while we are playing/working around the house. I plan to get through the entire Bible at least once and then will likely repeat several books. It is a passive way to surround my children with Scripture.

3. Read 2,012 pages of great Christian biographies & classic literature aloud to my children - I started reading reading biographies to our children this year each day before nap time. I didn't keep very good track which book or how many pages (we read 3 or 4 biographies). This year I plan to expand it to include some classic literature and do a better job recording what we read with the goal of 2,012 pages in 2012.

4. Declutter 2,012 items from our house - This past year I have been convicted by how much time the "stuff" in our lives takes away from time I could be using to be a better wife and mother. I purged & donated over 30 garbage bags of stuff this year. This year I plan to keep track with the goal of purging 2,012 items in 2012 (about 38 items per week). I am super excited about this goal to help move us toward a less cluttered life.

There are a few other goals that are floating around in my mind but I haven't taken the time to sit down and flesh them out into manageable steps. I've also found it is much more successful for me to set a few goals at a time and once they have become habits then add more. If I try to bite off to many changes at once I am tempted to just give up on all of the goals. I am excited to see what God has in store for our family over the next year!

Happy New Year!

Four Years Ago...

Four years ago today my eyes welled with tears as the doctor placed you in my arms.

Four years ago today I became a Mommy.

The past four years have been filled so many precious memories as I have watched you grow.

I love how you make me laugh.

I love to listen to you pray.

I love to see your eyes light up when you are excited.

I love to watch you take care of your little brother and sister.

We chose the middle name Matthew because it means "Gift from God" and you have truly been a precious gift from God to our family.

Happy 4th Birthday William Matthew!

4 Days Old

1 Year Old

2 Years Old

3 Years Old

4 Years Old

Waiting...

This is a continuation of the story of this past weekend. On Monday we headed on a few hours north to my aunt & uncle's house to pick up my grandma (the original reason for this trip). We knew that the pastoral search committee had a meeting scheduled for Monday night to discuss if they wanted Scott to return to officially candidate.

Waiting is hard.

As we drove Monday we talked about how we were already falling in love with the people at Colon Baptist Church. We felt like we were leaving a piece of our hearts at the church which was so hard because we also knew we may never return. We were so surprised that we could become so attached to a church in just one day.

We spent a lot of time praying and waiting for a call from the chair of the search committee. The call finally came Monday after their meeting. He told Scott that there were several people who really think that he is the guy for their church but they have three other candiates already lined up to speak and after discussing it they decided to wait until they have heard the other men before they take a vote on whether to have Scott return to candidate.

Of course that means more waiting...waiting 2 months until the middle to end of January.

God led us to this church to minister for a weekend. We got a taste of full time ministry. We enjoyed sweet fellowship and after just a day felt that we were leaving a piece of our hearts with this group of believers.

And then God asks us to wait.

I mentioned in my previous post that Sunday night Scott preached on Caleb. As Scott and I discussed how hard it will be to wait 2 months God used that sermon to encourage and challenge us.

Caleb was given a taste of the Promise Land as one of the twelve spies but then God told him he would have to wander 40 more years in the wilderness before he would be allowed to enter and conquer. Two months is nothing compared to 40 years!

While our heart's desire would be that Colon Baptist Church would call Scott to be their next pastor we are trying to hold that desire with open hands. We truly want God's best for our lives and for the people in this church. We are praying if Scott is not the person for this church that God will make that clear both to us and the people at this church.

We will be praying daily for Colon Baptist Church over the next two months. It is hard because our hearts ache to serve there but we are learning anew what it means to pray "Thy will be done".

The Next Chapter

Recently I wrote Part 1 and Part 2 of this story.

This past Sunday we were able to add another chapter to the story.

It is hard to describe our emotions as we headed out on the 20min drive from the hotel to Colon Baptist Church on Sunday morning. Scott and I were excited and nervous. It has been a long time and the realization that after years of seminary we were actually heading to begin the candidating process at a church!

