Praise and Prayer

A few prayer requests and praises from the Erickson family:

Praise that we were able to purchase a “new” van!!!  Our old van was getting more and more uncertain.  It would go out of drive and be in neutral until it felt like going back into drive.  That was making me nervous.  Plus, we weren’t able to take it on trips, so we would borrow vehicles from people when we needed to go somewhere far.  This van is wonderful!  I am so thankful to the Lord for this blessing!  Thanks to everyone that helped make it possible!!

Prayer:

Wyatt broke his finger in P.E. at school.  He is on a baseball team this summer and is hoping this won’t keep him out for too long. 

I was at the hospital yesterday having ultrasounds done to figure out the source of the pain I was having.  Come to find out, it was a ruptured cyst.  I am on pain meds and Garth is taking great care of me.  Pray for quick healing.

Today we are leaving to go away for the weekend to New London.  There is a wonderful home available for missionaries and pastors.  I am looking forward to the time away as a family and the chance to relax.

Hope your holiday weekend is full of times that you will remember always.

Love you

Rachel

Transported

Today Garth and I worked in the yard digging up and moving around some of the plants that weren’t in the best place.  Some were getting squeezed out and some had too much room around them.  It looks nice, but will look even better in a year or two when it all fills itself in.

I was thinking about our family while we were doing it.  We are a transported family trying to “fill in” where we have been planted.  I don’t feel like our roots have grown firmly down into our soil yet.  We are certainly doing better than we were last summer, but I feel like we still have a ways to go.  In a few weeks it will be a year since we left Indonesia.  It sure feels like quite a bit longer than that.

I asked the kids the other day, “If you had the opportunity to move back to Indo for good, what would you say?”  Emma yelled out “Yes!” before I even finished the question.  Sophie was thoughtful and gave me a list of pros and cons.  Wyatt said yes, but as he considered it, he realized that it would be hard for him to come back here for college if we did that.  Cale is happy wherever he is planted.

For now, we really feel like this is where God wants us.  But please pray for Indo.  There are so many needs there for the upcoming year.  They desperately need teachers, administrators, computer techs and dorm parents.  It is easier to be here while it is warm.  We sure are loving the weather-grilling out, playing outside, swinging on the swings, lounging in the hammock- dreaming of the beach…

We sure do miss that ocean…

Love you
Rachel

Still

I have been quiet lately because I haven’t felt like writing.  With Garth’s Mom dying, and all the other stuff we have going on, I have been feeling a bit melancholy.  Yet, I feel like I should be sharing with you the things that God is teaching me.

The other day, I really wanted a snuggle from Cale.  Cale however, was full of energy and wouldn’t sit still on my lap.  He kept squirming around.  I was trying to talk to him softly about something, but he was moving around so much, he wasn’t listening. 

Now, I know I have talked about this verse before, but God showed it to me in a brand new way.  “Be still, and know that I am God.” 

“Be still.  Please be still.”  That is what I kept saying to Cale and what I know God is often trying to say to me.  I am so out of focus, and I can’t hear what He is saying because I just will not be still.  The desire of my  heart at that moment was to connect in a special way with Cale.  But it ended in frustration as he ran off to “conquer the world.”  I believe there are moments like that with God and me.  My busyness and unwillingness to stop keeps me from that special connection that God longs for-and my heart needs.  I am sure that if I stopped I would hear Him saying to me, “Be still.  Please be still.”

Love you

Rachel

News

We took the kids to the nursing home to see Dottie this morning.  We were there until about 9:30 and then I left to take them to school.  Garth stayed for awhile, and then came home to make some phone calls.  The plan was to go back to see her very shortly.  However, while we were here we received a phone call to come back quickly.  We made it just in time for Garth to take Dottie’s arm and feel her last pulse.  She took her last breath as we walked into the room.  It was a beautifully sad moment.  In her room is a clock that plays Christmas carols at the top of each hour.  She died right before noon.  While we sat there quietly grieving, we heard the clock play “Joy to the World” and “Hark the Herald”.  One line of the song rang out to Garth, “Risen with healing in His wings.”  She is no longer in that falling apart body, but is healed and whole.

God did a miracle with that clock.  Later when Garth looked at it, he saw that the song for the noon hour is supposed to be “We Wish you a Merry Christmas.”  Yet, God blessed us with two joyful Christmas songs of angels welcoming in the new arrival!

