Monthly Archives: June 2010

Summer Projects

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Our summer has been busy, and will continue to be that way, but we’re squeezing in our annual summer projects. One item to be tackled is cleaning the windows! Yes, we know they get dirty again as soon as a north wind comes along and brings rain, but that’s okay. Clean windows are nice while they last! These summer projects are in addition to our normal Saturday morning organizing time.

We’re looking forward to an upcoming visit from the entire Hamilton family (arriving this Saturday, July 3rd), although I know there are two people in particular who are very excited. Thank you for all the comments left under Christopher and Anna H’s announcement. We are all thrilled.

Sarah for the rest

First, the inside ledge must be vacuumed.
These windows pop out so we can lay them on a chair, making it quite simple to clean!
Good job, Anna!
Mary
And hoping more spiders don't show up.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

1 Hour Each Saturday Nets Amazing Results!

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It’s called Organizing Time! Last fall Dad asked that we begin, as a family, to spend one hour every Saturday morning organizing various areas of the house like the garage, basement, and attic. That one hour on Saturday is the equivalent of nine man hours since we all work together. You’ll often find us in groups: Dad, Joseph, and John in the garage, Sarah, Anna, and Jesse in the basement, Mom and Mary either in the garage or basement, and Christopher where needed!

Although we’ve been gone over two months already this year, we’ve still accomplished a huge amount. Those working in the basement usually don’t lack for something to do, since there is constant attention needed to reorganizing the ministry things, unpacking from trips, and organizing shelves. In the garage, there was much sorting/categorizing to do (even including gathering some unused items from our house building project, which netted a very nice return at Home Depot!). A project Mom worked on this past Saturday was organizing our paint shelves in the basement. One Saturday some of the boys sorted scrap lumber that had been pushed aside into the corner of the basement. When our city offered a free “dump day,” the boys loaded scrap metal from our bus remodel project and took it to the dump. Another project has been to organize the storm shelter, which tended to be a “catch all” for items (you can tell we’ve not actually had to use it as a storm shelter yet!).

Maybe this will encourage you as a family to see what just one hour once a week can net for your home!

Joseph working in the garage
See what I mean about the storm shelter?
Sometimes we find interesting things. As I was going through old conferences tubs, I found a printing calculator a very special niece would enjoy (side note: we then discovered the only number it would display was 0, so I guess it won’t work as a toy).
The Lord provided a large, high speed copier (not sure the exact use we’ll have for it, but we know the Lord gave it to us!), that Jesse has nicknamed the Aristocrat. He was setting it up and checking out the manual.
It just thrills Mom’s heart to have her family organizing together!
As we’ve changed our book table set ups over the years, we’ve collected the items we no longer need in tubs, so we’re sorting through those.
Cleanin’ up!
Dad working with wood scraps.
Mary
Dad reorganized some wood that HAD been organized before. Hmmm…

“In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury” (Proverbs 14:23).

A Godly Heritage

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We are so grateful to have a godly father: a man who seeks after the Lord with his whole heart, a man who diligently loves and leads his family, a man who is bold to share the truth in love, a man who will exhort and encourage families, a man who delights in using his every minute for the Lord’s work, a man who desires to share the Lord with those he comes in contact with, and so much more.

May we Maxwell children be faithful to carry on the heritage that Dad has set before us, and may we not simply carry it, but may we RUN with it.

Dad
Dad and Mom

“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalms 127:4-5).

Baby Update

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As I start to write this long overdue post, it’s hard to wrap my mind around all the things I want to share.

First, I know many have been faithfully praying, even as I have failed to keep you updated. I apologize. Thank you for praying for us and the baby Melanie is carrying. Melanie rejoices in the privilege of being pregnant again. For a couple that spent five years wondering if we could have children, this is a wonderful blessing.

We have now passed the 30th week! This is the farthest Melanie has ever made it without being on hospitalized bedrest. While for several weeks earlier in the pregnancy, she was on home bedrest, in the past month, she has been able to be cautiously up and around. Although each day we wonder if this little feeling, or that twinge will lead to bedrest, for now, even though she’s significantly restricting her activities, she’s not on bedrest. We are thrilled with that.

To illustrate God’s hand of direction in this pregnancy, we had a bit of surprise a couple weeks ago. Melanie is supposed to be on Hydroxy17 progesterone. The compounding pharmacy we purchased it from somehow had the wrong bottle inside the protective plastic bottle – outer bottle read correct, inner not. For ten weeks, she had been on the wrong type of progesterone, and a dosage much lower than prescribed. Had our confidence for this pregnancy been in progesterone injections, we would have been devastated. Instead, we thanked the Lord for letting us discover the problem, switched her to the correct, and sat wondering what His purpose was for her being on the “wrong” medication.