We were/are still in amazement at all the doors God has opened for this weekend. When planning a trip in the middle of November you are never quite sure what the weather will be like. Earlier in the week it snowed here in Iowa and in Michigan but the day we traveled it was almost 60 degrees!

We arrived and got the kids settled in their class and nursery then headed for the adult Sunday school class. It was so nice to be able to finally meet these people that we have been praying for the past several weeks. We loved hearing the people interact during Sunday school. We enjoyed hearing them share prayer requests and news of events in the small town of Colon, MI.

Scott preached on 1 Corinthians 13 about love in the church Sunday morning. He was told by many people that it was just what they needed to hear. It was so encouraging to see the Holy Spirit using Scott to encourage believers.

After the morning service a couple in the church had our family and the families of the pastoral search committee to their house for lunch. It was such a wonderful time of fellowship and getting better acquainted with people. Scott was able to sit and talk with the search committee for over an hour answering questions and sharing ministry goals/ideas etc.

Sunday night Scott preached on the faith and character of Caleb. After church we were able to spend some more time visiting and meeting several of the teens that come on Sunday nights for Word of Life.

On the drive back to the hotel we discussed the day. Both Scott and I were amazed by how at home we felt with these people we had just met. We were amazed to discover that only after one day we were already falling in love with the people in this church.

Then the realization hit us that after this wonderful day of ministry and fellowship we now had to endure the difficult process of waiting and praying for God's will to be accomplished.

Happy Birthday Ellen!

Today our sweet little girl turns one year old!

It has been a day of ruffles, pink frosting, a new baby doll, and giggles.

It has also been a day to reflect on the goodness fait

hfulness of God. I shared earlier this year about Accident Day. We chose the name Fidelity "faithful" as a life long reminder of God's goodness and faithfulness to our family to bless us with a precious little life just a week after sparing Scott's life.

We did not know at the time but God would again prove to be faithful in preserving my life after her delivery.

Today on Ellie's first birthday I can't help but reflect on her birth. There were some complications and I ended up losing a lot of blood. Unfortunately no one realized exactly how much blood I had lost until it reached dangerously low point.

I will always remember holding my precious newborn girl while Scott quickly signed release forms for emergency surgery.

I will always remember having to say good bye to Scott and to leave him to care for Ellie while I was rushed into surgery when she was just 2 hours old.

But most of all I will always remember God's faithful protection and once again choosing to give us a precious new life and allowing my life to be spared following her birth.

Happy Birthday Ellen Fidelity Kroeger!

Thankful Chain

I can hardly believe it is already November! I enjoy these weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I wanted to share one Thanksgiving tradition our family has.

During the month of November as a family we make a thankful chain.

I originally got the idea from my Aunt Barb who did this with her family when I was a child. My family adopted the tradition and the year Scott and I were dating we decided to continue the tradition.

Each family member is assigned (or gets to choose) a color of construction paper. I then cut those up into strips one for each day from Nov 1 to Thanksgiving day. Every day each member of the family choose one thing they are thankful for that day. I write it on a slip of paper with their color and staple it in a circle to make a paper chain. There can be no duplicate entries for the month.

I have a small notebook that I use to record the items that are said each day. It makes it easy that way to check to see if someone has already "taken" an item earlier in the month plus I have been able to use the same notebook for several years and it is fun to look back and see what we each were thankful for throughout the years. For example on November 1, 2005 (the year we were dating) I was thankful for my family and Scott was thankful for my helping him with his homework.

Here's the notebook where I keep everything recorded.

By the time Thanksgiving arrives we have a nice long paper chain filled with the things we have been thankful for throughout the month. On Thanksgiving Day we find a time to sit down as a family and open each link to the chain and read through once again the items we had listed during the month. It is fun if there are extended family members (siblings, grandparents etc) that have been listed we are able to show them the link with their name and let them know we are thankful for them.

Here is our chain after today with our four links (Scott, Ruth, Will & James). I am looking forward to seeing it grow this month as we reflect on God's goodness to our family and the many reasons we have to be thankful.