Catch up!

It's our rest day and a time I am finally pulling myself away from the norm to catch you all up on our life!
Today we said good bye to the last of our scheduled visitors. We have been abundantly blessed again this past year with God brining us family from home to fill our love tanks and reunite us in again. Today my parents left after a 17 day stay, Chad's parents were with us for 4 weeks before that Chad's Uncle Doug blessed us for 6 weeks and back in September my little sister Laura and her family were with us. Wow, that is overflow of blessing for sure. We love every minute we can spend with family. We see that every visit not only bind us closer together but we spur each other on in faith. I realize how blessed we are to have family that shares the same faith and love for our Father!

Ok. What has happened since we talked last....um a lot! This is going to be the Coles notes version. If you want to find out more you are just gonna have to book a flight to come visit us!
We moved. The end of January marked our goodby to the house we were renting for the past 2 and a bit years. Although I personally had some reservations about the move, I have learned again that committing to the Father's ways are best. He has our best intentions in mind and His plan is higher than our plan. So, we now reside in the neighbouring village to where we were. Our best friends moved out of their house so we could move in and rent from them. We now live in a great, no fantastic, no perfect place for our family. More breeze, more flat, more space and more kids! The kids are thriving here in Georgeville, where our friends now live in a house at the front of the property with several other renters and we live in the back. We have a super great space for our micro greens growing and harvesting and our small little farm of chickens and kittens.

 

Business. Wow! The increase that the Father has given us in the past 8 month of business is a miracle. We have gone from a small self run micro greens company selling maybe 80 containers and delivering in our Ford Explorer to an online, family plus soon to be 2 employees producing and distributing mostly local vegetables, snacks, artisian products supplying most of the resorts on the cost of Hopkins and Placencia as well as serving a personal customer base of about 40 people, and delivering in our 16 foot box truck!  I remember in Novermber, we were amazed at our growth that topped at 45 orders. Now we have between 65-75 orders and deliveries a week. We have just recently had to change our delivery schedule to be an overnight trip. Poor Chad leaves on Thursday morning at 6:30 and returns home Friday at 4:00ish after 2 long days of delivering. All this is nothing less than God's provision. All those who have been here can attest with us that it's not easy....weekly vehicle issues especially. But we see that through every single challenge and breakdown God has something to teach us, provide for us, or maybe even he needs us to be a blessing to someone else. He is teaching us to commit all things into His hand and reminds us daily " a mans steps are directed by the Lord",

Man's goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way? Proverb 20:24   Here is where I need to give a shout out to Chad. He truly has had so much change and so much growth in the past 2 years. Most of you who new his former ways would likely not understand the way her operates now. He is a strong man of faith, a mighty mighty prayer warrior, a Godly leader for our family who has the gifts of discernment, visions, and a double portion of patience. The patience is due to a combination or me for a wife and Belize as a place of living.....we are doing a fine job the two of us teaching him patience! I think of the scripture in   Hebrews 11:1 1Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. and also Romans 4:17 He is our father in the presence of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist. Chad is rooted in these things. He is so faithful. God has given him visions here and he is so driven to see them through. Even when it looks impossible in our (or my) eyes, Chad is confident in this, that our God IS the one who calls the unseen into existence!   The land development where we will one day live is moving at a snails pace for our North American mind, at a normal pace for Belize time, and at the appointed pace for God's time line. Although it seems slow, God is at this time assembling the people here. We will live in community with the people that have bought up on our hill and it's AMAZING who is collecting here to do that with. We currently 5 maybe 6 families planned to live up there and the stories of how we've met and the visions we have would blow your mind! It's because of that testimony of all of us having the same vision for what is to transpire on the hill that puts us at rest that it is not OUR project up there. It's God's, and he assembling the people and He will provide the timing funds for us to be us there when he wants us there. It's very exciting and yet so overwhelming for us at time to see the vast amount of work to be done. But we stand firm on His promises and on the vision of a community, a health retreat and a church that will one day be up there with us.   I now have 3 sets of eyes peering over my shoulder wondering when I'll be done. So, my time is coming to an end as a writer and I shall return to my motherly role. We are blessed beyond words. I truly, truly wish I could share every miracle we see, every tear of missing home I shed, every joy we find, all the laughter and frustrations we have on this journey but ....it's our journey. The best I can encourage each of you is to embrace each of those things and witness them in your own lives. Yes, we have these things in our every day and week but you what, YOU DO TOO! Open  your eyes to the miracles, blessings, and joys that God gives you in your life. Don't be afraid to remind God of His promises to you, but to do that you need to KNOW what he has promises you as His Child. Get in His word. Seek out what you are entitled to as his beloved child! You will see that we are walking in but a fraction of what he intends for us. We are not children of the dark we are children of the light! For you are all sons of the light and sons of the day; we do not belong to the night or to the darkness.   1 Thesselonians 5:5 He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.… Colossions 1:13-14     Love to you all and Blessings.

