Church Mission Trip

Church Mission Trip (pics)

Rio Grande Bible Institute-Radio Esperanza

The trip was fantastic and much was accomplished in the short time we were there. As I write, families are still there working hard and will return later in the week. The Rio Grande Bible Institute's mission is to train missionaries and pastors to go into Mexico to spread the Gospel and minister to the people. Our purpose in being there was to help with various projects ranging from demolition work to picking up nails from recent roofing work. There was much to do and there was certainly a job for everyone! One of the neatest aspects of the trip was watching whole families work together and be productive. Even the small children were given jobs and were diligent to complete them. So often mission trips are reserved for youths and adults, assuming young children are too little to do much! Well, may I encourage your churches to plan family mission trips and watch the love, learning, and hard work that takes place! These kids were so sweet and very eager to do ANY job, even out in the heat of the day!

I took many pictures and tried to post just a fraction of them, although there are still many. I'm posting these mainly for the benefit of my family and church family that could not come. But if you don't fit into these categories, I hope you will enjoy them anyway!

We all stayed in the student dorms, specifically, the men's dorms. We were quite comfortable.

The Warren boys settling in.............

Our family settling in ...........

The rest of our family settling in...........

Our brood............

It's time for bed.........

Julie, CJ, Blair and Melody up early preparing breakfast............

With full bellies, it's time to get to work........

Josh and David on plumbing repair duty.........

Greg on mudding and tapping duty.......

And under Daddy's tutelage, Seth learned mudding and taping.......

Curtis had to repair a tractor tire...........

Dirk (our pastor) had fun knocking down a wall in a bathroom........

And Brandon joined the fun.............

Bethany contributed by building a log cabin..........Great Job!

Bethany also helped look after our little ones and much, much more.........


There were even jobs for mommies and babies..........I was the "Magnet Lady"

Malachi helped pick up nails and metal with this handy magnet.........

This is why we had to do this.......the boys cracked me up by how excited they'd get over their new found "treasure"................

Seth lifting the magnet to release the nails into the box.........

Sophia tried her hand at magnet pulling, but it was harder than it looked........

We celebrated Ethan's second birthday while on the trip. Our thoughtful pastor made a trip to the store and bought this cake. It was a sweet birthday..........

Here's Ethan getting ready to dig in............

Ethan's new best friend, CJ............

There's always time for music..........

Amy and Chey singing Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee in English and Spanish.........

And to end my photo journal, here are some of our families before Sunday morning worship. I was unable to get all the families photographed........I apologize for missing some.........

It was an amazing trip and we look forward to doing it again soon! Thank you to the Rio Grand Bible Institute for allowing us the privilege to come with our families to work with you!

Again I say.........Soli Deo Gloria!!!

Mission Trip

Church Mission Trip

Today we're embarking on our first out-of-town family mission trip. Our church is heading to the Rio Grande Bible Institute to assist the school in accomplishing various work projects around campus now that the school is on summer break.

We are very excited to be going as a family and have the opportunity to expose our younger children to missions. This will be a short trip for us, Friday through Sunday night, since Greg has to be back at work Monday morning. Many of our church gang, though, will stay through Wednesday.

Please pray for our church and our families. Our ultimate mission is to honor and glorify God in all that we do........may our spirits, words and actions reflect those of Christ! Soli Deo Gloria!!!

Greg's New Job

I Love A Man In Uniform......

I love THIS man in uniform.....

After 17 years as a fire fighter, today Greg began a new journey within the Fire Dept........he is now officially a Fire Inspector. This is a promotion for our hero and we are very proud of him! His schedule will be quite different......no more 24 hrs on/24 hrs off........he'll now work Monday through Friday, although, he will still work one 24 hr shift a week. I'm sure this will take some getting used to for all of us, as we've only ever known the 24 on/24 off schedule, but we're looking forward to the road ahead!

Way to go, my love! You're our hero!

