Wow! I have not posted in a year! Face book has taken over my blog time. It has been a huge year of change at the Beacom's Jerry lost his job in Sept and he was unemployed for 4 months. He has recently started a entry level job at Medline and is working evenings for the State Farm office here in town. We are still not sure how we will survive on the new much lower income but God has been SO faithful in taking care of us and we continue to trust in His provision.

The kids are keeping us busy as always. Lots of band competitions, recitals and concerts. Molly bought her own ski pass again this winter and is sad to see spring peeking around the corner. I on the other hand I can not wait for grass and flowers! It has been a long winter.

The women's CRW was the last weekend of Feb. It was the most amazing weekend! God was present and active the whole time! I can not wait for the mens weekend coming up.

Home school is going wel lthis year...Molly is in algebra and so far I can keep up. Now sure about next year though. :-) ITBS testing will be this Friday and next Friday. I am always nervous for this but the kids are pretty relaxed. They always do well so I'm not sure why I am concerned. Guess I'm just worried I might fail as a teacher.

Well...I'd better get back to that "teaching" stuff. Maybe I'll post before a year is up next time. :-)

AWOL

Wow...I am a lousy blogger. I have to admit that since I started Facebook I no longer think about blogging. Facebook is short and simple. No long thought out posts there. I guess I am just lazy!

Nothing new or unusual at the Beacom's house since Christmas. Jerry's job is slow and so now he is delivering Papa Johns Pizza a few evenings and some weekends. We are confident that his clientele will build eventually but it's making it hard to pay bills till that time comes. I'm rather tired of hearing about the stinkin economy actually. On the good side....it is good that he made the change of jobs last summer as HSBC (his former employer) just announced they will be closing EVERY branch office in the US. I'm glad he made the change then and didn't wait.

The kids are busy with band and puppets. Molly has been skiing a lot this winter, thanks to her ski pass, and even tried her hand at snowboarding last Sunday. She was stiff and sore but was on the black diamonds by the end of the day and claims to have liked it. Abby took ski lessons in Jan and now joins Molly in loving the sport. She hopes to save enough $$ so she too can get a ski pass next year.

All three kids have been working on the puppet team this year. Jared is a jr member as you need to be 10 to join. He gets prop jobs on the puppet shows. We just went to Chicago last weekend to a puppet festival. All 5 of us went and it was fun to watch other teams perform and learn some new stuff at workshops.

Jerry and I are gearing up for the mens and womens CRW's comming up in a few weeks. We are the 2nd assistants for the director positions this year. That means in 2 years we will be in charge as directors for the weekends. SCARY!! At least we have 2 years to learn our jobs. PTL! I am busy trying to get cheesecakes made and frozen for the weekend. I need to make 10-11 cheesecakes to serve over 100 people for the Saturday evening meal. I am making regular, mocha, choc truffle, turtle, lemon chiffon, choc.chip cookie dough and raspberry swirl. :-)

Time to get back to the laundry and school work! Maybe I'll do better at posting.

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy new Year

We have survived yet another holiday season. This year was busy but fun. Between puppet shows, band concerts parties and travel the month of December seems like a blur. The kids performed in 4 puppet shows the first week of Dec. Two band concerts and another puppet show the second week. We were blessed to have the Steed family(visiting from China) stay with us part of the third week and then off to Omaha on the week of Christmas. There seemed to be lots of snow and lots of bad weather in December too.
For New Years, Molly babysat for the neighbors so we took Abby and Jared out for pizza and then bowling. We went with our friends the Buchheit's and had lots of fun.
School starts tomorrow and I am not ready! I feel like I need a vacation from vacation. :-) It's going to be slow going this week as I have surgery on Wed. The kids are going to be my hands and feet for a little while. Should be interesting.

No more cancer

A beautiful lady from church passed away yesterday. Lynne has battled cancer for many years now. The road was so rough for her, Dave and the family. It seemed like it was years of remissions and then relapses. Lynne was always smiling and never complaining or talking about herself. She was always asking how the kids were or what we were up to. I am reminded of her water walking at Flora pool in the summers. I would walk with her for a time and then I would get tired out but she would walk for hours! She was battling cancer but had more endurance than my so called healthy body. It showed me how much I take for granted my health. How hard she worked at keeping her physical body going and how much I neglect mine.
What about our spiritual bodies? Do we neglect them till some evil infiltrates and demands we take better care of ourselves? Am I willing to fight long and hard...maybe years...to maintain a healthy spiritual life or am one to give up easy and just let it deteriorate. I sometimes just pray that Jesus would comeback and end all the struggles here in earth but I also wonder if that is a cowardly prayer. Just wanting the easy way out.
We will miss you Lynne, but we will see ya later...and for eternity. :-)

Beautiful Banquet

Last night was the Clarity Clinic/Pregnancy Center's annual banquet. Jerry has recently joined the board and this was our first year to go. It was wonderful. They had over 300 people this year and it was awesome to see so many people who were devoted to saving the lives of unborn babies. The speaker was Luana Stoltenberg and her story was amazing. I'm anxious to hear how the fund raising went. Planned Parenthood just opened in Dubuque and we need to be able to offer the truth to scared and confused women and girls.

Not so new pictures

I just finally figured out how to get these pictures onto my computer. They were taken in Aug. HA! I'm a little slow!

Are you on the offense or defense?

It's been very interesting this week in studying 2Tim chapter 2. We were focusing on verses 1-4. Paul tells Timothy to "suffer hardship" with him as a good soldier of Christ. First this struck me as so against our society's thinking of "no one should ever have to suffer". We avoid hard time or suffering at all cost. If trials come, we do all we can to avoid them or flee from them. Scripture does not tell us to flee or hide, it tells us to act as a soldier of Christ. What kind of soldier would I be if I was only concerned with my safety and well being all the time. Now I am not talking about going out and looking for trouble or looking for a chance to be a "martyr". But then, when did the term martyr become a bad thing?? In times past it was a honorable thing to be a martyr for the cause of Christ. I think the problem has been that the focus of the martyrdom has been transferred from Christ to us. Sometimes people want to be know for what THEY have suffered. The attention is not on Christ but on what they have done. We are so me, me, me in mentality sometimes.

As a soldier I am to expect trials and suffering and I am to still be on the offense for Christ. Attacking the enemy and not hiding in a bunker somewhere hoping to avoid hardships. I wonder about people who want to be missionaries but who also are concerned with going to places that are "safe". Paul went straight into the places he knew would be dangerous and would likely be imprisoned...even killed. I must admit, this is all very hard for me. I am a creature of comfort and like to share my faith when the "occasion so arises" out of convenience.

The world is changing and next months election could bring huge changes for our country. Severe persecution of Christians was something I only thought of in relation to other countries. My world view and home country view are starting to intertwine. I may not always feel safe in my environment but I know I am safe in the hand of my redeemer. :-)