Oh, right, we have a blog.

Not that I am super concerned with updating our blog, as most of the people who once upon a time read it while we were in Korea were readers due to the distance... which now most of those faithful readers are within driving distance, so I appologize to those who are not and were looking forward to updates. Life... it gets a little busy as I am sure we are all familiar with. Life... it is still moving at a high pace since our return to the States. For almost the past two months, our little family suffered from one ailment or another, mostly the stomach flu and colds. The stomach flu/bug raced through our home not once, not twice, but three times. Corin suffered the brunt of that in carrying the "load" THREE times in the course of five weeks. Poor kid. Hank got hit twice and Taylor and I each got it once. The first two weeks of the bug were fast and furious. I was pretty well SICK of laundry by the time we finally chased it out of the home with lysol, apple cider vinegar and acidopholus. The things you do to feel better. :P With the now "behind" us, I can tell you of some of the latest and greatest additions to our routines. Taylor just finished his first semester of Seminary!!! Whoop! And he did very well at that. I just finished my first semester teaching refugee preschoolers! Whoop... I think I did well! ;) What?, you knew nothing of this preschool teaching job I speak of?! Well, I shall fill you in then. I started teaching with a non-profit organization in the area that works with refugees and proclaims Christ all at the same time. Pretty cool, right?! Well, I get to be a part of it. I am working with 2 1/2- 5 year olds mostly from Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and recently Iraq. The kids are adorable and are doing quite well with memory verses, ABCs and 123s. We do a lot of coloring and playing outside rather than indoor games and crafts considering I am still a little afraid to give most of them scissors as the class often ends in some sort of WWIII... typically amongst the Sudanese girls. Eeek. I had a few that would not speak one word and gave me blank stares in the beginning. I thought originally it was due to their lack of understanding the English language, but as the weeks progressed they all slowly opened up and the two that were mum little ladies in the beginning are now my two chatty Cathys. :) Most of them now love to give me their goodbye hugs at the end of class and I get to see them two hours a day, three times a week. Lots of sweet hugs in my life right now, including my own boys! Speaking of boys... what do I do with them while I teach?! Corin is actually in my class, he tends to be my little helper and helps set an example for the other kiddos... most of the time good. ;) Hank goes with us too, only he toddles around with babes his age in a room down the hall. All-in-all, it has been a great experience. I never would have said I would enjoy teaching preschoolers, but in retrospect... it's not so bad, especially when you see them learning more about Christ and getting excited to "see what happens next" in His story. Quite rewarding. You can check out more about the non-profit, For the Nations:Refugee Outreach at http://ftnro.org/. Feel free to get with Cameron or Kaitlyn about volunteering or even giving. :) So, what are the boys up to now? Let's face it, you are not here to hear about Taylor and I... ;) Corin is a spelling MACHINE. He is now reading three to four letter words and sounding out words to attempt to spell them on his own. Like for instance, his word tonight... Zebra. He said it "ZEE-BRUH". He spelled it " Z-B-R-U." Not bad, not bad. :) He had the sounds down, poor kid has no clue the innumeral amount of rules for spelling and grammar ahead of him. He loves playing outdoors, anything superhero/spiderman/superman and still claims red as his favorite color. He is coming off the sugar high of the holidays and is readjusting to a normal diet... aren't we all. Hank... well, diet has never really been in his vocabulary. He is still a tank. :) An adorable little tank. Still a happy little fellow who loves to play with cars, balls and boy can that kid dance! He has progressed to a cantor and giggles joyfully as he and Corin run laps around our enormous livingroom. He too loves the outdoors but it is hard to say if that is a love of the outdoors or a love of eating dirt... it's a toss up. In other news... we got an amazing looking Korean cookbook for Christmas and are looking forward to spending more time grossing out our housemates in the kitchen! :) Our housemates that we STILL actually really enjoy! 6 months in and we are not even close to regretting our decission on community living! So to sum it all up... God is AMAZING. :) LL

The dust is settling!

