Thorburn Family

Greetings! 

Let’s pretend this is a homemade (but glitter-free) Christmas card, containing a personal written note, a picture of the fam, and a stamp turned up-side down for love.  

In reality, business is slow, and spending a few bucks on cards and postage for mucho-addresses was something we just decided to skip this year.  In addition, our family picture was a disaster.  We are all rather yellow and constipated looking (surely a lighting issue).  Keep last year’s picture, friends!  Meanwhile, we are totally loving all the cards and pictures arriving from friends and family near and far, and feeling guiltier w/every new mail delivery!

To recap our year, we first must mention the very sad passing of my paternal grandfather, Parker Scoville, in November.   Our prayers are with grandma to whom he was married for well over 60 years.   It’s hard to fully comprehend such a loss.

It’s a year of new stuff for us all.   It became clear to us that Rich needed more help in the office (in our home), and that the best person for the job was…. yours truly.  I am sure this has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn’t have to pay me anything, and that I have a vested interest in the business thriving ;-).   Homeschooling five children well is not possible for us if I have to also be focused on the business, so we enrolled the four youngest children in a local Christian school, which eventually settled into three enrolled, two homeschooled.  Looks like a good situation all around.  We still have some big adjustments to make and projects to catch up before this is working like a well-oiled machine, and I have a lot to learn.  Meanwhile, my hard-working husband continues to work hard, though business for Covenant Home Improvements is pretty slow for the first time in years.  We’re hoping things pick up here pretty soon.

A significant experience we had this year was the fostering of a little baby boy.  He was born drug addicted and we were in the hospital with him for some time before he could come home.  We had him until he was 17 weeks old and love him very much.    While it was tiring, profoundly sad, joyful, and maddening at times, caring for this sweet baby also made the main things in life and death far more clear to us.  We became more determined to not waste our lives on meaningless things, and became even more confident in the power of the gospel, that is, the “good news,” as effective for every situation on earth in which we may find ourselves.   The message of the cross, this good news, is the ultimate answer for sweet baby, for his parents and all involved, and for us.   It is the same message of Christmas: that Jesus Christ came to free people from their sins, pay the debt we owed to a holy God, and to give a new life of purpose and hope for God’s glory.   He has saved us from a “futile way of life” and, in Christ, has provided hope eternal, life everlasting, and a road map for the rest of our days on earth.  All who have a burden of sin and need a Savior can freely receive his gift of salvation, for which He paid the ultimate price.

A quick, disjointed update on the kids:

Lydia (just turned 16):  homeschooled junior, started to drive this year, worked for the hospital all summer, and is looking fwd to a possible missions trip to Honduras in 2010.   She’s been busy crocheting, playing guitar, and sewing on top of a full academic load (Spanish 3, Functions/Statistics/Trigonometry, Anatomy & Physiology, Test Prep Course, and World Views #3&4).

Jubilee (14) has benefited from the school change, and we all agree that in her case, it has been strengthening for our relationship to have homeschooling off the table this year.  She’s really growing up!   Jubilee is looking forward to being in the Christmas program at her school.  She looks forward to doing the Dare To Care program at Mount Ascutney Hospital and volunteering there this year.   Still devouring books and loves to sing.

Valerie (turned 14 last week) is thrilled to be back in her art class with Linda Hammond now that she is homeschooled again.   Still baking, painting, crafting, and loving her pets (which now include only a lizard and a kitten).  Went through the Dare To Care training at Mount Ascutney Hospital and volunteered many hours on the critical care unit feeding patients and wheeling people around.  Loves to sing w/her sisters.  Along w/her sisters, Valerie was an immense, immense, incredible help when we had our sweet foster baby.

Jesse (10) has not lowered his energy level and continues to need a short leash and parents who are 5 steps ahead of him!  Still doing karate. He loves school and is not lax on class participation :).  Jesse has spent a lot of time splitting and hauling the nearly 20 cords of wood we use each winter to heat our big old house (two woodstoves), and somehow he still has the energy to be our chief entertainment.

Benjamin (6) has bloomed the most this year.  Much of his therapy has been discontinued, and he is just routinely evaluated for speech.   It is hard to believe he’s been our son for only 1 1/2 years.  He seems completely attached, is delightfully funny, and except for having a pretend friend named “Mary,” he’s marginally normal :-P    Ben is doing karate as well, and competed in his first tournament this Fall.  He’s memorizing the book of James along with everyone else and making good progress.

Looking ahead to the new year, Rich and I are looking forward to celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary (March 2nd).  It’s hard to believe it’s been that long!  We still love each other a super big awesome lot :-)!!   God is gracious.

