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The Tree

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“It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will some day give shade to people he may never meet.”

– D. Elton Trueblood

It takes a noble man …

There is more to this article at the link.  And it resonates with me as a teacher.  However, I looked up trees in the connection of someone having a vision of a tree that he was looking for, found, and then passed away into heaven.  This happened to our Papa last Sunday October 6, 2024.

Papa’s obituary

Roger’s story:

“Lisa and I and my mom were visiting him on Friday, a couple days before he had passed.  And he told us he was looking for a tree, then he could go home.   Lisa and Mom and I were confused by this and didn’t know what this meant.  And he told just us, the immediate members of the family present in the room.  He told each of us individually about this tree.  Sunday, the day he passed on, not long before he died, he said to my mom, who was the only one there that day, “I found the tree, and I am going home.”  And it was only five minutes later that he passed on.  That is why I wanted to plant a tree in his name, because this will be Papa’s tree here on earth.”

Roger is getting a tree in his name.  And thememorial tree site will plant it where it is most needed.

And papa’s tree will give shade to those who seek it.

Roger and Dorene Humphries

 

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2023 Christmas Newsletter

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WE HOPE YOU ALL HAD A GOOD CHRISTMAS 2023!  HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!

Picture Page 2023

My “Mary, Did you Know” video and my singing

(https://www.thetruthstandsforever.com/god-is-the-rock-of-the-believer.html) 

Reminisce with my 2000-2005 newsletters mostly all restored now!!!

A fun thing this year, still in process here and there — I had to tweak my old web page coding some, and did get a lot of these showing up again!  Old Christmas Newsletters early 2000s!  You should be able to see a lot of 2000 – 2005 at this point.  There still may be some dead links but I plan to look at them the next few weeks…

THIS is my “snail mail” newsletter – copied below.  Written by approx. 12/20/2023.

Christmas Newsletter 2023

As we still are on the earth, doing our duties and being with our loved ones, we still see illnesses, and just like last year we see COVID going up again, and also flu and other illnesses.  All our prayers to all!!!  Last year our family had COVID in various times:  Roger’s parents had right at Christmas ‘22 and then Roger, Chris and I had mid January ’23.  March of 23 Norovirus got just my mom, me and Roger!  We managed to stay healthy then for a while!

Continue reading “2023 Christmas Newsletter” →

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A strange quarantine —

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By the time many read this the whole world will know about coronavirus of 2020 and what an odd, terrifying, lifechanger it has been.  I won’t describe it, but wanted to share a word I had of encouragement a week or so, while I was helping Roger to shop for Instacart to help people get food delivered to their homes.  We have also been working for our sons in their group home, where my hours have gone (for that job) from 11-14 a week to 40-60 a week.  Laid off from the school jobs.

I was feeling very panicky one day in the store, as I was watching how people really didn’t seem to be taking the “social distancing” seriously, of staying over 6 feet part.  I try and move with the flow, always staying 6 feet away.  {I also do with my kids on their walks on the park pathways, which is a more complicated feat!)

I was also worried about my daughter working in crowds.  So while we were shopping this one day last week, and I was feeling very anxious, worried over my husband and I in the store and worried over our loved ones, and a kind of voice/feeling came in my hand and said

What would JESUS do.

Take care of the needy.  Supply their needs.  Help the ones who need it.

That was amazing, and then a few minutes later Roger’s customer wrote and thanked us and said we were doing the work of God.  Nooo but that was so sweet!  I got all teary eyed at the grocery store. 

There are so many people all over doing so many things, whether out on the front lines, or at home.  Thank you all!

 

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Incidentally, this is a duplicate blog.  I am cleaning up these pages to repost a clean copy sometime soon into my main blog.  Meanwhile, these posts will show up now and then.

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A blessed 2020 to you all!

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A Snapshot of 2019 – Photos

Background, and 2019 Summary

My last Christmas newsletter I typed in January/February of 2017, and finally posted on February 4, 2017, not knowing it would be the last Christmas newsletter I’ll do for 3 years. I have missed it and hope that I can begin sharing them again every year. Things were rather dark and scary for a while, with a lot of issues, and we just held on for the ride, trying to just trust in the Lord and in each other.

Continue reading “A blessed 2020 to you all!” →

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Winds of Change

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And it’s hurricane winds.

But hoping it will all end up good.  Some of the prayer requests lately were about this as we didn’t know where it was all going!  Being in the dark, or going around a curve not knowing where you are going, is so scary.  But it seems God is working things out!

After 6 years at his waiver house Chris is moving to a new house!  This was years in the making and finally happened suddenly when we heard of an availability too good to pass up.  (Everything had been too expensive!!)  We needed to cut his rent in half and have just about done so.  It is a cute place and I hope he adjusts well.  Prayers appreciated!  He also should be able to eventually have a roommate.  We never successfully were able to get one where he was because the rent was just too high.  “But the legend of the rent, was way past due.”  Or about to be. (School of rock reference, haha)

Chris is doing very well right now, as he was when he moved 6 years ago, so hopefully with all our support and love and good staff he will do very well.  He is still thriving at the workshop he started in September of 17.

On top of this change (4 days earlier!!) Ryan is moving to a new school.  This came as a shock but is all part of planning for his transition years to vocational.  This will have more music and art opportunities for Ryan as well.  They even brought a guitar to class for him to play.  They had an opening and thought it was a good time to transition since Ryan will be 17 soon.  They have opportunities to work on job skills even making some money ahead of his post-high school years.  We weren’t expecting to do this so soon but felt the opportunity was great for him.  So he had orientation today and will be starting Thursday.

Please pray for him in this transition as well, and that our move for Chris is smooth as there is SO much to do and so much furniture and items to juggle!  May our boys be blessed in this new season….

And in the middle of that our daughter’s store closed and she got transferred to a new one.  THIS just happened a week ago.  We are praying for her as well, so far it is going fine.

After working with Chris every weekend for SIX YEARS I did not proceed to get a position with his new provider in this house.  it will be very strange but Roger and I are missing each other over the weekend, and this way we can all visit Chris together without me being gone 48 hours a weekend.  As soon as we adjust to Chris’s move and Ryan’s new school I’m going to be on the hunt for a new job in my educational bachelor’s degree field. Not a regular teacher, as I don’t yet have license, but I have seen a lot of cool opportunities on the job boards!!  I also signed up for a few freelance jobs that look good that also use the bachelor’s degree — one for tutoring and one as a web reviewer of some sort.  I haven’t started either one, plan to look at that in November as well as start doing more data entry with roger.

As always, busy busy!  God’s blessings and happy autumn!



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Eight and a half years —

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Around October of 2009 I was still planning to go and get my AAERT certificate for transcription, and start my own transcription company. There was a time around then that I found out with all the years I’d already been transcribing, that I probably wouldn’t have much of a pay raise by making this change. I was also already happy with the transcription company I was working for, and I didn’t really want to change. Additionally, we were concerned with Chris’s placement then, and had a dream of eventually owning a group home and having it be for our boys eventually plus other clients.

This led to my signing up at community college to work my way back up to getting into a speech pathology program. I started in January of 2010 and by Fall of 2011 was at Kent State starting the pre-speech pathology program. Then this happened: https://criscollrj.com/2011/09/09/minor-changes-or-major-changes/

Continue reading “Eight and a half years —” →