Encouraging VBAC

Encouraging VBAC

This is a beautiful slideshow of a mom having a homebirth after a previous C-section (because her baby was "too big" at 9 lbs). This VBAC baby was over 11 lbs! WOW!

Birth Slideshow

You GO, girl!

Photo Journal

Fun Photos


Do these make me look smart?

My......what BIG eyes you have!

The girls love to sew. Celeste is making a dress for Sophia.

Cheyenne is helping Celeste to gather the waist.

Genevieve and Caleb........the betrothed!

They go way back.......all the way back to Genevieve's birth!

This is big brother Ethan telling Genevieve that she's just too young to marry Caleb!

Our Genevieve

Our baby girl is three and half months already! She smiles a lot and sleeps through the night! She's thinking about rolling over but hasn't made any concrete decisions to do so yet. She loves altitude (Daddy holding her) and being upright as to not miss any action going on in the Sabo household. She's a sweet girl with an easy-going disposition! She doesn't seem to mind all the chaos around here........she's a trooper! We love you baby girl!

Quote

Encouragement

Just wanted to share a quote a sweet friend of mine sent me the other day! May you, too, be encouraged........

How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness. -G.K. Chesterton

Abuse???

I'm Not Convinced of Abuse Yet! This is a story that has been pretty heartbreaking to me! Although I certainly don't agree with Mormon practices, especially polygamy, I'm not convinced this is the "dangerous" situation it's made out to be. So far, it seems as if there has been NO concrete evidence of abuse! All I can think about is how these precious young children have been torn from their families and don't understand why! Imagine these little ones crying in strange beds each night because they miss their mothers terribly! And as moms, how would we feel? I can't imagine.

Here's what I've been reading:

Scott Henson, in an article for the Dallas News, said this:

"In Eldorado, no one alleges YFZ parents are themselves abusing children. Instead the allegation (in court, at least) is that they're teaching their kids that a woman's highest calling is giving birth and raising children and that it's acceptable to get married at an early age. Even if it were true, and the allegation was disputed, can this really be enough to seize children from their homes?"

I keep hearing about abuse, but where? I haven't heard of one verified instance of abuse being found. Who gets to decide what we're allowed to teach our children and what should be considered "dangerous" or "cultish?" The state? Here's a quote from MSNBC that should give us all pause:

“Experts and lawyers fear the children's transition to foster care may be much harder than it is for other foster children...Many of the children have seen little or no television. They have been essentially home-schooled all their lives. Most were raised on garden-grown vegetables and twice-daily prayers with family. They frolic in long dresses and buttoned-up shirts from another century.”

Such abuse! How horrible! Let's rip these poor children from their families before they miss out on the necessary and oh-so beneficial experience of MTV and the hook-up culture.
From the same article, Mr. Henson addresses the judge:

"Excuse me, Judge? You issued a sweeping, house-to-house search warrant based on a highly questionable anonymous call that turned out to be phony. You refused to allow individual hearings for children, grouping them together like cattle. You accepted the testimony of an expert on "cults" who only learned about FLDS from media accounts, rather than an academic who'd studied them professionally for 18 years.

You've ruled the existence of five girls between 16 and 19 who were pregnant or had children was evidence of systematic abuse, even though in Texas 16-year-olds can marry with parental consent. You've ruled young toddlers are in "immediate" danger because of their parents' beliefs or what might happen 15 years from now, not because anyone abuses them.

From the evidence presented publicly, I do not believe that the children have been sexually abused or physically harmed. Allegations of forcible rape turned out to be bogus, and only five girls 16 to 19 years old were found pregnant or with children – probably about the same ratio you'd find if you rounded up all the kids in my neighborhood.

Instead, I wonder what it would be like for these children to be torn from a loving family by people whose message is this: Everyone who loves you is bad. Everything you believe is wrong. The God you've been taught is a fraud, and belief in Him is harming you."

