It's Been a Long Time

You know it's bad when you get an email from your mother in law asking why haven't you updated... :-) Sorry Marilynn!!

It has just been a terrible past week. If you are a common reader on our little updates you will know that complaining is not typical of us however, it has been a bad week.

We have traveled over 1500 miles in the past week (to TN and back) for hopes of a great time of growing with the team and spending some time in the city, getting familiar with it, possibly meeting people, etc. Well, the trip started off with an all nighter, we were not all packed after church last Wed night and were planned to leave at 3am, sigh...

Well, we weren't close to being ready so Daniel stayed up real late and I stayed up the whole night (he had to get some sleep to drive). But that can be typical so we didn't think too much about it. We arrived around 2pm that day and were able to spend a great deal of time in the city until the kiddos had, had enough of the van ;-)

Well, normally I go on and on about everything in great detail but right now I am just not in the blogging mood. (sorry for the negativity...) maybe it's the fever??

Long story short on our second full day we received a phone call from several dear friends of ours concerning a terrible thing that had happened back in Carthage, MO. One of our past youth group students grandparents were found not alive in their home Sunday morning. It is a very, very sad thing. It has affected so many different people whom we are close with. I have no idea what that must be like for those dear people, I just can't imagine. I know I am dealing with sorrow, anger, and just aching inside because I wish I could be there closer to them.

Secondly, that day we noticed Judah had big golf ball like sized lumps under his ears. Then that night Jordan woke up with a very high fever and throwing up blood and mucus (sorry for the visual) then I came down sick with a high fever, chills, etc. It was just miserable. On top of all that, I missed the people here in Ozark so much, it was just a sad thing.

Well, after all of that we decided to pack up and head home early. We wern't suppose to head home until Saturday morning but we headed home this morning at 1 am. That was a nice drive home. For some reason we all felt a little better, a little bit more joyful, and had some energy. It was like a race for home.

While we were away we realized how much we miss, Life.

Our life has been on hold for so long now and we are ready for things to be back to normal. I told Daniel this morning, I miss having fun at home. I miss turning the radio up real loud and chasing the kids around the house. I miss our smell when we come home, I miss Daniel and I watching a movie on the couch after the kids go to sleep. I miss having people over to our house. I miss our house being a place of ministry, a place where people can come and go as they wish; stay as long as they need and come back soon. Daniel said, "yea, I miss that too." We are hungry for that fellowship again. So, while the kids were still asleep, and the morning sun was peeking over the hills we brainstormed all the great things we need to start doing again. Please don't get me wrong... the Simpson's have been so WONDERFUL in allowing us to stay here and they are a blast to be with.

You might have read our update from a few weeks ago entitled I Have Been a Bad Blogger well, in that update I announced the news that we would be exiting "the basement" :-) on or before November 15th. When we told the Simpson's that they said "No, you stay... as long as you need". They said there is no reason for moving from here until you make the move to TN, no need to move twice." (They are so amazing). So before our trip we had decided to go ahead and spend the holidays at the Simpson's and hold off on finding a place. BUT on that drive home we realized, we have to quit putting life on hold. There are so many people and so many relationships we have placed on the back burner and that is not being a good Christian. We were built for relationships. God can move us whenever he wants to, wherever he wants to, but for now we need to make the best of where we are.

So, when we pulled in the driveway after only two stops on the 12 hour drive, we unloaded the stuff, ate some lunch, checked some Craigslist listings for houses in the area and then... boom! Everyone went down hill. Jordan and my fevers went up again, Judah started crying terribly, and even Alli started running a fever. So, everyone went for naps.

I was so excited to go to church tonight to hear one of the students teach and surprise everyone that we came home early but due to fevers the kids and I had to stay home. Daniel was able to go and he said the student did a real good job.

Now to close, while talking to someone at church tonight about the golf ball sized lumps under Judah's ears she mentioned the possibility of MUMPS!!! Daniel looked it up online and found this (click on it to see) That is EXACTLY what Judah looks like. I just don't know what is going on right now but the Gibson's are having a hard time finding our little joy this week.

Please pray for us, and more importantly pray for our friends who lost two dear people with the title of daughter, son, sister, brother, mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, and friend. And pray for them to figure out why this happened and who did it that way the family can have closure. We will be traveling there on Friday for the funeral.

Lastly, when we first started Our Glorious Days it was strictly used for our little family updates. But lately ministry has been so intertwined with our little family updates that it has trickled into the posts. But I am going to refrain from listing ministry details since that can be so controversial for some reason.

Welp, that is all for tonight, keep our sick kiddos in your prayers if you don't mind, especially Judah. He is not in the typical age range for Mumps, so hopefully it is just swollen lymph nodes.