Finally! Our first trip to visit family in Pennsylvania since early 2019! Our son invited us down to help with a tile project in the basement. What a difference from our last visit! Everything’s the same; nothing is the same. Me not being immunized yet, my husband suggested I wear an N-95 mask while traveling. I broke one strap when putting it on at the first stop, so he relented and let me wear my regular mask for the second stop. Pennsylvania has more chance of exposure, but I didn’t notice any closer interactions than in NY.
We encountered many tractor trailers on our drive from Northern New York, seeing a bit of the logistics employed to meet all our on-line ordering. Yes, we ran in and out of rain, but glad it wasn’t snow! We’ve been here two days, and the household has received two deliveries from on-line orders already. I have deliveries waiting until we return home, and we set our solar panel delivery for our project to ship from California the day after we get there.
We are sleeping in our elder grandson’s bedroom, which makes his distance learning have to adjust. Mom had to move into Dad’s office, which has a door, since the work in the basement is too distracting for her teaching kindergarteners on zoom. They noticed the background behind her wasn’t the usual! The grandsons saw the orthodontist the day we were traveling, so the elder is dealing with a new set of rubber bands and some pain. The younger is not so bad; he’s got spacers, which is less disruptive to normal life.
What does a day with a young family look like during lockdown? Boys in separate rooms with their own tablets connect with school sometime around 8:30. Mom starts with the kindergarteners about the same time in her office. Dad usually starts earlier, in his office. The younger boy eats lunch just at 11 and is back in his room by the time his elder brother and parents have lunch. The boys finish between 3-3:30, Mom at 4, Dad at 4:30. Throw in Dad taking off time for orthodontist appointments and figuring out who can take which boy to hockey around their schedules, and the family may be back together for dinner by 6:30-7 if the hockey travelers don’t eat on the way home because they’re at a late practice or game.
There are more new challenges to this lifestyle. The younger boy is not concentrating on schoolwork, and sometimes he doesn’t emerge from his room before five o’clock. He’s very social and misses interacting with peers in person. He lost electronic privileges for almost a month because he’s not getting work done. The older one is doing well because he likes a schedule. Once established, he is comfortable. Good thing, since the pain of braces rocks the boat!
It challenges the mom dealing with 200 kindergarten students and their parents. Soon, she will do individual assessments and doesn’t know how that will work out. The dad is not quite as challenged, since his home is his workstation for his FAA job, but everything has to shift when the kids are home full time. This is nothing new to me. I was a homeschool mom when my kids were young and it’s a change for any household, even if you have already been teaching them things as preschoolers. It’s always a change developing a teaching plan, schedule, and learning how you and each individual child learn and understand. You not only need to keep them on task, but have to keep yourself on task to keep the household running. My daughter in California and her husband both work from home and have hired a nanny to work with their two children and keep them on task while they work.
For my part of this trip, I am finding it a challenge to do my morning devotionals, the active things assigned in Exploring the Prophetic, exercise, and doing my computer work. It is nice relaxing with the family in the livingroom in the evening. We got to see several episodes of The Voice auditions my son has saved. We had seen none of them at home. We’re also watching a lot of hockey, of course; Go Penns! I enjoy swinging in the yard with the grandsons. One of them had a long lunch break, and we had a good chat outside.
On another front, Passover begins Sunday, March 28, as Christians celebrate Palm Sunday. Mitch Glaser from Chosen People Ministries suggest we take communion each day of Passover, which is seven days, sundown to sundown. Alternately, you can find on-line Passover meals you can attend. For more information, check out this link:
https://www.chosenpeople.com/site
I declare the floodgates of Heaven are being opened for you, in the Name of Jesus! We had a team from the Global Awakening School of Ministry spend a weekend at our church. They taught us more about hearing God, speaking for God, praying and declaring healing and giving impartation. By Sunday afternoon’s final prayer meeting of the conference, words of knowledge and healing began to flow from the front to the back of the sanctuary. Before we ended, everyone in the group had been spoken over, prayed for, had impartation, and each of us had spoken or prayed over several others. No one in the group left without a touch from God. Praise the Lord, one woman who’s had a heart problem, was released from the spirit of fear and infirmity that held her. Her sister was with her and also released from what was holding her. I’m excited with the impartation they have given us and learning to walk in it. It will be great to have another team come in the future, when our sanctuary can be full after this pandemic ends. If you’d like more information about Global Awakening or the school, here’s a link.
Global Awakening:
Awakening the world to the goodness of God.
I leave you all ’till next week with the gift of God’s Shalom, dear readers!
Musings along life's journey 