Another neat thing that happened was when Garth was typing on his phone “Mom’s gone”, it came up as “Mom’s home.”  It’s true, isn’t it?

The kids are dealing with this as best they can.  Wyatt is still sick, and now Cale is feeling quite bad.

We have family coming in tomorrow, Thursday and Friday.  Emma will turn 12 on Thursday.  The funeral will be on Friday-visitation at 1 and the funeral at 2:30 at Calvary Community Church.

Thanks for the prayers.

Rachel

Dottie

I haven’t written you all for quite some time.  My heart has felt so heavy and I haven’t felt like writing.  There seems to be so many big things going on in our family right now, that at times I feel overwhelmed.

The most pressing matter at the time is the health of Garth’s mom.  She went downhill quickly from Sunday to Monday.  There is a chance she may have had one or two strokes, she has had about four seizures, and is on oxygen to help her breathe.  Her bone marrow disease has turned into leukemia, and her trouble breathing may have turned into pneumonia.

Garth’s sister and two girls were here last week to see her before she got real bad.  It was such a great time with them.  Now our family is struggling through the stomach flu, and trying to plan a 12^th birthday for Emma on Thursday.  Please pray for all  of us.  I took the kids to see Dottie this morning and then made them go to school.  Of course, school was the last thing they wanted to do, but I am hoping the distraction will do them good.  Wyatt is home with the flu.  He is hopefully the last one to get it.

We do know that Dottie is a Christian.  I clearly found written records of when she gave her heart to God June 1, 1951.  So there is much joy to be had at the thought of how wonderful her heavenly body will be compared to this earthly body that has caused her so much trouble.

Here are a few pictures:

Heaven

As I am writing this we are in bumper to bumper traffic in Chicago headed back to Wisconsin.  This past week the kids were off school and we took a trip to Virginia to visit Garth’s sister and take the kids to D.C.  We decided to leave at 3 am on Saturday morning and drive straight there.  The whole trip has so many signs of God’s blessing upon it.  We were given money for the trip, a friend donated his suburban, we were able to stay with family the whole time, and while were there, we were given money for gas by a very generous family.  It was a great time of catching up with family and exploring the history of our country.  We took the kids to the Manassas battlegrounds, did two of the Smithsonians, and most of the other monuments and memorials in D.C.

However, on the way there we received word that Garth’s mom was taken to the ER.  Her bone marrow disease is progressively getting worse.  So either today when we get home or tomorrow we will be moving her into a nursing home.  This whole time has brought up discussions of death with the kids and those around us.  I remember as a child sitting in church watching my Grandma up in choir singing a song about Heaven that said something like, “Just think of stepping on shore, and finding it Heaven, of touching a hand and finding it God’s, of breathing new air, and finding it celestial, of waking up in Glory, and finding it Home.”

What a beautiful picture of the life God has prepared for those who love Him.  The most breathtaking sights we see here on Earth that feel like “a little piece of Heaven” don’t even compare to the vast beauty we will experience in Heaven.  The kids are praying for God to do a miracle and heal Grandma Dottie, yet in my heart I feel like I shouldn’t ask for more of the struggles of life instead of the peace of Heaven.  So instead I pray for God’s will.  Pray with us all through this time.

Love you all

Rachel

A Bonfire and a Boy with a Gun

So yesterday Garth and I were working around the yard and had a bonfire going.  I saw Cale go in the house and then come out with something.  I wasn’t sure what he was up to until a little later when I saw him standing by the fire with his squirt gun.

Now, I knew the fire was large in comparison to his tiny gun, and was not in danger of going out.  But  if Cale had come to the fire when I lit the first spark, and would have sprayed water on that spark, he may have been able to put it out.  But he waited until the flames were really going.  There was no way his small stream of water would have any effect on the flames.

The same idea is true in life with sin.  We need to stop it right when it starts.  The longer we entertain it, or let it grow, the harder it is to get rid of.  Especially, our tongue.  It can get us in a lot of trouble.  One lie, or interaction with gossip, one sharp comment shot at someone can be the spark that ignites a forest of trouble and heartache.  And then, often we need a lot more than a tiny stream of water to help us patch things up.

The Bible says:

James 3:5
Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.

Speaking of tongues (pun intended), I don’t think there is any fire that is too big to put out.  Nothing said can ever be taken back, but it can be healed, over time, with God’s help.

Love

Rachel

Ecclesiastes 6:11
The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?

1 Corinthians 14:9
So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.