An update for the Courters

I'm excited because I just found out some good friends of ours have a blog here! So I visited and enjoyed lots of great pictures of the ten children, but where are the mom and dad? Sure would be nice to see them too (hint, hint). They spent last Saturday canoeing on the Buffalo River and Abbie and I were so jealous! We went canoeing with them a few years ago and it is the BEST fun!



So for their sakes (I hope they visit me here) I'll give a mini-update of my family.



Ben is working much closer to home now. He started a new job a couple of months ago and no longer has to get up at 4 am, and gets home much earlier in the evening. He and Mike have spent many of their recent Saturdays remodeling a bathroom about 50 minutes north of here. They're almost done and it's a good thing - tuition is due in 4 weeks! Ben has started teaching the college and career class on Sundays, and is enjoying it. We're starting to put together a website that you can visit here. Mike has been working on a construction crew this summer and likes it much better than his job of teaching children to swim last summer. He said the kids weren't so bad, but the parents were awful. Anyway, he's getting ready to go back to school and will be a senior at JMU. I can't wait for that graduation next May!



Leah has worked at the church day-camp this summer, as has Abbie. She says the hardest thing is that you can't switch the kids. It would be so easy to get control if you could! Instead, they are supposed to give the kids time-outs, which don't help at all. Abbie discovered making the kids (especially the boys) work, and that has proved to be the best thing. Most of the boys' problems stem from boredom, and they would rather be working than bored. One day I went to pick the girls up and they had Joshua (12 years old) outside with a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbrush, scrubbing the parking lot. Abbie said that was the happiest he'd been all day! Leah is ready to go back to school, and will be a junior at JMU.



Abbie has been working part-time at the day-camp, and also went to NYC on the Teen's missions trip. They worked with a Portugese-speaking church in Queens running a VBS, handed out tracts in the subway, and did some painting. She said NYC was overwhelming because of the size and number of people. She was glad to come back home to dinky Virginia. She is getting ready to go to Italy with some friends of ours in September, and has found a place to get Italian tracts. She will be a senior in high school this fall, still studying at home.



Elijah cuts grass with Mike, splits and stacks firewood, works on the current remodeling project with the boys, and tries desperately to train Pete. We think it's a hopeless cause. Scroll to older posts for more on Pete, the 70 pound brainless wonder. Here he is as a 10-week old puppy. Too bad he couldn't stay that way - at least he would have an excuse to be so dumb.

Elijah will be in 9th grade in the fall. I stay busy keeping everything going, cleaning, feeding, and clothing people, and making sure we all keep the schedule. God is faithful and good.

Be thankful ~

Karen