A Video of one of my Cute Piano Students

This year God has blessed me with sixteen wonderful music students (this does not include my own kids)!  There are 13 piano students, 2 violin students, and 1 voice student.  Although I never really sought out being a music teacher, it is what God has laid in my lap at this time of my life.  And my life is so rich because of it!  I am blessed to have wonderful people coming in every day to share music with me–how can it get any better than that?!  And it’s not just music–what a fantastic way to get to meet families that I might not ever get to know otherwise.  I am truly rich!

Recently, one of my youngest students wanted to play “Jesus Loves Me” for church.  This video will show why I love my music students so much:

Life doesn’t get much better than this!  🙂

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A “Selfie” of My Five Kids–I am SO BLESSED!

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Visiting KSU/Update on John

We had the privilege of visiting John at KSU on Labor Day.  It was so wonderful to see him and to have all of my five kids together again for a few hours.

John is doing extremely well.  Shortly after arriving at KSU, he quickly discovered that his heart was not into math like he thought it was.  Instead, every time he heard the band practicing or walked by the music building, he just wanted to be there doing music.  So, we discussed the pro’s and cons, and John made the decision to change his major to music education.  The music faculty were wonderful helping him to get all of the classes switched that he needed to change, and everything worked out well.

So John has a full load of first semester music classes, and he is loving every minute of it.  His main instrument is piano, but he is following a choral music track.  So, he spends many hours each week practicing the piano and many more going to music theory classes, choir, etc.  Of course, he still has his general ed courses too, so he is still taking Calculus, a writing class, and a history class.  He also has to attend a certain number of a variety of types of recitals each semester, so he has been enjoying that as well.

God is continuing to guide John each step of the way, and that is so neat to see.  He is still looking for just the right church.  He’s visited a few places, but “the one” has not jumped out at him yet.  So, we are praying for that.  Having a strong, loving church family is so important.  We know there is one out there, we are just praying that God will lead him to it.

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A Church Tradition Continues….

Our church has had a pretty long-standing tradition of using a giant sling shot to shoot water balloons as far as possible.  It had actually been a couple of years since we had done this, and I decided this year was a good time to bring it back.  So, last Sunday we spent a few minutes just enjoying the kids of our church–some of whom are new to our church family and haven’t gotten to try out this wonderful activity before!

The kids (and adults) all had a good time.  We even brought our water rocket bottle launcher to add into the fun.  Our little country church is blessed with a wonderful bunch of kids–I love them all!

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Getting John to Kansas State University

Towards the end of August, the long-awaited day finally arrived:  the day when John left home to study at Kansas State University.  Wow–what a whirlwind of activity and emotion that was!  Everyone had warned me that leaving that loved one at school clear across the state would not be easy, and I had believed them.  Now I know from experience that it is true!  Saying goodbye to this great kid that means the world to us was tough, tough, tough–but, oh, the joy that is there too!  Seeing him grow up and follow Christ on his own is the purpose of our parenting, and now we are reaping the rewards of that.  These kids are not and never have been ours; they belong to the Lord, and it is just great to see God leading them every step each day.

God clearly led John to KSU.  So, I have no worries!  He is a faithful, loving God who has John’s future perfectly planned, and it is neat to see Him at work.  Take, for example, John’s roommate (the boy in the picture with John). This is just one example of many showing God’s guiding hand in miraculous ways.  Of course, we have been praying for just the right roommate for John for a long time.  Living in the dorms at a state university is never easy, but having the right roommate can make a huge difference.  At first, John was just going to take the “luck of the draw” on roommates, but then he decided to watch a discussion board specifically set up for KSU students to find compatible roommates.  Within a few days, he saw a posting from a boy who described himself as kind of introverted looking for a roommate who was a Christian.  Pretty soon John and this boy were emailing back and forth, and we soon learned that this boy is also a homeschool graduate who was attending KSU as a freshman.  He is a Christian and a diligent student–an architecture major.  The boys both agreed that this looked like a good direction, so they filled out the paperwork to request each other as roommates.

Fast forward to moving-in day.  We had not been in John’s dorm unpacking belongings for very long before we had the privilege of meeting this boy’s parents.  His dad asked me if Dan is my husband.  Now that kind of took me for a surprise!  I asked him if he knew Dan, and he said that he, indeed does.  In fact, he is also an ag economist and has worked with Dan on projects and has attended many of the same conferences and such.  He said that he had not put together that John was Dan’s son because his son always just referred to him as “John,” never saying the last name.  When they saw the name on the door, they recognized the connection right off.

Now, what are the chances of this happening?  Of two boys meeting on the internet, both KSU freshmen, both Christians, both homeschool graduates, both serious students–whose fathers have worked together but had nothing to do with their meeting????  Humanly, it is about zero percent.  With God, the chances are one hundred percent.

So, while it is difficult not having John at home with us, we are completely at rest knowing that our Father who takes care of every detail is watching over him.  Things aren’t always easy, but there is always joy.  God is good–all of the time, He is good.

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