Words that I Never Had

Greeting friends. I bet you think I've stopped blogging. No I haven't. We have just been overwhelming blessed with visitors,  moving, a thriving business. I can't wait to post a good long blog to catch you up. but I'll warn you ...you'll need a coffee and little bit of time. But that is to come. for now since I am going to procrastinate for just little while longer I'll let Francis Chan do the talking.
There are many of you who I'm sure still don't have a great understanding of why we made such a drastic change or how we could venture out on this amazing path we've been on in the last few years. I've found it hard to entirely put into words what our hearts cry was but in this short clip that I came across I teared up because Francis spoke the words of our heart exactly! I hope you can see what stirred us and I will be a testimony to the truth that living beyond our comfort is the most rewarding way to see God's truth play out in our lives. I always preface that it's not just about moving to a new country ...yes, that is what we did but it looks very different for everyone. You can live in faith where you are today!
Be blessed and I pray that this word challenges that hearts of those who read it so you can reap the blessing of living in the Father's plan!
Stephanie

Francis Chan: Stop Idolizing Family

Testimony

Mind blowing eh, (still have some Canadian in me!) I'm posting twice in a week!
That's because  I have  a testimony. You know that thing we all want a Testimony but we rarely want the "test"....we just want the "imony".
Let's face it, we all have tests. Daily, weekly, some even hourly! God is a god of promise and he promises that in this life there will be trial of many kinds ( 1 Peter1:6). He keeps his promise all right. But I'm learning that trials can be great, when you are on the side of the victor or the winning team. (2 Peter 2:9, James 1:2-4) I actually get a little excited when we face a trial now. I still get anxious or scared for a split second but I know that it's just an opportunity to have God show up in a big way!

If you gathered from my last post about the delivery truck it was a huge leap of faith for us to buy that truck. We knew we needed something a bit bigger but this was a lot bigger and it seemed overkill. However, we'd been needing, desperately needing something because every week we struggled to get all the products fit into our Explorer. That was the test. Waiting. Struggling each week to fit the puzzle together. Asking and prayer without ceasing for another vehicle or trailer. So here is my "imony" after the "test"!

That empty truck that God provided and we claimed He was going to fill up....guess what. We have doubled our online orders this week. We have been steadily growing adding one or two customer every week to our orders but this week what an increase! Double 18 order two weeks ago and this week 39! Seriously, God is soooo great! He is the provider of all good things, in His perfect time. We just have to wait patiently on Him (Psalm 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord)

So, it's short and sweet. My testimony is that GOD IS SO GOOD....ALL THE TIME.
Thanks you to those who are praying with us and loving us from a far. We are excited to see the continued increase and continue to pray without ceasing for the other areas we are waiting to see God move in.

Blessings to you all.
Stephanie

A Day in the Life of Thursday

I'm going to make this a little different than the past. There's just too much to update you on completely. So, I'm going to give you a little tidbit of our Thursdays.

Oh, man this is hard already.....I want to start you back at Monday. Here we go.

