the paquettes

Today was the 100th day of kindergarten for Rilyn. For those of you who don’t know, no I don’t count the days meticulously. This is an actual common ‘holiday’ that schools celebrate. Rilyn brought home “My 100th day of school book” and in it she had to answer various questions.
“I would spend $100 on a unicorn,” she wrote.  Cute.

And: In 100 years, this is what I will look like:

It’s gray hair and glasses when Rilyn turns 105 years old!!

**And for those of you who are wondering, “How is public school going?” my answer is, every day is a test of our faith.  “Do I trust God today?” I ask myself as we pray over her each morning.  (We go through the book of Proverbs and if it’s the 8th of February we pick a proverb in the eighth chapter to read over her.  It’s a book about wisdom so pretty much every verse is relevant for her days!)  Most days are easy.  Some days I don’t like what I hear when Rilyn tells me she’s in the “hot girls club” at recess. (No, she doesn’t understand what that means and I tried to come up with better ‘girls club’ names with her!)   Some days are scary-Rilyn had a boy in her class bring an utility knife last week. Today another boy brought real handcuffs to her classroom!  At this age, they don’t have any ill intentions, but what if they did?

Tests of faith to do what God is calling our family to do. Raise Rilyn at Manor Elementary for such a time as this. Right now we feel very sure that she will be going to first grade at Manor Elementary. I love her teacher and her class. I’m in there each week and they know me and I know them. I love it.

To close out this post, I want to share an e-mail that my good friend, Angela Suh, wrote to me just before school started this year. Such an encouragement, thanks friend.  I read it often.
“I was reading in 1 Chronicles 11 today about David’s Mighty Men. I was noticing that the things that the distinguished the mightiest of the mighty men were that they went into battles with insurmountable odds and they were willing to fight, even though they were often alone and everyone else had abandoned the cause. I just started thinking about sending the kids to Manor public schools. These schools appear to me to be places of insurmountable odds: low test scores, poverty, gangs, low graduation rates, low college-bound numbers. I mean really insurmountable odds. But, as I was reading this today I was so encouraged that the Lord does mighty mighty things through those whom He puts in places where the odds are stacked against them and they are outnumbered. He often uses circumstances such as these to make His name great and to create people that are mighty in faith.”

Amen!