Recent Family Happenings

These last few weeks have been crazy busy as we have been doing our best to balance traveling, Village Missions presentations, family (and friend) happenings, and all of the ministry and housekeeping that we needed to keep up with in between all the travel. Thankfully, we are now settled back in and have no trips planned for awhile. It's good to be home!!!

Last post I left off with a recap of our July 2-3 trip tor Fort Wayne to present at Avalon Missionary Church and to visit with our sending church, CIAR.

Anna's Baby Shower
I wanted to add a couple of pics from that Saturday afternoon's baby shower for Chris' sister, Anna. She is due with a baby girl in mid-October. It was neat to see so many friends and family come around her to help with the provision of baby needs and to acknowledge the new life the Lord is forming within her.

Four generations of Soliday women:
Anna, her Grandma Soliday, mom Denise, and Baby Girl

Grandmas' tender moments with their grandbabies

Funeral
We had already planned on going back to Fort Wayne the following weekend (August 9), but ended up leaving a couple days early for a funeral. Thursday, August 7, we got together with Ronae's dad's family to both grieve the loss and celebrate the homegoing of Ronae's Great Grandma Truitt. She was incredibly sweet and always loving and encouraging and will be greatly missed; the funeral was bittersweet because she had been in pain for a long time, so we were happy to know that she was finally at peace with the Savior.

Josiah's Birthday
On August 9, we celebrated Josiah's 2nd birthday with a Very Hungry Caterpillar-themed party with family and friends. We are so thankful for all who came to celebrate this day with us! I can't believe my big boy is TWO already!!!!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar cake/cupcakes

Great Grandpa Soliday playing with Josiah

Baby and Grandpa time

Josiah's friend Toby helped him open a few presents :)

Ronae's friend Abigail and Josiah

 Josiah absolutely loved the fact that everything centered around him for a couple of hours.... and is now convinced that EVERY day should be his birthday, and has not stopped singing "Happy Birthday" and requesting "happy birthday cupcakes" even though those have been long gone. :)




Wedding Celebration
The actual reason we had been planning to be in the area on Saturday was to attend the wedding of two of our dear friends, Will and Elizabeth (the birthday party was a bonus - figured it would be good to take that opportunity since we would already be nearby). We met Will and Elizabeth (and they met each other) when we studied abroad with them for our semester in Argentina. It has been fun to watch the Lord grow their relationship and to see how they have honored Him through it. We are so excited to see what He has in store for their future!

W&E in Argentina (2011)

Seems like we waited forever for this day to come! 8/9/14

In other news...
Diane's car was FINALLY fixed and she has returned from her month-long stay in Iowa!!! It "only" took them 37 days to fix everything. ;)
Although her time away was only supposed to be a 4-day trip according to our calendar, we know that the Lord had a greater purpose in keeping her there as she waited (and waited and waited!) for the mechanics to fix her car after her collision with a deer. Hers and Allen's daughter and son-in-law, Mindi and Jeremy, were Village Missionaries in Volga, Iowa, and were in a time of big transitions during Diane's unexpected stay with them, so she was able to be of immense help to them.
To make a long story short: Jeremy and Mindi, along with their 5-year-old twin children, had been waiting to adopt a baby for awhile now, and were chosen by a young mother to adopt her baby boy who was due July 20. He did not arrive on his due date, so their family was able to attend the VM conference - bringing Diane along with them, which was wonderful since she had left shortly after our arrival and a few weeks had passed since we (and Allen!) had seen her. The baby was finally born on July 28. Oh, and as if having a newly adopted newborn was not enough, Jeremy and Mindi were scheduled to move from their church in Volga, IA to take over the pastorate of a VM church in Ohio the week of August 3 (yes...the week after their baby was born!). So although we had planned on Diane returning home in early July, the Lord allowed a deer to cross her path at exactly the right time so that she could stay with her daughter and son-in-law to help with packing up their house to move and caring for the newborn baby and the twins. I have no doubt they were immensely thankful for all her help and support, even if we were missing her presence here in Crawfordsville!

"In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to HIS purpose." Romans 8:28

Amen!