Prayer Requests Updated

I figured it was time to update the prayer requests in my sidebar. I know that some of my readers pray so faithfully for us, and we can't tell you what a support and a blessing that is!

I didn't change the requests for the church, because we've been in a bit of a holding pattern for awhile now. There have been so many distractions in recent months for us personally, with the move and all, and with Papa Rooster's other job, and now with core team members going on vacation, that we've been content to prayerfully hold steady.

For our children, I praise the Lord that our move has really gone quite smoothly. None of the kids have been pining away for our old house and friends, though they miss Grandma and Grandpa. The older ones have kept in touch with their old friends by phone and computer, and the younger ones are happy to be near their friends from church here. Plus there are lots of kids in our new neighborhood, which has proved to be quite a distraction for us all....

Papa Rooster and I are a little ambivalent about the neighborhood kids. In the first place, there are no other girls Blondechick15's age, but quite a few young men her age. There are several boys who are Bantam13's age--and several girls who ride by our house a lot too.

In the second place, while all the kids in the neighborhood seem like nice kids (the bad kid moved away, I've been told by one neighbor), none of them seem to be committed Christians.

This is good news and bad news. Good news because we can invite them to church! (Without worrying about "sheep-stealing!") Bad news because, well, we can't expect that they're primarily trying to please the Lord in thought, word and deed. And some of their thoughts and words haven't been the greatest influence on our Christian teens, though thank God they seem to be pretty decent kids overall.

We're trying to get to know these kids and their families this summer, and we do pray that some of them will come to know the Lord in a real and vital way.

But in the meantime, our teenagers need Christian friends, so please pray with us that God will provide. Since the three of them are the only teenagers at Light of Christ, we don't exactly have a youth group there. We may look into partnering with or getting them involved with the youth group at another church at some point, but we need to pray more about that.

Back in Warrenville--(I guess I can divulge that information now!)--our "youth group" was the Christian children's theater group we were in, and while there is a chapter up here that we plan to get involved with, it's about 45 minutes away, and won't facilitate friendships in this area as much. Still, it will keep our teens occupied in a social but constructive way--so much better than just "hanging out."

We have to keep praying, too, about the idea of starting a new chapter of the theater program here in Kenosha. I have had a sense of calling about this for some time, though the very idea seems so daunting. But I feel like God may want to use this program to bless many lives here in Kenosha--not least of all my own teens, who will find themselves in positions of spiritual as well as social leadership. I feel that in God's economy, there may be connections to be made that will benefit our family, the theater group and Light of Christ simultaneously.

And I had not appreciated what an important position the theater group filled for us before we moved and found ourselves without it! We were planning to take the fall production off and get acclimated to new schools and a new year of homeschooling, but now even my son who's most often on the fence about whether he really wants to do theater or not is saying that we probably ought to do the fall show, just to have the Christian community back in our lives. (Hopefully this group will provide that as well as our old one did.)

I have more thoughts and questions about teens and friends and activities...but will save for another post.

It's turned out to be a mixed blessing that our kids still have schoolwork to finish from the past school year--it's driving me nuts, but it's keeping them busy every day till mid-afternoon! I should write a homeschooling update soon.

Meanwhile, thank you so much for your prayers, for us--and for the neighborhood kids!