Brrr and a hike in the Hill Country

The weather has turned, at least for today.  The temp was 69; I have on socks, sweat pants and a sweatshirt.  We may get rain tonight, and that would rock.

It is a good thing that God sent us to TX before the Philippines, at least I will be ready for heat. 

Thursday is hiking day for our homeschool, so we headed west to Balcones Canyonlands Wildlife Reserve.  It is so nice to get outside.  I am always amazed that we are usually the only people hiking.  There are so many places to hike here in Central Texas; we are trying to see them all before we move. 

We saw a really big snake!  So exciting.  I think snakes are beautiful; they make Man cry.

This guy is non-venomous.  Whenever we see a snake, the first thing we do when we get home is to look up what kind it is.  I confess that we are usually disappointed to find non-venomous in the description; the boys are hoping for a near miss, kiss with death story to tell. 

There are fossils everywhere in this area.

EQ makes friends with such ease!

#1 practicing for a shampoo commercial.

#1's picture of the ginormous snake.

EQ bonding with his temporary pet.


We have a busy weekend ahead of us; hope you enjoy yours and eat lots of candy!

just one more

This, the 3rd post of the day.  What in the world are your kids doing - I can hear that question....well they are watching tv.   ahhh, that's funny!  no really.  They ate lunch, shot at each other for awhile, fed apple bits to our fire ants, and now they are watching Man, Woman, Wild on Netflix. 

I'll go read to them in a few minutes.  We are starting The Fighting Ground by Avi. 

How's the mission thingy coming along?  thanks for asking. 

Well, I've been sorting books and videos and cd's.  I plan to trade in most of our fiction (man's fiction, spy, murder stuff) and get credit at Half Price Books to buy kid books to ship ahead to the island.  I'm giving lots of our good books (my intelligent, interesting books) away to friends at our coop. 

Here is a video that is a few years old, but gives good info on the ministry we are joining.  On The Rock now feeds about 2000 kids and adults on two islands.

I think the Kropp family needs its own t-shirt.  So I've designed one and when I have some extra cashola, we'll have cool t-shirts.  Maybe we'll sell some.

Going Kropps

A Gathering with our mc folks

Sunday found us at the park.

Our mc group, missional community, is attempting to mix things up a bit.  We are taking turns with potlucks, worship, kids' days, etc.  Sunday was the Kropp's turn.

We pulled off potluck in the park and it was a blast.  I don't like the pressure (totally self applied) of being responsible for other people's happiness (yeah, I know, just who do I think I am?).   I did not realize how totally freaked out I was until Monday morning when I awoke feeling such relief. 

Here are some pics.  Keep in mind that we still hit the high 80s here in central TX, and have had just one day of rain in like, oh maybe 180 days.

You ride that hippo, cowgirl!

Drivin' the gun bus.

Handsome dude!

K's antennae are picking up signals.

Got my girl and gun, what else is there?

Hoppin' Bis

Adult feeding station. 

Our boys were given cash from Grandpa B for Halloween.  They all wanted new Nerf guns...big surprise there.  God blessed us big time at the mega, disgusting, toy store that makes me want to....but I digress.  Anyway, God gave us buy one get one 50% off.  Rawesome!  rockin, awesome. 

The princess arrives!

Variety - the spice of blogs

What we've been up to lately, well at least for this past week.

In our homeschool this year we are focusing on reading and writing.  We read a lot!
magazines
fiction
non-fiction
news
advertisements
cereal boxes

You get the idea.  If it has letters strung together in words, we read it.  And we talk about it.

I am always looking for bits and pieces of great or terrible writing to share with the boys.  Sometimes I read just a few lines from a magazine article, or just a chapter from a book. 

Here's an example from Smithsonian magazine, an article about lions written by Abigail Tucker:

"Packer, 59, is tall, skinny and sharply angular, like a Serengeti thorn tree."

I just love that description of a man who lives at the lion house and has done so for 31 years.

