Isaiah 41:13

For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

Hubby and I decided, when the daughter was 6 and the son was 3, to serve with Habitat for Humanity International.  A. quit his job, we sold our two cars, sold our house in Minnesota and hit the road for Americus, Georgia for training.

We traveled from Minnesota to Florida (Disney World!) to Georgia via car.  This took about four days of traveling, before and after Disney World.  Our darling three year old, as yet to be diagnosed as autistic, screamed every morning, all morning.  He could not be coaxed, coerced or calmed.  He was potty trained, however, with several stops along the road with his plastic potty.

These Northerners lived in Georgia April - August.  Not good.  The temporary housing in Georgia provided by Habitat for Humanity had no air conditioning.  Whip out the camera and picture Mom and the two kiddies passed out in bed.  For the first week, anyhow.

Eventually the children attended daycare and the parents learned the history of Habitat, how to make roof tiles, how to make a kiln, acted in skits and were urged to bond with the other trainees.  As trainees, we looked at each other and wondered why we should bond with each other when we would be dispersing to locations all over the world to build houses.  The encouragements to bond were liberally sprinkled with exhortations by the Habitat community to forgive and forget.

Well, now, that's interesting.  Forgive and forget what?  It turned out there had been recent accusations that the founder of HFH had been sexually inappropriate with staff.  So much for the support and comaraderie of HFH I had hoped would support us overseas.  This cheery development was followed by grim news from back home.

Our church in Minnesota was small and family like.  Daughter, B., was in the Christmas play when she was very young.  I am hard of hearing and I told her usually I could not hear children when they did their parts.  In her role as one of the doves in the manger with Jesus, she loudly and clearly assured us all, "I, SAID THE DOVE FROM RAFTERS HIGH, I COOED HIM TO SLEEP THAT HE WOULD NOT CRY!"

I had attended women's Bible studies there and felt comfortable with the other ladies and the pastor.  It seemed that the church was excited and interested in our HFH venture.  The news came to us in Georgia that our pastor had been sexually inappropriate with one of my friends from the Bible studies.  Satan was surely busy clearing away our earthly cheerleaders.

Hubby is waiting for the computer.  Today's treasure was meeting with our friends from church to study Romans 8 and to share our concerns regarding our families' relationships and health.  We are God "with skin on" for each other.