And Tim Lynch, of the Cato Institute, had some interesting thoughts:

"If a child says 'I love my parents and want to go home,' it means he has been brainwashed by the 'cult.' And if a child says 'I like my foster parents a lot. They give me candy and the video games are awesome,' it means the child’s actual parents are unfit.

"State authorities talk a lot about rape and forced marriages, but 300 children are ages 4 and below. They should be sent home because there is no evidence of abuse. All the boys should go home because there’s no evidence of abuse. As for the remaining girls, they have been held for 3 weeks already … the judge should give the police one more week to present evidence or they should be going home too. The investigation can continue, but 3+ weeks in custody is enough already.

"When it comes to separating children from the parents, the burden of proof must be borne by the state."

And another must read: "Increasingly I'm coming to think that the case against the Eldorado polygamist compound may be a setup job." - Scott Henson

"Don't get me wrong: True pedophiles should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But that's a little different than changing the law to redefine historic religious practices by a particular sect as "pedophilia," which is what Rep. Hildebran did. Similarly, there's a big difference between investigating an individual, anonymous complaint from a single teenager, and forcibly taking 419 children away from their homes based on guilt by association.

I'd feel the same way if the state decided to seize all the children of parishioners in a Catholic church whose priest had been accused of pedophilia. What's the difference between that and what's happening in West Texas based on allegations against one man?

As Fox News' Greta Van Susteren declared, "being weird isn't a crime." And the alleged crimes of one man don't justify violating the rights of hundreds. When we identify "weird" people whose religious beliefs we don't like and pass laws criminalizing that behavior, as Hildebran did, to me that borders on "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. This whole episode strikes me as grandstanding and overkill." - Scott Henson

And what about this:

Texas 911 Calls Linked To 33-Year-Old in Colorado

"SAN ANGELO, Tex., April 23 -- The phone calls that triggered a massive raid on a polygamist compound in west Texas -- in which a quavering girl's voice described being forcibly married at 15 -- have been linked to a Colorado woman with a history of making false claims of sexual abuse, according to an affidavit filed in Colorado Springs.

The affidavit says calls that allegedly came from "Sarah Barlow" -- a teenage girl at the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside Eldorado, Tex. -- actually came from numbers connected to Rozita Swinton, 33, [State Democratic Delegate] of Colorado Springs. The affidavit also notes Swinton's possible involvement in a series of separate but similar reports in which the young caller described being abused by a pastor, an uncle or her father."

I think it's about time these children are sent home!!! For another intersting perspective, read here!

ht: Stacey M.

Prayer for Caleb

Please Pray For My Friend! UPDATED

Thank you to all who prayed! Little Caleb got the "all clear" from the doctor. His tests were all normal! Praise God! The Cambron family thanks you sincerely for your faithfulness in prayer!

She writes:

I don't know how to make this short, but basically my heart is breaking tonight. Our baby, Caleb, has started having some neurological problems. Basically, it looks as though he is losing head control and his head falls forward or to the side. This could be a benign condition or it could be infantile seizures which is devastating in an infant. The strange thing is that our Joshua went through this very thing when he was 4 months old and it lasted about 5 months. We had to have eegs, mri's, cat scans and see neurologists at Children's Hospital in New Orleans. We found a treatment that worked for him and we never had to put him on heavy duty, dangerous medications and he never regressed...Praise the Lord!
I am in shock that this is happening again. I don't understand why? I am scared, but trying to trust God. It is hard with my husband in Iraq. Please, please, please pray for baby Caleb. Please tell everyone you know who prays to pray for our sweet baby. We had so many people praying for Joshua when he went through this and I know that is what healed him. Caleb needs your prayers. I am going to try the same thing we did with Joshua starting Tuesday. I am taking him into the dr tomorrow and I am positive they will want to do an EEG very soon. I go from feeling strong to feeling desperate to trusting God to being scared and angry.
Sorry this was so long. And thank you for being awesome prayer warriors and praying for our precious baby boy, Caleb.
In Him,
Stacey & family

Thank you!!!