We pick apart advertising and talk about how to be smart readers. 

And we write.  Much of the time I do the actual pen on paper and the boys do the thinking and dictating.  It can be too much to think, put ideas in a row, pencil on paper, spell, edit....intimidating. 

I don't want to ruin writing for my boys.  I hated writing until just about a year ago, and I'm 43 so do that math.  I suffered from red pen abuse, all the way through college.  So I stopped writing. 

Two of our favorite writing projects are:

• the boys spout out topics of interest to them
• i list the topics
• we vote to chose one topic
• they brainstorm, i write out their ideas either in list form or a web 
• we talk about and agree on how to organize our ideas sensibly
• then we put it all together

Sometimes I will have one son use our ideas to write a poem, one to write a letter or article about the topic, and the third son to illustrate a few pages.    We glue all parts together on a big sheet of paper and the boys can see how much work we did.

Our most favorite way to build a story is:

I make a statement.  The boys ask questions, which I write down.  Then I write for 10 minutes or so, then read what I have written.  The boys ask more questions, offer advice on where I need more interesting words, or where my thoughts need clarity.  I re-write. 

The boys watch me perform the writing process, then we use the 6 traits to refine what I write. 

Examples of leading statements:

It all started when I broke my nose...

It was the librarian's fault...

If only Jill hadn't shown up...

The day I got my head stuck in the chimney....

She was the worst part of 3rd grade...


The boys love to help me revise and edit my work, so  much safer than working on their own work.  This is building up to the time when they have the tools and the experience to write on their own, and to enjoy it. 

Of course we go outside.  Here's what we've seen:

Yo making walnut date bars.  You can't just head outside, you need sustenance first!

 Hiking with our Nature Studies class. 

Next year I'll be schooling all five of our boys; good thing I love teaching!

What's the difference?

I seem to cry more lately. 

My Mother-in-law phoned to tell me that she is proud of me, that she loves me; I had to fight back tears.  I was deeply touched.  At our missional meeting a friend reminded others to pray for us, again, it made my heart ache.  My friend A is so supportive.  There are many who get it, but probably more who don't get it.  I am so thankful to those openly supporting us.

At our missional meeting last night I had a disagreement with our facilitator.  I cried all the way home and into the night.  The boys have never been so quiet in the car!  I learned not to put myself in that position again. 

I think that as a woman I put my heart out there and as a man he is using his brain, and not so much his heart.  I felt like the main attraction in a freak show.  No one else in our group speaks up, I now know why that is - they don't want to be embarassed.  I just don't have the expertise to be able to defend my heart to this man and his expert ability to quote scripture and challenge everything I say.  But I know in my heart that what I was saying is at least right for me and my family.   I realize that both heart and head are important, but from now on I will wait until I get home and discuss my thoughts in the safety of my marriage to my godly husband. 

Our scripture for last night's study was Matthew 6:19-21 "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.  Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.   Wherever you treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." NLT

Our facilitator spent the bulk of his time defending those who have stuff, that we don't know their hearts so we ought not to judge them. 

But I believe and stated, that it is not okay for a Christ follower to go out and buy a Ferrari (his example) when we live in a time with such need and poverty and billions have not even had the chance to choose Jesus.  I agree with John Piper that as Christ followers we  should adopt a wartime frugality and use our excess to spread Love to all corners of the world. 

I just could not get the words out in the right way or quote scriptures.  It was very frustrating.  I ended by stating that when I come before my Creator I truly do not believe that He will tell me "I sure wish you had bought more stuff, you should have driven a nicer car"  or "why did you give so much away? really, you should not have been so generous". 

If my neighbors can look at me and I look just like the world, what is the point- haven't I missed the mark?  Is it enough for my heart to be right, but not my hands and feet?  And if my heart is truly right with God, won't my actions line up? 

I don't want to look like the world. 

