Hello wonderful family & friends!
We have now been in Florida for a little over a month and i'm just now finding a few spare minutes to give you all a quick update. *wipes sweat off forehead* Whew. It has been an amazing, challenging, crazy, God-filled, patience-trying, random, busy, fun time so far!!!
As most of you know, we are both live-in behavior coaches/houseparents at a therapeutic ranch for teenage foster girls. We live in a house with 6 beautiful young ladies and every moment is a new experience to be sure. There's not much that I can say for confidentiality purposes, but just know that we are crazy about all of these girls despite the ups & downs that we've gone through and I love each of them so much already! We actually had one of "our" girls graduate from the program yesterday and I got choked up as we prayed over her and sent her back home to her family. It's incredible how God works in the lives of those he loves...which is EVERYONE in case you forgot ;)
My (our) days start a bit earlier that I like (6:20am) but i'm starting to find out how to function in the morning! haha We are with them from 7 am until we drop them off at school at 9am and then we usually have some errands to run or things to pick up and then when we get home I work on homework for 1-3 hours! We have a bit of free time to spend together and then we go back to pick them up from school at 3pm and are with them for the rest of the evening at the house. They all go to bed a little after 9, we do some end of the day paperwork and usually collapse into bed a little after 10pm. Then it's the same thing the next day...although no 2 days are ever exactly the same as i'm sure most parents understand.
We have been working full time (we are with them from 8am-9pm on weekends too) since we started on April 25th and our first week off is June 6th which is already right around the corner! We're excited to have some time to ourselves and explore the sunshine state, but I'm sure that we'll be ready to jump back into the routine after a solid weeks rest.
Overall, it's been amazing although there have been a few bumpy moments we wouldn't change where we are for anything. I know that God is going to use us here for his purpose and that we'll be greatly stretched and challenged throughout it all...prayers for energy and patience would be appreciated as we continue to share our hearts with these precious girls and form relationships with them! Love to all of you back "home" :)
-Mandie Lea
ps. For anyone that was following my weightloss journey, i've lost 48.8lbs total now since July 2010 which is more than I thought i'd ever be able to! I am still hoping to lose about 6 more lbs to reach my dream weight (haha)...so if I ever find some time to workout I will let you know ;) For now i'm just maintaining!
Hey - it sounds like you are fitting right in :) I give major cudos for jumping right in with 6 teenagers when you've never been a parent! It's hard! I know what you mean about good days and bad times, but you (and Andrew) will grow though everything. Just remember when you have your OWN kids, you don't get a week off every three weeks! :) Love you Mandie! <3
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