We are in what I think they call cool season? Season are just not as "black and white" here as at home. But for sure it is comfortably cooler than the past 6 months. Our days, like most of yours at home are shortening.
Thursdays.
South and coastal delivery day.
Chad and I wake before the sun rises. 5:30 starts our day to pick orders, pack coolers and load for delivery. I miss the days where the sun awakes before me, but it's not awakening long after us. This Thursday has a rather grand excitement in the air for us. Yes, the loud squawking of the brilliant green parrots in trees overhead create anticipation that the day is arising but this, this is a Thursday to rejoice just like those parrots and shout from the tree tops in our human voice!
You see business has been steadily growing. Wow, I look back to it's short birth only a year and a half ago and seek nothing but provision and answered prayer and even fulfillment of words prophesied over us! Last year we were sinking in work and prayer for a someone to work for us. We still have that answer to prayer with us today. Leroy continue to work 2-4 days a week to keep us a float. Now, since June or so we've been struggling to fit the rubix cube of crates and coolers in our bursting Ford Explorer on Thursdays for our Southern Coastal deliveries. So, we've been asking the Lord to show us what is our next vehicle. We've considered many. Passenger vans, trailers, trucks with no back doors, you know the usual good condition for Belize! But, each one as we considered it has fallen through for various reasons. Which the way we saw it was great! Yes, great. God closed the door because He had something else in mind for us. All it really was taking on our part was patience to wait.
So, this Thursday there was no rubix cube solution. We got our record breaking number of orders packed and we barely covered the floor our new dig for deliveries. She's a beaut Clarke! As the Dietrich boys would say. A 16 foot cube truck!  No photos today but you can see some if you go to our FB page. (Shoots Alive)
Although the truck is not officially ours we know we have received favour to be able to drive it today and for the seller to take our very small payment offer. So, we are believing this to be what God wants us to have. That however leaves room...pun intended for sure, for us to wait on God to fill it up! We went from no packing room to an echoing  box! It's going to be awesome to see what God brings our way.

Back to Thursdays. So, Keaton is delivering with Chad. Usually we are home doing school work but NOT today! Keaton is the co-captain for deliveries today. The kids love to go and do "real life school" with Daddy but the past months there has been no passenger room. So, today Keaton learns, order picking skills, customer service 101, on the sport accounting and receipt writing! This school is so great!
For us ladies today is a not a school book kinda day either. It's a homemaking day. What's that saying, when the boys are away the girls will play! It's a beautiful overcast, 84 degree  day to get to some fun sewing projects. Paige has become an expert sewer. Wait till you see what she made herself! Grady is now sewing as well and driving that machine with no fear. The kids continue to sew for their non profit organization they started and they still can't keep up. They continue to sew at least a day a week to fill orders of aprons, hanging tea towels, coasters and many other fancy creations.

Thursday evening are quiet and calm as it's a late delivery day. The boys will return somewhere between 8 and 10 pm tonight. A long day on the road, but Chad never complains. I bet right now they are already planning their tomorrow. You see because Thursday are planning days for block making! (I had to work in more details about our life somehow) So yes, they are likely planning every detail about how they will start by sifting the 3 truck loads of clay that got delivered to the land yesterday. Actually they're likely strategizing about how to get the 3 truck loads of clay to the top of the hill. You see hill life has a breath taking view....but challenges when truck can't get up your hill! By next week we hope to be in full swing making compressed earth blocks.

Diversion from Thursday........Most of you don't know that we are needing to move. The property we have rented for the past 2 years (what, we've been gone for 2 years already?) has sold. It's too has been an answer to prayers for the family that owns it. We knew it would come so it was not a surprise. So, we will be moving sometime between December and January somewhere between our property and Duck Run II. That means we don't know yet! We are asking that the Father expedites work on our house which is presently an unfinished cement pad. It's nothing short of miracle that will allow us to get our house at least walled to live in with water and electricity but hey....God's in that business! But we are open to going where ever He wants us.

Still diverting .....We had a fantastic visit with my little sister and her family who was here for 2 weeks. What a blessing. We loved every minute of it and were so, so, so blessed to have time with them. We still wait on residence paper before we could even consider going home so please pray with us for favour on this paperwork process through a very corrupt government.