If you made it this far, bless your heart.  Hope you all enjoy your Christmas and New Year!   We’d love to hear what’s up with each of you so drop us a line!     With love, Anna for the family

 anna@thorburnfamily.com

rich@covenanthomeimprovements.com

 Lydia turned 16 on November 29th, and that day we also had a fondue party for her!Here is the “main dish” table as we were setting it up:Even with dessert fondues in the mix, everyone still had room for cake:All the kids together!  A lively, funny, super friendly & sweet bunch.  I like them!  :-DCan’t help but put a silly picture of our boys in there!We are really thankful that we have had Lydia for 16 years.  Nobody on earth knows what the next day holds.  We have enjoyed our precious daughter every day of her life!

Benjamin (5, soon to be 6) and Jesse (10) got their pictures taken recently.  The girls are next!

Last summer, Lydia rummaged through fabric in the attic, started “randomly” cutting and hand-sewing, and a year later, out came this romantic-era, Jane Austen style dress!  She used no machine, no pattern, and purchased no materials to make it.  She agreed to pose for me so I could share these with  you.

Yes, those are backpacks!  For the first time ever, four of our precious children are enrolled in a local Christian school.  We have been home-schooling since Lydia (15 1/2) was 3 years old, and are so thankful for our Savior’s strengthening and provision for that task, and the fruit that He has granted from it.  Approximately 9 months ago after a lot of prayer and discussion, we decided we would put the boys into a private Christian school as of the 09/10 school year so that I could be much more helpful to Rich with the business, working from our home office.

About 6 weeks ago, we decided to also put Jubilee & Valerie into the same Christian school as well for a year.   On August 26th, Jubilee, Valerie, Jesse, and Benjamin started their year at the Christian school.   Everyone is really enjoying the new school and we are delighted with new teachers and routines!

Lydia continues to be home-schooled via The Potters School (based online) in her Junior year.   She is also hoping to go to Honduras this year for a missions trip w/TPS.   Here she is enjoying sleeping-in because her TPS classes don’t start until September 14th.  It takes a very secure teen to let her Mom put pictures like this on the family blog!  ;-P  Lydia’s summer has been full of working at Mount Ascutney Hospital as a therapy aide, volunteering for 3 weeks at Camp Good News, and taking her next math class with a TPS teacher!  She also managed to get Norovirus at camp and was pretty sick for a while!   Very busy girl.  We are so thankful that, by God’s grace, she is such a motivated and diligent person.

Not spending 75% of my time home-schooling and not having all our children in house all day is a *huge* change for me, as you can imagine!  I need a little while to let it “gel” in my brain.  I know the Lord has led us here, clearly directing us, and He will teach us each new things.  I am mostly excited about being able to bless and help my hard-working husband in this much-needed new way!  I am also psyched about watching the Lord teach me how to most effectively nurture and train my children without having them in my sight every moment.   It’s all good.  I have no idea what next school year holds, but I know we’ll all learn new things this year and grow in new ways.  I hope we will be diligent to make the most of each moment!

On July 24th, after a judge’s decision, our 16 1/2 week old foster baby went to live w/a birth parent.   It’s been quite a ride.

We are thankful for many things.  Mostly, we are thankful that God equips a person for whatever He calls them to do. Living the Christian life is not a call to lunacy, though it may appear so at times :).  He does not say, “Care for widows and orphans in their distress,” or, “Care for the weak,” and then decide to rip your heart out without remedy.  He knows how weak we are and He stands ready to be our strength. He doesn’t leave us w/out tools to figure out how to process and navigate a world, and a system, that seem foreign and wrong in so many ways.   He doesn’t set us up for confusion and despair when we come out of our comfort zones in a faltering attempt to honor Him.  Rather, he’s setting us up for more growth, more confidence in Christ, more ability to comfort and counsel others, more love for Him and His ways, and more love for others.  He’s all about making us part of strengthening the faith of God’s people and confounding a dying world, in the process of simply living life, proving His worth!  We are thankful that God’s grace through Christ Jesus is far beyond the fear or difficulty of any situation.   How we wish we’d learned some of these lessons, and held this confidence more clearly, much earlier in life!   We would go back and change some things. There is still so much for us to learn.   We are thankful for God’s Word, the Bible, which contains all the information we need for learning how to process any situation, emotion, decision, and reaction in a way that pleases God.

One thing we remembered over and over again through this experience is that we were wretched sinners without hope before Christ redeemed us, paid the enormous debt for our sins, through no doing of our own.   On our own, we are no different than any other person who is struggling w/addictions & broken lives, and we were worse.  The only difference is that we were pulled up out of a futile way of life, through the death of One whose life and love was perfect.   This new, victorious way of life that we live now is available to all who know the burden of their sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness and a new life.   Anything we do now to serve God is simply an insignificant token of gratefulness for a gift we could never come close to earning. Our greatest hope is that the baby’s family will know this great salvation and what is “life in Christ.”

