Hello wonderful friends, family, supporters!
We hope this finds you all well and enjoying this fun time of year. In our neighborhood, warmer weather means open fire hydrants, lots of people outside and one of my favorite things — kindergarten, 5th grade, 8th grade and high school graduates getting dressed up, girls' hair & nails done and driving around in vehicles with congratulatory window paint messages, shouts and honking horns. This unique graduation celebration was one of the first oddities that I remember enjoying when I first set foot in Kensington in early June 14 years ago. While it might seem silly to make such a big deal over 5th and 8th grade graduations, in a neighborhood where the on-time graduation rate is right around 52%, every milestone is to be celebrated.
On the first day of Summer Vacation from school, we proudly celebrated with our neighborhood kids, as each one of them passed their grade and will be advancing into a new grade next year. Counting thirteen kids, I think that's pretty impressive! Frank, in his new role as the Block Captain organized a block clean-up event, and then we celebrated afterward with hot dogs on the grill and a big sheet cake with each of the kids' names on it. It was a fun time, and although we are still only seeing most of the adults trickle in for bits and pieces of time, we are hoping and praying that over the summer they will become more and more involved.
Please keep praying for these kids, and also for their educational opportunities. It was recently announced that the Philadelphia School District will be dissolving based on state budget cuts and deficits. If the idea of that even being a possibility boggles your mind (as it did mine) here is an article with the details. (click here) There are already so few good options for kids in our city, and it's uncertain if this overhaul will make options better or worse. As a family, we probably have more and better options than most of the other parents on our block, and WE feel overwhelmed imagining how we will scrape together a decent education for our own children. Please pray that in this seemingly bleak situation, children from our neighborhood will be given opportunities to learn, be nurtured and develop a hopeful outlook for their futures.
In situations like this, we just keep chugging along and doing our small part, praying that God adds great power to our tiny contributions of helping kids with their homework, taking them with our family on trips to the Please Touch Museum, answering their questions when one asks, "What is a vegetable?" and remaining lovingly available to them. There are so many ways that being missionaries on our block feels exactly like being a stay at home mom — repeated efforts with little immediate reward, being on call 24 hours a day, finding delight in the tiniest evidence of growth & learning, getting to the end of a day or even a week and saying, "What did I even get done?!" We are trying to accept with joy that this is a season where "getting it done" is not our call and can't be our standard. Please pray for our hearts to remain encouraged and that we would find security and conviction in simply being obedient to the Holy Spirit each day.
We are looking forward to a busy and exciting month ahead. Nothing seemed to be coming together as far as our hopes for going on a mission trip as a family, but just in the past 2 weeks an opportunity arose for us to go on a AIM family mission trip to Johnstown, PA in July. Our kids will be the youngest on the trip, and we're a little nervous about how it will go, but we are excited about the ministry opportunity and the learning experience that it will be. We'll have a full report in our next email! Not long after we come home we will have a mission team from Wisconsin joining us for a week of ministry on our block and around the city. These are friends who we've ministered with several times in both Philly and Chicago, so we can't wait to spend a week with them!
I (Elizabeth) am just getting ready to wrap up all of the paperwork and submit my portfolio for my certification as a doula. None of this would have been possible without the awesome support of Frank who has graciously stepped in as Mr. Mom during my training time, when I'm called away for 19 straight hours at a birth, and even this afternoon when he took our kids and one of Selah's neighborhood friends to the Please Touch Museum so that I could wrap up one last online course. Did I mention that we think he has a broken finger? What an awesome Dad and husband, even when he's on the DL! (and please feel free to pray for his finger. We're planning to get him some medical attention later today or tomorrow.)
I was invited to join a local doula collective which will give me the opportunity for some paid births in the future, and gain valuable insight from other more seasoned doulas. I also got to spend a few hours getting to know another Christian doula living in our neighborhood with whom I'll be able to network and provide support to pregnant women and moms in our community. The night of our block cleanup & graduation party a VERY pregnant woman who was visiting our next door neighbor approached me and said, "Did I see you at Jefferson (hospital where we had an ultrasound) last week? I remember your daughter!" She was pregnant with her second child, 17 years after her first was born, and was very anxious. It was such a blessing to be able to talk with her, give her information, encouragement and advice and to have her say that she felt so much better after we spoke. God puts beautiful things together — sending us to this particular hospital for our ultrasound, giving us our lively Selah who engages strangers wherever we go, giving me this passion and opportunity for training that has equipped me to speak authoritative affirmations into pregnant women's lives — only He could do this!
Just so you aren't left hanging, we were at the hospital having our 20 week ultrasound and found out that everything looks good with our baby GIRL who we are expecting in October. Selah has a lot of great name ideas including Rapunzel, Lois Lane and most recently, Coca Cola. ("I will say 'hello sweet little Coca Cola, I'm your sister' and she will smile at me!")
I'd love to leave you with a song (Beautiful Things) that has been encouraging to my heart lately. I hope you enjoy it, along with the pictures below!
Love, blessings and gratitude,
Frank, Elizabeth, Selah, Callum and baby-girl definitely-not-Coca-Cola-Varaso