Back to Thursday. Wait that's it. The darkness will fall early here in Belize especially for us who are slightly nestled in some jungle trees. By 6:00 it will be dark and we will pull out our books to read and likely listen to some rain falling on the loud tin roof. Cool seasons brings many evening rains that sound like buckets upon buckets of water falling on your roof.  Peaceful.

There is so much more to our days here and the are all so uniquely different. Maybe next time I'll write you about Monday harvest day or Tuesday delivery day, or Wednesday harvest day, or maybe Friday work at the property day, or Saturday our new REST  or Sabbath day or Sunday....our new half work day! Either day, no matter what we do we are always , always in awe of what is happening here in Belize and how the Father reveals new mercies, new blessings and overflowing love on us! May you all seek His riches and His glory and live in His benefits as well.


Love to all
Stephanie

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House progress

I know, I know it's too soon for me to write, but we are sooooo excited to have progress on our hill! The road work is being finished this week so we have a decent road to drive up to our hill and the cement pad is in the works. We had a bulldozer level the top of the hill where our house is going to go. It wasn't the original plan to doze it and flatten it but necessary once they found the elevation was too great for our budget. I actually really love it now with a nice flat space for the house to sit.
The view is amazing and I am finally feeling excited at the reality that I know God is going to provide for us to be us there sooner than I thought!
I'll try to keep you posted on progress as we see it.

This is the road heading up to the highest point of our land where our house will be. Mom and Dad your place is directly to the right and Phil and Marlene are directly left of this point.

Wow, this is the jungle portion. This looks completely different with a road in. The road splits the two ponds which are on either side of it. Sad to see those trees pushed down but most of jungle still remains. Saved a few palms to remain in the middle of the road bed.

This was the original set up for the house. We planned on a 4 ft elevation at the front......turned out the slope was deceivingly greater! It was about 9 ft. Time to call in a dozer.

Preparation for cement mixing. They are hoping to just haul water from our ponds out back in the jungle to fill this tank and use to mix the cement. You can see the white marl ground or caliche as they call it. It is abundant on our hill which is blessing because it's great material for building and road bedding and earth block making!

The bulldozed and new foundation set up. Isn't it going to be awesome!

We are loving watching  how they build so simply and rudimentary. Back to basics and no fancy tools. The string line is up and they just used a hose bent in a "U" shape and filled with water to level the string lines.

 

 

On a side note: We got a wheelbarrow yesterday. It was like Christmas for Keaton! Let's see he raked the yard and hauled all the leaves to the compost pile, he and the girls collected hundreds of soap nuts (that's right all you greenies out there we discovered a soap nut  tree where we live....we are collecting as much as we can!) and then he decided to turn it into his school desk. He is quite the guy!

Grab a coffee....it's a long one!

Wow, it's time. Past time. A good time to give a long overdue update! There has been so much that has been transpiring over the past several month and we are just catching our breath. As I laid in bed this morning...wish I could say it was a quiet morning but the parrots and toucans were seemingly having an argument outside my window.

Ok, so since I've left writing so long your gonna get the "coles notes" version because I got me so much to tell you. If my language seem to be changing it's the melting pot redneck Texans and local Creole that are gettin' to me. Hope that's OK with 'yall!

Here we go.