We continue to battle with fear and concern. We are grateful with each day that Melanie is not on bedrest, and particularly that we don’t have a baby in the NICU. However, everytime my phone rings and I see it’s Melanie calling, my heart skips a beat as I wonder what, if any, news she has. We wrestle with what an appropriate amount of activity is. We wish we had a way to know whether the contractions she’s having are benign or not. All that aside, we pray and ask God for the privilege of raising this child. There are so many emotions and yet our prevailing one is, “Thank You, Lord, for this (very active) baby.” Children are God’s gift (Psalms 1237:3), and we are grateful to Him for this one.

Nathan

Abby
Baking with Aunt Mary
Yumm.

Trust and Obey

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Recently we received an e-mail prayer update from dear friends whose husband has cancer. They had made a trip from their home to Texas for treatment for the cancer. The story they included in their e-mail greatly encouraged our hearts in how the Lord uses the vessel yielded to Him and bold enough to be obedient. We thought this story would bless your hearts as well and might motivate you to, “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

“Driving home, we thanked God for keeping us safe from a close-call accident. Then a few miles before getting back to the house, we stopped at a gas station where we ended up meeting a young couple in their twenties, whose car had broken down. My husband went over to see what he could do to help but was unable to get them going because it was overheated.

As he was coming back toward me, I felt the Holy Spirit directing me to give the woman one of several Scripture cards that someone gave to us before our trip. I was quickly thumbing through them to find which one to give and just prayed to God to have me hand her the right one. My husband brought it over to her.

Suddenly she just came running back to our car saying things like, “You have no idea what this means to me. God has been calling me and giving me signs to come to him, but I’m just never ready. I don’t want to stop doing the things I know I should not do (dr*gs and adu***ry), and I’ve gone to five churches trying to get myself to God, but I never do it. I feel like I’m not worthy because I’ve done so many bad things, and I don’t want to keep letting Him down and being a hypocrite.”

Did I have lots to tell her about me! I shared with her how I felt the same way when I learned that Jesus loved me, and I said I thought there was no way He’d ever want to forgive me for all I had done. I told her about my dr*g addictions and the abo**ions I had had and that I was not worthy of His love, but THAT HE LOVED ME ANYWAY! He changed my life, in spite of all the poor choices I had made. I encouraged her through my tears NOT to WAIT to let Him into her heart. I explained that it is because of our sin that He had to die on that cross, but that that was not the end. Yes, He died to be that sacrifice so that we could one day be in the presence of God when we go to heaven, but first we must let him in to cleanse us.

I explained that the road was not going to be easy for her but that God would fill her with His Holy Spirit to give her strength to change her life. I said there’s no way people can fight “sin” without the Spirit. We simply do not have the power to do it on our own. That’s why we NEED GOD IN OUR LIVES! It’s like treading water your whole life and God’s reaching out to you to save you from drowning, but you just keep on treading. Eventually you will tire out and drown.

God kept pressing it on my heart to keep her in her place of pain because He was doing work in her heart. I kept praying as I spoke with her for God to soften her heart so that she’d let Him come in. I’ve never spoken to anyone before like I spoke to this woman. God gave me all the words to say, and I had all the bad life experiences to be compassionate to her because I myself had been in her shoes . . . I had made the same mistakes that she had made but now was living proof that THERE IS A BETTER WAY.

After lots of hugs and tears, she said to me that she was ready to pray and give her life to God. She said, “I don’t know what to say.” I said, “I really don’t know all of what to say either because I don’t usually do this! But let’s just work through it together.” So there we stood in the middle of a gas station, crying out to God for forgiveness and to accept this wandering soul into His everlasting kingdom. It was incredible! Never have I felt so close to God to have Him speak through me. I kept thanking her and telling her how we and others had prayed for God to somehow use us on this trip to further His kingdom and that she was a direct answer to that prayer.

You may think that is all, but you’re wrong. When we looked over to see where the men were, the two of them were kneeling on the ground praying!!!! Guess what . . . HE GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE LORD, TOO! A total separate conversation that I still haven’t heard the details about, but with the same ending results. PRAISE GOD! God took these two people, who had hit rock bottom in their lives, and had prepared their hearts. We were merely the instruments to set them on the right road. Both my husband and I were just in awe when we left them and said, “I guess that is why God sent us to Texas . . . to bring two more people to Him.”

Amen and amen!!!

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” (Romans 10:9-10).

(Please note: astricks (*) were added due to some internet filters mis-categorizing the blog because it included the words.)