Now we are grieving a little bit, just missing this sweet baby who was part of every minute of every day for around 4 months. He’s strong now, healthy, and so very different from the baby who struggled for over a month in the hospital after birth.    He is now a cooing, smiling, laughing, chubby little sweetheart!   We really enjoyed having such a sweet bundle in our home and will keep him and his whole family in our prayers for a long time to come.   The end of this story has not yet been told, and God holds the future in His hands  :^).

Baby Reeve arrived home today!   He screamed the whole ride, but as soon as he was taken out of his car seat, he was happy again   Reeve is 1 month old today and doing a lot better than he was.During our little hospital stint of a few weeks, we felt the Lord’s hand close and dear to us.  I could never list them all, but here are a few of the things for which we are praising God:

1. Baby Reeve’s life; he is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

2. God’s hand of protection upon him in the midst of many trials.

3. Excellent medical care at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.  The nurses and doctors were outstanding.

4. Many, many opportunities to share our gratefulness to God and hope in HIM w/staff and others involved w/baby.  The answer to our hope and strength is simply life lived in Christ Jesus, and the knowledge of all He has done for us.   Forgiveness for sins and being “transferred from death to life” is the answer to all the world’s problems, and the answer for the hope that is within us.

5.  Emotional and physical strength, and the fact that things kept running very well at home!  It would not have been the end of the world if our house and schooling fell apart during these weeks.   But what a blessing that schooling stayed on track, housework got done (including a couple extra projects!), and we remained generally functional and sane beyond our capabilities  That was God’s great grace.  We also were not sick for an entire month.  After a winter of being chronically sick w/everything that came along the pike, we are so grateful that we were not hit w/any colds or bugs that would have hindered our involvement at the hospital.

6. Grace from God in dealing w/the “powers that be.”  We are thankful for trials in this area, as it refocused us on the fact that God alone is in control and holds the “hearts of kings in his hands.”   

7.  The knowledge that God’s will will be accomplished in Reeve’s life.  God will fulfill his purposes on this earth, unfettered.  Whatever happens, whether Reeve is with us weeks, months, or many years, he is in God’s hands.  

“Contentment should be natural to those who are born of the Spirit of God; yea, we ought to go beyond contentment, and cry, ‘Blessed by the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits.’”   C.H. Spurgeon 

We have neglected our family blog in the past couple of months.   Lydia is our primary blog-ress, and while I do a lot of the writing, I don’t usually get around to publishing something unless Lydia is involved, particularly w/pictures.   Lydia has completed her seven weeks in Texas w/my brother Dan’s family, and arrived home a week or two ago.

So, the latest news is that we have a newborn foster baby in the hospital.   He is just wonderful, so perfectly designed by his Creator.   Because he is a foster baby, we are limited in what we can share, especially on the internet, about him and his situation. We can tell you that he is about three weeks old and has been given some significant difficulties early in his little life through no fault of his own, of course.   We expect he will be hospitalized for at least three more weeks.   We are spending a lot of time at the hospital during the day, and have worked out a little schedule that allows school to continue on track, the house to run, etc.   Needless to say, this requires that ALL of us work together and stay on track.   We are thankful that we are in a position to do this, because of the ages of our children and their ability to take care of things here, and their desire to be helpful. This is God’s grace!  Some past experiences with children and medical issues have also been helpful to draw upon in advocating for this precious baby boy.  

We don’t know how long he will be with us.  It could be weeks, months, years.   The “system” seems wholly disheartening, and if we were looking at that, or other aspects of this baby’s world, we would be brought down in despair.  There are moments in which I will start to focus on the wrong things. Our eyes must remain on Christ, who holds the world in His hands, who turns the hearts of Kings, who orders all things after the perfect counsel of His will, and whose ways are higher than our ways. He is not only wholly sovereign, he is wholly good.  

Rich and I always wondered how we would “process” a situation like this if it ever came up. We’d said in the past, “We just couldn’t deal with that, it would be too hard, too discouraging.” Seeing the general results of a world that does not love or obey God, in this situation and others can start to be overwhelming, but we don’t want to hide ourselves from it either. “As your days, so shall your strength be;” He gives grace to keep our emotions straight day by day. We reminded ourselves recently that our duties remain the same today as any other day:  to “do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God” for His glory on the earth, no matter what happens.  Pray for us to keep our eyes looking up and to not “lean on our own understanding,” but to “acknowledge Him in all our ways, trust in him w/all our hearts,” and to “be still and know that He is God.”