We have recently ended our run of 4 months of visitor. Guess that's what we get when we come from the North and move to the perfect winter get away. Truly, truly, we have been thankful and blessed to have our house full of family all winter long. December my parents and another close couple came. My parents stayed for 3 weeks. At this time our micro green business was just advancing into the start of busy season so we were happy to have a few more hands for two days a week that we harvest. In January, Chad's Uncle Doug came for 3 weeks. We had a great break at the coast for a few days and the kids got their gaming pride put back in balance after gaming with him for 3 weeks. What great fun it was to have him with us. Then, 2 days after we took him to the airport home we picked up Chad's parent. It was great they gave me just enough time to get the sheets washed! Wow, we worked those two to the bones. They were troopers! Helping us through what was our first "busy seasons" for micro greens, helping me keep my head above water with meals and housework. I couldn't have done it without them. Love how God send us help even before we know we need it. Although we didn't do any exciting adventure with them we had so much fun doing our "real life" together. Papa agreed to help Keaton work on a wood working project which was his schooling for 3 weeks. They build us a beautiful mahogany coffee table right from a pile of raw boards. Memories for both those boys they won't forget. Said goodbye to them and 4 days later pick up our good friend Tyler who was coming to torture himself and Chad in a 4 days canoe race. It's an iconic race here in Belize the country prides themselves in this 170 mile river race every year.  Long and gruelling and the boys have confirmed it. Was great, great fun though. They didn't trail a whole lot...nope, nope they didn't. But tough as nails they made it to the finish. The kids and I had a grand time driving to empty place of the country that I never would have discovered before. Felt often like driving to neverland. We love having Tyler here. He is like a big little brother to me and we are so thankful we had the gift of having him with us!

And so the end of March marked the end of our guest. We went through family withdrawl for a few weeks after that!

Day trip to Placencia

Fun times at the beach with Uncle Doug

Keaton and Papa working hard in woodworking class

Hey look....they are IN the boat!

Top of the ruins with "little" bro.

BUT now it was GO time as we said! Not that you guys held us back but we did have some business that we couldn't get done while staying up late just so you could try to beat me in Quirkle! 

I mention our microgreen business. We are almost at our 1 year anniversary coming up the end of May. Wow, looking back what God has turned this into in less than a year is amazing. We currently harvest 2 days a week and run two delivery days a week. One day inland here in our local area and Thursdays Chad delivers a long day to the coast hitting all the large resorts. We grow, harvest, package and sell about 200 containers a week. Once family help in the middle of busy season I was feeling SWAMPED! Couldn't keep up to schooling (that wasn't really happening), business, meals, house work. God knew we needed help and actually we didn't even really ask Him for help because He first gave us a profit word that assured us, "Help was on the way". So, stayed strong. Low and behold we know have wonderful local employee. Ok, for those of you not familiar with Belize culture, having someone who doesn't drink, steal or not show up for work when the weather isn't right is RARE. Leroy, is a young believer, soft spoken, hard working, skilled, and trustworthy young man. We are excited to have him on board with us and pray God will increase our territory so we can provide more work for him.

Word about our business has been slowly funnelling through the resort and we also fly our product to some private islands for special orders. So cool.

The last two weeks we've been seeing somewhat of a slow down in sales and the resorts say they are starting to enter slower season. In the past I'd do worthless worry about what now, how will we make our living. But God has proven to me that he has new things in the works that our eyes can't always see. So we walk in faith. So, freeing! Just this week as we assuming "slower" time is coming Chad come home with reports that several large resorts want to INCREASE their business with us. Tell me God is Good!

The next thing we wanted to get moving on was our property. Don't remember if I reported that we have drilled a well....just a shallow 400ft deep well! But we have water! Next was a road. The road just got dozed about 3 weeks ago and wow it looks like we could actually live there now. We celebrated the day we could drive up the hill and say goodbye to hiking that hill! We are anxious to move up there and if I think about how long it could take to get a house finished I get defeated so I have to choose to trust in God's timing. We have been blessed with some help to get the first step of a house put in and contrary also to Belize culture where things always move slower than you want and expect we have a huge praise that today our cement pad for the house is getting started! You and many others ask us, "When will it be done? When do you think you'll be up there?" On our own finance and will.....could be along time but we are always open to miracles and provision that God provides so to answer the question, "When the Lord wills it".

Interest in the property continues. My parents have purchased a lot and we have another purchasing couple from the States coming in this weekend and several other local people interested in being neighbours too so we will be sharing our breathtaking view.