Expelled

Expelled

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Purity Ring Photos

(Full Story Below)


Greg sharing stories from Cheyenne's early childhood..........


More stories..........

Presenting the ring........

Greg placing on the ring........

I LOVE this picture...............

End of "ceremony"...........

Prayer.........

The gang.........

Thank you, Longenbaugh's, for the use of your camera. We wouldn't have captured these memories had it not been for you!

Purity Ring

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Psalm 51:10

One of things we had been looking forward to since Cheyenne was little in an effort to guard her heart was presenting her with a purity ring. We have known people through the years who have made this an important event in their families and it has encouraged us to consider the same.

The purpose of presenting the ring is for the young person to be reminded of his/her commitment to flee any situation that might compromise their commitment to abstinence, but it is also a reminder for the parents to encourage the young person, through accountability and prayer, by wearing the ring.

But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 

1 Timothy 6:11

Last October, we were finally able to present a ring to our oldest daughter on her fifteenth birthday. It was a ceremony filled with memories, commitment, and prayer. It was one of the most beautiful and meaningful occasions in our family and one we look forward to doing with the rest of our children in the years to come.

In the weeks leading up to Cheyenne's birthday, we began planning. We hunted and purchased this ring. We wanted something pretty and feminine, but also something that wasn't too expensive; in the event it is lost we can easily replace it. We also spent time developing "the ceremony". Greg thought long and hard about how he wanted to present the ring to his daughter. It was well worth the planning......it was so sweet!

On the day of her birthday, we celebrated throughout the day just as we normally would. She opened her gifts that morning, saving the ring for later. After dinner and the cake, it was time!

Greg began the ceremony by sharing stories from Cheyenne's early childhood through the present. She was brought to tears as she listened to her daddy reminisce through the years stories of laughter, growth, and testimonies of God's faithfulness. Greg told of stories that even I had forgotten. It was precious and beautiful!

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.  1 Timothy 4:12

Once we were all good and teary-eyed, Greg presented the ring. By accepting the ring, she is making a commitment to God, her parents, and to the man God has chosen to be her husband, to remain pure.  Greg then placed the ring on her ring finger and led our family in prayer, which concluded the "ceremony"!

Words cannot describe how precious this day was and how meaningful this was to Cheyenne. Not only did the presentation signify and encompass the beauty of purity, it also showed Cheyenne how much we love her and our level of commitment and protection over her. 

As an additional resource, here is a site I recently came across called Purity Pledge . It's a family business of hand crafted purity rings and lockets.

Gun Wars

Gun Wars

Daddy and Seth having a blast with Seth's Nerf guns!

Did I mention this took place during a math lesson today? Yep.....gun fights during math! I lovingly asked Greg how math would be incorporated into this gun war. He said that Seth was very rambunctious today and needed to exert his extra energy. "Ohhhhh, I seeeeee!"

It's hard to tell which one of them was having more fun, but, I have to say that Seth DID do a much better job of finishing up his math once he "exerted his extra energy"!

He Is Risen

HE IS RISEN!
We hope you all had a wonderful Resurrection Day. The Lord is risen indeed!

Thought I'd post an updated photo of the family, minus myself! I wasn't feeling well, so didn't dress for Easter. I'm bummed about the lack of quality in this photo, but at least it's a recent one! More to come......

From the Sabo family to yours.........have a wonderful day!

Balancing Act

Balancing ActWell, Daddy's up to his old tricks again. Once our babies reach about two months of age, Greg puts them to the test. He's done this with all of the children, and now, Genevieve has proven herself to be yet another silly Sabo! When Seth was a baby, he and Greg scored a few seconds of fame doing this very trick when one of our video clips landed on America's Funniest Home Videos.

