Under Construction

We picked up Josie from children’s church a couple of Sundays ago and she handed us a variety of papers she’d created with her class, all of which had her name scribbled primitively yet adorably across the corner with a big backwards ‘J.’ To get an idea of what she’d learned that morning, since her explanations are usually short and vague and followed by, “what are we having for lunch?”, I perused the pile. In the midst of my shuffle I came across a picture of an all-too-familiar scene. I looked down at a coastline. Around the bottom was a sandy beach, with crashing waves rushing up and foaming at the break, and up on the right was a rocky cliff, towering over the beach and overlooking the tide. On the rocks she’d placed a sticker of a house and on the sand she’d placed a sticker of another house, over it was a piece of paper that flipped up, covering the house, and showed a pile of ruins. It became obvious what lesson she’d learned that day.

Matthew 7:24-27  “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.  But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

Jesus commanded us to build our houses on the rock by living according to his teachings. A strong Christian foundation provides the sturdy structure that our family needs, so that when the winds and the rain and the floods come crashing down upon us, which they are inevitably bound to do, our family will stand strong and be able to resist all the troubles that life can throw at us.

So we build. We build and we build and we build. Our family is under construction. To some extent, every family is. But at the moment ours is a little more so than most. Here we are in Virginia, attempting to build ourselves a new home, with our hard hats on and our tool belts fastened and the blueprints rolled out on the table before us. I’m not a construction worker or a carpenter so I can’t elaborate using any detailed technical jargon, but I know enough to know that there are a lot of components that go into any given project. The same holds true for building our proverbial house on the rock. Finding a church, focusing on family, establishing a learning environment- these have been our endeavors of the past three weeks.

Long before we even left New York we knew that one of the first things we'd do in Virginia is search for a new church. Our old church and its people were everything to us. So finding a replacement was not only of vital importance but also a daunting prospective. Weeks and weeks were filled with worry and restlessness as we researched countless churches online and visited nearly half a dozen. Actually, this is nothing compared to what the process could have been- some families search for years to find the perfect fit. Only a couple weeks after James' return we happened upon a place called Temple Baptist Church. It has been filling the bill nearly to the letter. Close to home, small, friendly, and intimate, alive in worship, spiritually challenging, and full of opportunities for the kids and us adults. We've already had a couple of get-togethers with fellow worshipers and had a good sit down talk with the pastor and a deacon. Two Sundays ago we were presented in front of the congregation and accepted as the newest members of Temple Baptist of Chesapeake. Last Sunday as we were sitting together, side-by-side in the pew, when James turned to me and asked, “So are you enjoying our date?” I giggled. With the kids off in the nursery, church is about as close to a date as we come. That’s okay with me. Faith is the cornerstone to a strong Christian marriage and a healthy marriage is the framework for a strong Christian family.  

Ever since James returned home from his deployment we have been making every effort to make family togetherness a priority. It's an easy thing to do at first, but as time goes on and everyone starts to succumb to the monotony of our everyday routine it becomes more and more of a struggle. Finding ways to enjoy shared activities takes creativity and determination. But we're managing to do it. I have been especially impressed with James, who on more than one occasion has forfeited the chance to come home from work after a long day to put his feet up and watch TV and has instead taken us all to the park or to explore somewhere new instead.

Johnny and Daddy at the local park

We've gone to a couple historical sites- Petersburg National Battlefield and Jamestown Settlement.

Jamie at Petersburg National Battlefield

Josie at Jamestown Settlement

And we’ve been to the beach so much that we're all sporting excellent tans.

In fact, I’ve been to the beach more in the past two months than in each of the five years I lived in San Diego combined. Next year I am definitely going to invest in a decent swimsuit. But the thing that I am most particularly excited about is our re-emergence into the world of Civil War reenacting. The back story could fill a whole other blog post (and might in the near future) but James and I have a long history with the reenacting hobby. Getting our family involved in the living history pastime has given us something to be really excited about together for the first time in a long time. We spent a full week digging through musty boxes to pull out our old reenacting gear and I sewed diligently for three days to make the boys' costumes.

Our first event is only a couple weeks away and I can't wait to share the stories!  These are the memories that will sustain us through James' long deployment next year, which already feels like it’s just around the corner. That will be a time when having our house built on a rock will be of the utmost importance.

 Searching for a church and focusing on family have been the two most important undertakings of our last three weeks. But in the in-between we have also been working to establish a healthy learning environment for the kids, like all good parents should. Josie will be starting kindergarten. There were miles of red tape to cut through in the process of getting her registered but she’s now set to start on September 6^th and will be attending a half-day program in the afternoon. All her school supplies are purchased and waiting patiently in the closet to be loaded into her new ladybug backpack. I even spent a week listing old baby clothes on eBay with the goal to buy her some new Back to School clothes. The Gymboree online order was placed on Saturday, shipped on Monday, and should be delivered any day! Gotta have my little....scratch that... BIG girl looking her best for the big day. The funny thing is that Josie seems completely indifferent to the fact that she’s starting school. When asked about it her reply is something to the affect of, “I’ll go to school when I grow up.” I hate to break it to you, sweetie, but you’ll be all grown up in about two weeks!

 And then there’s Jamie. I placed a call to the Early Intervention program the week we moved here to get him enrolled in the local speech program. We are still dealing with paperwork. Frustrating? Very. But even without his speech therapy, he’s making some growth. Having his dad around has definitely had an impact. He’s eager to communicate and has occasionally been saying a few three-word sentences, his favorite being, “Where Daddy go?” whenever James is out of sight. I can tell that there’s a lot going on in our little guy’s head these days and I’m dying to understand him better. My first question is going to an inquiry into why he finds it necessary to strip off all his clothes in order to play Iron Man. I hope that in the next couple weeks we will have a new speech therapist (We miss you, Kelly!) who will be helping all of Jamie’s intense thoughts work their way smoothly off his tongue.

Finally there’s Johnny. I can’t believe how much he’s developed in the short time span since his birthday. He can barely be considered a baby anymore. He’s begun to point with his little index fingers at things that he wants. He can feed himself using a fork and a spoon. He pretends to talk on the phone by putting it up to his ear. He learned to pour water from one cup to another and does nothing but that during bath time now. And just this morning he brought me his shoes when he saw the big kids getting ready to go outside. It’s truly amazing to watch him reach these developmental milestones. It makes me feel like we must be doing something right around here.

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Thus, the past three weeks have flown by in a busy blur of construction. New adventures galore for the family of Js! And it has been because of all these activities that I’ve been unable to find the time for blogging. Then, once I logged on to post an update, I discovered that I’d reached my maximum photo uploads allowed (I was able to delete a couple of random pictures to make room for this and my previous post.) There is a part of me that wonders whether I should continue blogging at all? For sure, I would miss having this venue through which to express my thoughts and share our stories, but then I can also think of a few other ways that my energies could be more productively invested. But once I was faced with the prospective of being unable to blog I realized how sad it would make me not to have the priviledge. So I'll be purchasing some additional file space from the host site in order to keep 'Family of Js' up and running. Hope you all enjoy!