Do you believe the desire in your heart are created by God? Those things that get us giddy, bring us joy and yet benefit other. Those desires. They are God given. My improvement to better health over the last number of years has turned into a passion. For me it's a lifestyle and I love to share with those are interested in hearing but I long to share it with those who need health improvements. Well, God is birthing a new thing in our path. Long, amazing, non coincidental story of how our path has been aligned with a couple from Texas who we in the early stages of setting up an alternative health clinic here in Belize. We all know North America has very tight regulation with what kinds of alternative treatments can be performed, however, here in Belize we ain't got them rules! (that's the redneck)

So, we are working with this friend to achieve the vision of international headquarters for his already existing clinics in the State and Africa. This puts Chad and I at the very front line of helping people to seek better person health and treatment for all kinds of illness and disease. So, so overwhelmingly exciting! Stay tuned.

Kiddo's. They are doing awesome. The word thriving come to mind. I recently had someone give their definition of prospering and thriving.

Prosper - succeed in material terms; be financially successful

Thriving - (of a child, animal, or plant) grow or develop well or vigorously.

Now, I can confidently say our kids are THRIVING! I look at them and even I who sees them every day can see how they have grown like the weeds the last 6 months. We have a year long growing season here so they grow more, right! Truly they are so wonderful these kids. They have entered the business world. Along with 2 other young ladies the kids have a not for profit business called Kids 2 Kids. Check out their facebook page if you want to see their handy work. They sew and sell and use the funds to support local kids.

I see the kids growing spiritual which is my biggest joy! They pray over people, they sing all day long and we are really seeing their gifting come forth in each one. The kids are eager and diligent school worker. I will agree the sitting and teaching is not a strength of mine but I the kids just sit down and as we Dietrich's say, "Getter done!

You all would be amazed at little Grady...she is blossoming into a grown up little girl! Loving all thing pretty and fancy (Corrie you would be so proud of her!) Grady dances and sings all day, loves crafting and is still dreadfully afraid of all animals. To give you a little glimpse of her fears still she freaked out some time ago because two butterflies where fluttering around her! Seriously.

 

Keaton. I remember when he was 4 I would tell him to stop working so I could have a break.....I think I now say that every day. He has God given gift of work. Truly a servants heart he has. He is joyful and enthusiastic in everything he does. We are just trying to slow him down a bit so he can avoid the possible carelessness incidents! He sings, he sews, he prays, and works like a horse. Amazing.

 

 

Paige. She is no longer a kids. I just noted this week that she is now starting to turn down play time for hanging out with the adults. Grady still drags her to the play yard and because of her soft heart Paige gracefully obliges but she rather would be on my lap listening intently to the adult talk. This girl is my right hand helper. In the case that I need her to she can whip up a healthy, hardy meal for the family on the fly. She's becoming a kitchen master. Still she can be found at the crack of dawn with her nose in a book but I love that about her. She has ready every book we have at least 5 times and tells me they are so good I should read them. She is an aspiring author and has 3 books on the go that she one day hopes to publish.

 

 

So, that's them in a nutshell. They are treasures. They rarely fight, they mostly choose to sleep all in the same bed, they work hard, they never complain.....just the average kids you see!

 

Ok, time to stop. Took me two days to write this so it's ok if it took you two days to read it.

I will end with a word that I told someone yesterday that sums up how we feel here in Belize. This was very articulate and profound for me to say by the way.

" To say that I love Belize is not really the truth, I don't dislike Belize but my love for Belize is not why we stay here. We are staying here because we are confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that this place, not a location place, but a place in God is exactly where we are to be and choose to remain. Because we are abiding in God he has shown us that this is the place, Belize where we are to remain and continue in the work he sets before us. So, my contentment is not found in the tropical beauty but rather in the peaceful presence of God. And in Him I find my rest.

 

 

Love you all. Drop us a line, we love to hear from ya'll!