Man reminded me as I lay in bed crying, feeling exhausted and defeated and like a failure for not having communicated my heart in a way that our group could see it clearly....that The Word says when you are persecuted for following Me, not if.   Refer to Matthew 10:16-20, Romans 8:16-18, 2Corinthians 4:7-11. 

We will be persecuted by family, friends, and strangers, but He will bless us. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the people in our group.  And I know that my God is stretching me for a purpose, and I welcome that, but I also ask for wisdom and discernment. 

Look what the Lord has done!  He is good and I am so blessed.

Finally comes the rain

Yes, it did finally rain at our house.  We have not had rain at our house since May, it has rained just over one or two streets, but not at our house. 

The boys were so excited.  We were at the pool when it started.  I had found an awesome set of dive fins at GoodWill for $3.99.   The boys were practicing so when they get to the Philippines they can just dive right in!

Tom - not realizing that the water is really cold - it's been in the 60's at night and the pool is not heated.  His lips turned blue!

#1 showing how it's done.

 Bis caught in flight.

 RAIN, can you see it?

Yo jumping in the wrong way with flippers, oh well...

We thanked God for the rain, and asked for some more in the near future.  It will take quite a few days of rain to get the lakes filled back up, the rivers flowing, and the grass growing. 

See the cloud turtle?  He hovered over our football game.  The Kropp boys' team won; #1 scored a touchdown!  Yo, EQ and #1 played really well!

He's even smiling! 

Thanks for the rain prayers.

What do you mean going?!

Well to put it bluntly we are selling all of our stuff and moving to a tiny island in the Philippines to help finish a school building, then teach there.

This all started last winter.  We pondered the idea of being goers; our church is big on sending missionaries and evangelists to all Nations.  I didn't really think anyone would be interested in a family of 7....so I sent out a few emails.  Right away we got yes's from two families, one in the Philippines, the other in Costa Rica. 

But then we got freaked out about the whole thing.  And money we thought would be flowing in seemed to get stuck.  So we put the idea aside and moved on.  We decided to adopt again; maybe that was what God wanted.  I think Man and I both felt that we were supposed to be doing something..but what?

It was clear to me when I went to sign up for foster/adoption classes that that was not the right thing. 

We came back to going, something that was on my mind almost constantly.  Brian felt like we should be overseas.  Now it's all coming together.

I humbly wrote back to the family in the Philippines to see if they would still take us; their needs fit our skills - construction and teaching.  They do want us.  So we applied to First Love International
First Love International

We were approved to join the On The Rock team
On The Rock Ministries

The next step was to tell our families.  While not everyone understands why we are going, we seem to have everyone's support! 

I have a list of to do's.  Already God is blessing us unexpectedly.

We've wanted a new camera; I wanted one for my birthday in June but there were always other expenses.  Last Friday  I went to buy my camera, finally.  My card was declined!  At home I checked with Man, there was money in the bank.  I then went online to check the prices there, and 'my' camera was $60 cheaper online and I could choose store pickup and go get it in the morning.  Yeah God!  $60 cheaper, that's awesome!

Harley on our bed.

Butterscotch, anyone want a kitty?

Climbing action.

Yo and baby K

Number One catching the ball!  #1, Yo and EQ are on the same football team.

Our pets need new homes.  We don't know when we'll be back, so they need permanent homes.  I chose to start with our puppy Harley.  He has hip dysplasia, not a good selling point.  I remembered that the people we got him from told us they would take him back if we ever could not keep him.  But I had purged my computer of old emails; even deleting email addresses I did not need.  God prompted me to look for what I knew was not there....He's funny that way.  And there in my contacts was an email without a name.  I tried it, asking "did we get our puppy from you?".  It was them!

They want him back.  The man is so excited to be getting Harley back, he regretted giving him away.  One of my boys said "It's like we borrowed him", right, we borrowed him, got him vaccinated and neutered now we're giving him back, hmmmm. 

We are sad to say goodbye to pets, but glad that Harley is going back to his first family.

We loved ya for a season Hbomb!