And just for the record, no, he's never dropped a baby.........yet! ;-)

Boys Will Be Boys

Snacks Anyone?
*dog food
*toilet water (a la pee)
*deoderant (spring fresh, of course)
*blue marker (only non-washable will do)

These are the contents that have been consumed by Ethan in the last two days! After eating dog food and quenching his thirst from the toilet, we're convinced he should have been born a puppy..........he's as cute as one, anyway! Lord, help us...........

Baby Genevieve

Baby Genevieve

Finally, after several months without a digital camera, we're back in business! Here's our sweet girl!

Two months old.....ALREADY!

The First Time

Isn't it a funny thing when your baby sleeps through the night for the first time? On one hand, you're excited that the baby has finally slept through the night, but on the other hand, you're wondering all night why she hasn't awakened yet!

After many unpredictable nights with Genevieve, she finally slept through the night last night.

Me on the other hand....

I woke up at 2am, peeked at her, still asleep.

Woke up at 4am, peeked at her, still asleep but should be waking up at any moment.

Woke up at 5am....okay, time to feel her to make sure she's still breathing. Whew....still breathing.

Finally, at 6am I hear that sweet little cry that I had been waiting for since 2am.

Even after seven babies, that first "sleep through the night" still gets me! We'll see how she does tonight.  And how I do!

Genevieve is eight weeks old today! Wasn't she just born last Monday???

Thoughts, Observations, and Other Musings

Chloe (3) has this cute little purple, fuzzy purse that she carries around ALL DAY! She loves this purse. This purse was a stocking stuffer for Christmas. It's the ONLY present she still plays with everyday. I bought it at the Dollar Store........

A few months ago, while driving in the car, Seth (6) was telling us about his tooth. He asked me if I rememered when it used to be gray. I said yes! He then said that "God raised it from the dead..........."

All of our kids LOVE yogurt. We used to buy family packs of Yoplait yogurt until we made the switch to all natural yogurt. Well, yesterday I decided to buy Yoplait again because it was on sale AND I had a coupon. When Chloe (3) saw the yogurt in the fridge, she very excitedly said, "Yea, the upside down yogurt!"

Ethan's favorite phrase these days is "naughty boy". Hmmm......do you think he's heard that once or twice in his life? He also favors the word "NO"...............

A couple of weeks ago, Seth (6) and Sophia (5) (partners in crime) were running through the kitchen. We have a NO RUNNING IN THE KITCHEN POLICY here! When I caught them, I rhetorically yelled, "How many times have I told you NOT to run in the kitchen? After a few seconds pause, Seth, with a calculating look on his face answered, "Nine?" The girls and I burst into laughter. So much for that lesson in discipline.........

We're so proud of Cheyenne.........she's been able to come up with a new word for the dictionary! While helping her with implied pronoun references in English, she invented the word "fraidiness" as a substitue for the word "afraid". We're so proud..........

(Disclaimer: She's really a VERY bright young lady.......we claim that she's suffering from cabin fever since we've been sick for so long.......at least we got a good laugh out of it!)

I just called Greg at work a bit ago and woke him up from his nap. Yes, you read me right......a nap.......at work! Oh, the life of a firefighter.............

Celeste (12) makes the BEST pancakes. She infuses the batter with vanilla and a mashed banana. Then she makes a homemade strawberry puree to top the fresh whipped cream! YUM!

The other day we were all enjoying a handful of Cheez-its for our snack. After Seth (6) finished his, he walked back into the kitchen and said, "Mommy, we can't buy Cheez-its anymore!" When I asked him why, he replied, "Because Cheez-its aren't healthy!" Hey, WHO told Seth that Cheez-its aren't healthy.........

Baby Genevieve is almost eight weeks old. Just eight weeks! Both of my older girls are ALREADY ready for us to have another baby!!! And people say we're crazy..........

And, as I'm finishing up this post, Ethan (1) comes downstairs in underwear! Not his diaper, underwear! There they go again.........those little ones are trying to potty train him AGAIN! Sorry, Mommy's not ready yet for that! I'd better go get that diaper back on before he........well, you know where that's going........