 

 

Oh, boy. As I sit here I realize its been so long since I wrote I can't remember what I left you with last!
Oh yes....a bit of a cliff hanger I believe. Last update was we were feeling we need to climate control our micro greens and we were feeling a gentle tug to get ready for a move possibly. Alright, I'll take it from there. So, we are still in our same house ....micro greens are not in a climate controlled room. Seems like nothing has changes, but yes we have done much work none the less.
Business continues to grow and we seem to take on new customers other week which is awesome. If you haven't seen our product that we are selling here in Belize check it out on our business Facebook page. We  are Shoots Alive on Facebook. October and November are typically off season for tourism here and so as many...actually most of the resort on the coast close shop we took that as an opportunity to revamp and look at how we could improve our growing. We have taken the last 7 weeks off from delivering to the coast (Hopkins) but have maintained our local Cayo weekly deliveries.
So, we have deliberated and strategized over the past 7 weeks of how to conquer the this extreme heat to improve our growing conditions. We thought maybe an air conditioned climate controlled shipping container was going to what we move to next. However, the overall cost has really held us back as well as we are unsure of where exactly we should locate the business because if we move it to a shipping container we will not be able to host it here were we live.
In the meantime, as we slowly moved from hot season to wet seasons we figured the temperatures here would drop enough to enable out outdoor growing to improve on it's own. Well, with one change always brings another unforeseen change! I'd love to say the temperature are cool....but I can merely say they are "cooler". Our rainy season had been rather dry but we realize with even the less than normal amount of rain we now lack sunlight needed to amply grow the greens and we had our old mould issues return because the humidity is now back to 90% they stay too wet and don't dry out. So, we remedied this by moving most of the growing upstairs in the house under LED lights.
God provides. We have a friend at church who has started a solar business and he had wonderful tiny rolls of strip lights in exactly the lumen and spectrums that we needed. So, although we haven't been able to lower the temperature they seem to be doing well in there new location!
This week we start delivering to the coast again so we are ramping up for busy season.

We have again been amazed at how perfectly God works. We have our first potential clients flying in to scope out several lots on Nov. 29! For me this is so God showing me that when we step out in faith and have faith and live faith we see faith! Confusing concept to explain but in other simple terms. We really knew God led us to purchase this property and although common knowledge and the norm tells us to hang tight land take a long time to sell here....we have held on to and tried to speak our faith that God will provide. Sure there are moments of freak out....but my freak out moment have diminished to a short few seconds. I can't look at all God has provided and the way I see Him giving us all the desires of our hearts and not have faith that "MY GOD SHALL SUPPLY ALL MY NEEDS". Truly, truly He blows my mind every week!
You know I hesitate to talk about finances and funds because I don't want anyone to feel sorry or worried for us but I feel that I need to speak of it as a testament to what God is doing for us and how He is calling us to live and transforming our lives.
Our business is going well but especially in off seasons we are not yet making the amount we need to live off. We have been blessed  to have savings that have supplied us thus far and will provide for a short time in the future. But man, this is largely where God is showing us a "better way". Our cushion is getting slimmer and yet I have no fear. We have to be wise about what we spend but shouldn't we all? I lack nothing. I find peace, actually more peace in knowing that God will provide when we need. How is it any different than trusting that Chad was going to continue to provide and work hard so our needs could be met. Does not our Heavenly Father love us even more than that. Then yes, he will. In fact he delights in giving his children good gifts....sometimes we just don't allow Him to give us gifts. Here's a very recent example of this. My parents are coming (yeah, thank you Lord for visitors!) the beginning of Dec. I have a few school books I needed to order and for them to bring to us. So as I was on CB.com I figured you know what the kids are loving Dutch Blitz, I'm going to just order because they we play a lot of games and the number form of entertainment for us. So, I take it upon myself to order it and yes, it was not a necessity but felt it would be put to great use. Long and short. We attend our small group on Friday (the day after I placed my order) and as the kids are playing this game there the hostess says, "Hey, I actually have two extra games that are brand new....why don't you take one, your kids love it".  I chuckled to myself as I instantly and clearly see how I neglected to go to my unlimited Godly resource. Why had I not just asked Him to provide for a desire I had. I could have. I should have. Then I wouldn't have needed to take it upon my own self to get this game. Simple. Some of you might call this trivial and random or coincidence but I tell you, "Try it". Try Him. You will see that God truly seeks and delight in giving us our requests. Big, small, significant, insignificant, necessary or sometimes even luxury!

