Green Springs

We've had some terrible illness run through the family and life has been in survival mode for awhile now.  Everyone is on the mend now, though it is a slow process, and I thought I'd sit at the computer and do a quick little post about a recent fun outing we had as a family, just before we started getting sick.

We took a little day trip to Green Springs and though we think we didn't find where everyone says is the best place to go, we found a place that we could let the kids play and cool off for the afternoon. 

Our Champion Victorious, Our Risen King!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!! 

This is the email I received from the mother today!  I have taken out identifying names but I wanted to share her own words for the encouragement and edification of others to see and hear this wonderful testimony of the power of God to rescue and to save and to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for lifting up our dear friends!!!  I was praying in faith that God would do immeasurably more than we ask or even imagine and I am excited to wait on the Lord and watch and see His marvelous deeds.  Both Emily and I prayed through the night the other night and had similar experiences that we shared with one another the next morning.  We both felt emotions of terror come upon us with hairs standing on end and goose-bumps rising up.  She saw her bedroom grow unnaturally dark and I saw dark shadows flitting across my walls. We both closed our eyes and did not allow it to frighten us from our purpose of praying for our friends.  The enemy hates the fellowship of the saints.   May God bless you richly for standing in the gap for this precious young lady when she was unable to do so for herself and for lifting up the mother when her faith was faltering.  I love you for it!! 

Please continue to remember them in prayer!

To God be the glory!

Keep on praying!

Please keep on praying for this young lady and for her deliverance from the powers of darkness!

Her situation is urgent and it appears that events are escalating.  She tried to strangle herself and then tried to choke herself and was in kept restraints until late this evening when she was put on a 24 hour watch.  Please pray protection over this tortured beloved child of God!  Please pray for peace and strength of faith for her mother.  For the Lord to uphold her with His mighty right arm through this dark valley.

An Urgent Prayer Request

A very dear friend of mine has been entrenched in a grueling battle for her daughter's life. Her teenaged daughter has been suicidal and made several attempts to take her own life. They just can't seem to get her stable or keep her safe. The daughter *is* a believer. We have been close, close friends with them for years and watched her grow up from a toddler to a lovely young woman and it is so heartbreaking to watch them struggle through this. I just received an email from her giving more details of the struggle that have recently developed after this last attempt on her own life.  The daughter said she heard voices in her head telling her where to find the keys to the locked medicine cabinet where she got the meds to overdose with.  She says the voices are so loud, so hateful and so unyielding.   After her mother told her we would not stop praying for her, she got upset and when the mother told her we would still not stop praying for her, she went to her room and attempted to strangle herself. The mother is asking for other prayer warriors to go to battle for her daughter's life and freedom from these demonic spirits tormenting her.

Baby Chicks!

We tried to hatch another clutch of eggs again this year.  We just have not had good results with our incubator.  We don't know what the difficulty is.  This year we only had 2 survivors.

Ethan built a very nice, sturdy brooder for us that we can use out in the garage.  It has been wonderful to not have the smell of the brooder coming into the living room from the porch like last year.

It has a lid with sturdy boards across the top so that the cats can sit on it and observe the chicks and nice, high sides to protect from the winds that blow straight into the garage.

We had 2 orphaned chicks given to us and bought 20 Barred Rock and 20 Buff Orpington chicks from someone on craigslist to keep our 2 hatched chicks company.

It's a grand brooder!  It will serve us well and Ethan did such a great job on it!

Several of our hens went broody but only one hen was faithful enough to keep coming back to her nest.  The others would forget or get confused and start a new nest somewhere else.  

This is Eglantine.  She was allowed to keep her nest of eggs because she was so faithful.  She even took in a nearby nest that another hen abandoned and rolled each egg over to her own nest and sat on them.

We let the chicks stay with her until they were nicely fluffed up and then we took them and added them to the ones in the brooder.  We wanted to let her have them and raise them but a couple died and we decided they might be better off in the brooder.  So far she has hatched us about 16 chicks.  A much better rate than we got from the incubator!