So let me first say, yes, we need to update our header and picture to include Hank... I am sure I will get around to that by the time he is a year old... maybe. :) We have moved into our new home and are going on three weeks and counting now. Having roommates is a different experience for me having never gone off to college and shared a dorm room or an apartment with strangers. So... what's it like?! Well, so far, so good! We really enjoy our new friends! Aaron and Katie have a lot in common with us and it makes getting to know each other, eating with each other, and living in general a lot of fun. The boys have certainly made themselves at home and get along great with the roomies. Taylor is close to work, school and we are super close to church now! YAY for being able to get to and from church without Hank falling asleep and ruining his naps! :) It's the little things! The plan? Well... we "plan" for Taylor to go to Redeemer Seminary for his M.Div and then head back to Korea. Taylor would like to teach in a University and I would love to hop back on board with women's ministries and we both would like to invest in ministering to the expats there. Yes, I said the expats and not the native Koreans. We found there to be a huge need in this group as accountability was lacking and temptations abundant. We are excited to get plugged back into ministry here as we are in Dallas for a few years(at least). Prayer requests?!: That the Lord would be faithful in providing all our needs for Seminary. It will be a very time consuming and physically demanding season in our lives as Taylor attempts to work and go to school full time as well as be a husband and dad. So prayers for patience, wisdom, frugality, steadfastness, and everything else that we might need to equip our hearts and minds for this season of life would be gladly welcomed! Thank you all for you prayers and support over the last few years of our lives. We are truly blessed by the people the Lord has chosen to place in our path! LL

Stepping out in Faith

So as some of you know, we moved back to the states to put Taylor through Seminary. It's not really any surprise that he was accepted the same day he applied at Redeemer Seminary here in Dallas. :) (Proud wife) And so the journey begins. We were blessed to have a move in ready home available for us the moment we arrived on our return from Korea. We have been living in a trailer home in Wylie for the past 4 months and it has definitely helped keep some change in our pocket books. The only issue was the distance between our home, and our life. Church is 25 minutes away, Tay's daily job about the same, and school... further. So when we started thinking of how much actual time was being spent on the road, it began to be very clear that we needed to move closer to the places we spent most of our time. This would not only save on gas, but give us more time to spend together as a family... and with seminary in the mix, I am going to want all the time I can get... which might not be much. So, the search and prayers began. At first we thought about an apartment, but between rent and bills, it was just going to ruin any plans for paying for tuition. So we waited. We figured we would see what God could come up with. We had heard about seminary students getting to live with wealthier families in guest houses or garage apartments and figured maybe one would become available to us. A few weeks ago, an email went out from Redeemer Seminary that was notifying students of an available housing option. A married couple had been blessed with a massive home near the seminary and were wanting to extend the blessing to another couple in need. The "ad" mentioned that they were open to kids, so we sent them a reply. After not hearing from them for about a week, we figured they had already found their new roommates and so we looked forward, still praying for a solution. Then, Taylor finally got an email back from the couple. They wanted to meet with us and have dinner. In my mind, I thought "Lord... I really don't want to live with anyone else. I want my own space, my own home." I kept thinking I would go in with a good attitude, but my heart was discouraged at the thought of having roommates. So I prayed about it. I asked God to change my heart and that if this was not the place for us, that He would make it very apparent and put up red flags during the "interview." The evening started off well. WE walked int he door and immediately my nerves were calmed. I felt very at ease with the couple. We went straight to the food and waited to do a tour until after dinner. I mean, if you've seen one bedroom/bathroom, you've seen them all... right?! Anyways, by the time dinner was through, I really felt like I had known them for a while. I felt really comfortable around them and for me, that was HUGE! I am NOT good with flow of conversation with new people. I am usually very awkward and there tend to be lots of moments of silence. This time, not so much. After dinner, we took a leisure tour of the massive home. It seemed like a pretty great place with a big shady backyard, a gigantic living room, two separate bedrooms with their own private bathroom in between and a large kitchen with all the amenities... including two full size fridges. I kept looking for or even trying to create red flags due to my selfish heart... but to no avail. God was NOT going to let me have this one. After knowing this couple for a total of about 3 hours, we were offered the wing of the home for a GREAT rate that includes utilities and internet. Obviously, Taylor and I needed to discuss it before accepting the offer, but as soon as we buckled ourselves into the car... smiles lit up both our faces. Mine, because I KNEW this was an answer to prayer. Tay's because I think he secretly likes living on the edge. :) Okay, not secretly... but still. Actually, one of the amazing things about this new adventure was that Taylor and I had just been talking about missing community and ministering with our home like we did in Korea. We missed the way we were able to live like sojourners with very few material things to our name. This was an answer to those problems. We would get to minister not only to this couple, but would be able to get back to that "wanderer" status by not giving up the home we now reside in and downsizing to what will fit in two rooms again! YAY! I know. Most of you are sitting there thinking this sounds awful to you or sounds risky. Trust me when I say, I am sooooooooo stinking excited about this! So now, I ask you to pray for our transition as we get ready to move into the new place over the next two weeks. Our goal is to be out of the trailer and into the new home by July 1st. :) Praise the Lord for answering prayers in ways that we don't understand at the time. Thank you Lord, for this chance to grow and learn.Thank you for meeting our needs and more! You are such a gracious and generous God and beyond worthy to be praised!!!!!!! LL