I share those stories because that is the journey we are on. We are being so transformed in our understanding and walk with God. It's fantastic, challenging, rewarding, fulfilling and freeing.

Ok, now to quickly scan through what else has been happening in our days. School is going well. The kids are amazing at daily getting to the grind. Paige continues to exude a love for learning. She wakes and starts her daily schedule before breakfast or getting out of her P.J.'s. She loves to learn and write. I look at her and see she growing into such a soft gentle young lady. That is from her Nana ladies and gentlemen! Sorry Mom (Gatt) we but we both know soft and gentle is not a Puklicz trait! No, in reality it's a God trait. She doesn't express much but she recently shared with me that she doesn't ever worry because long or get upset because she just starts  singing praise songs when she feels anything she can't handle and then she's fine. So true. Praise.
Keaton is the same energetic, life loving, helper as usual. School for him is not as exciting but he get's his work done. He's teaching me to be understanding and patient, and patient and patient. Actually, as I teach him I realize he is me. I remember the tears I shed while homeschooling because I didn't understand what I was learning or because I let someone down. He is the same. This is the hard part of homeschool. Recognizing that each child is so different and then having the patience to walk them through their learning curve. All the while trying to build them up. I struggle with this but I pray for God's grace and patience that my frustrations would not harm Keaton because he really just wants to please. He is doing well. though. He excels in Math and we have to work hard on spelling and writing.
Grady. She is studious as the rest of them. She is reading well and find delight in being able to have a school routine like the other two. They all continue to work at their Spanish and they all already know more than Chad and I.   We have recently started playing UNO in Spanish. Mostly so I can remember my colours and numbers!

Chad continues to spend a few mornings a week at the property. He's slugs away clearing the road bed or chopping trees. It's tough work in this 95 degree heat and he never complains.

School is back in so some of our volunteer jobs are back in full swing. We go to our village Learning Centre two afternoon a week and help with home work. Chad and Nery(our close friend) have started taking in 6-9 kids every week to youth group at our church. We run a feeding program through our church that feeds our local school a meal/snack every week. Let's see. The kids are putting their sewing skills to work and have decided to start a sewing business with two other girls so they can raise money to buy gifts for the village preschool for Christmas.
In my life I had the awesome privilege of assisting in our friend home birth. She births unassisted and didn't really need me but was there for support and assistance however she needed. It was awesome to see a women rely on the Holy Spirit to not give her more than she could bear and not walk with her through the birth of their son. Memorable. A healthy 10lb boy was born right before my very eyes. I continue to play keyboard at church. This is my greatest blessing. I am growing in my gifting weekly and am so amazed how God has returned this gift to me. I love being part of worship. Between school cooking, volunteer and the business that we all work at equally I have to be careful not to take on too much more.

We seem to be entering the calm before the storm. .....the visitor storm. Staying true to their words both my parents and Chad's parents are coming again this winter. We will have Chad's Uncle in the new year as well and hopefully another friend...Tyler you are coming right? We always, always welcome visitors. The way it's looking we will have about 10 weeks of company over the winter! And we will love every minute of it. What a true blessing to us that friends and family can come and stay with us. We are so grateful. Guess that leads me to a residency update. We just had our police check last week. Praise the Lord. Now they state a case for us and it goes to the capital city police station then back to immigration for approval. Still will be a few months but we rejoice in every milestone that gets us closer to coming home for a visit!

I'm sure there is so much fore to tell. I would love to commit to being more diligent but writing is not my thing. You are all laughing now thinking back on how long this post was, right? I actually told Chad I was going to start audio blogging. Talking would be so much faster. We'll see. Maybe I'll surprise you. You can all thanks Jennifer Downs for this post. She taunts me every few months when I haven't posted anything. Heck, maybe she's the only out there reading this blog!!
We do love you all. We appreciate all that read this and pray for us and write us.

I will try to post some picture this week to reward you for the lengthy posting.
Blessings