Random Thoughts

I just realized it's been several days before I posted anything on here and I didn't want the millions of viewers to continue to be disappointed every morning when they wake up and and run to their computers to check for the new update on Life with the Riggs' only to find another day has passed and still no update. (How's that for a run-on sentence?!)

We haven't had a real eventful week. Hannah and I worked Monday -Wednesday and have had the last two days off. Several of the girls have gone to visit their guardians for a couple of weeks so we are actually down to three girls in the house right now, which makes things seem really quiet!
We bought bikes Wednesday night and tested them out yesterday. There is a biking/running trail that runs along the Fox River across the highway from where we live and there are also a few other riding areas so we are excited to check those out.

I was reading yesterday and ran across this information:
"Sales of bottled water are estimated to be between $50 and $100 Billion (US) annually and increasing approximately 7 to 10 percent annually. In 2004, sales were approximately 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons). It's a strange irony that folks in countries with cheap, readily accessible drinking water spend enough money on bottled water to provide water for the rest of the world." Jesus for President p. 244

This makes me really uncomfortable. I encourage you to think and pray about this with Hannah and I. Maybe you would like to make a donation to help bring clean drinking water to the 1.2 billion people in the world who are dying of thirst. World Vision (worldvision.org)is the organization that we prefer to use.

Graduation Weekend!

The past few days have been pretty eventful for Hannah and I, starting with our last day of training on Friday. It definitely is a nice feeling to be done with training and to be able to start doing our job. Saturday was graduation day and we had one senior from our home. Graduation was Saturday morning but the festivities lasted all day. Along with graduation, Mooseheart also hosts the Pilgrim Ceremony on the same day. This is the ceremony where Moose members are recognized for reaching the highest level of honor within the Moose. Moose members come from all over the country including the state of Oregon, which is the delegation that specifically sponsors our home. After the morning ceremonies, we had 16 of our Oregon friends come to the home for lunch. It is a great way for them to be able to see what they are investing their time and money into, but it can also be a little stressful. However, while they were here they also informed us that they are trying to plan a trip where they would pay for our whole house to fly to Oregon for a week next summer. They are extremely generous! They also brought us an Oregon state flag that flew above the state house. It is now flying from the front of Oregon home!
Today was a bit more relaxed. Hannah and I continued our "church search" by visiting Trinity Nazarene church in Naperville. Of all the churches we have visited so far, we were definitely most impressed by this church. We attended their second service which is a contemporary service. Unlike some of the others we have visited, they were able to pull off a contemporary feel and it was still worshipful. There is a lot to be said for that. I felt like I was at church instead of a concert, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
After church, Hannah's good friend Dale who lives in Chicago came to visit us. She and Hannah have been close for a long time and Dale manages a Starbucks in Chicago, which is pretty cool.
Later I did as little as possible at home while they went shopping!
Well, tomorrow is our first day that we will be working with the girls all day long so it should prove interesting. We also have just found out that we are going to be getting a new girl in the home. This girl is currently living in one of the other residence homes just across the street from us and things have not worked out for her there. Moving her into our home is her last chance. If things don't work out here then she will most likely be demitted. From what we have been told she has a grandmother who is her guardian and lives here in the states, but if she gets demitted her grandmother will be sending her to Liberia with some of her other family members. If you know anything about Liberia you know how dangerous this could be for her. Her grandmother has begged Mooseheart to keep her here. Please pray for us and this situation. She will more than likely be moving in on Tuesday.

Defending the Cause

"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing." Deuteronomy 10: 17-18

Hannah and I had our first consultation meeting today with our consultant, our direct supervisor. During that meeting we were, for the first time, able to hear some of the details of the lives of the girls who we are responsible for. Some of those stories include a girl whose father is in prison and who's mother was a drug dealer before dying in a fire, another whose mother is fighting leukemia and whose sister has a brain tumor, a physically abusive, alcoholic father is the story of another, and on and on. We of course were aware that many of our girls would come from these types of environments, but hearing these stories today was a reminder of why Hannah and I are here.

The scripture from Deuteronomy that is shown above is one that I ran across a couple of weeks ago as I was paging through my reading journal. It obviously had stuck out to me at some point since I wrote it down but when I read it this time it seemed to have gained some significance. I believe that as followers of Christ we are to not only live our lives so that someday we may go to heaven, but we are also to live our lives in a way that would help bring heaven to earth. We are to play an active role in making God's will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. There are certainly many of ways of doing this, but for this time in our lives Hannah and I felt that we were specifically being called to serve in this capacity. We are excited about the opportunity and ask for your continued prayers in this journey.

What are other ways that we as Christ followers can act to bring God's kingdom to earth? What say you?


-Randy-

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I understand that this is Tuesday morning but I feel like this is my first chance to write about a busy weekend.
Following training on Friday, Hannah and I had to go get our Illinois drivers license. We've had several tests during training but I think the written test for our drivers' license stressed us out the most. We hadn't really thought about having to take one so it scared us a little. But, we both passed and are now officially residents of Illinois. (Which by the way, means Barack Obama is now our Senator.) We also opened our banking accounts here Friday afternoon, which is always important!
Hannah's cousin Owen was married on Saturday in nearby Wheaton, so Hannah's parents drove into the area Friday evening. They actually drove our Durango up to us which we are very thankful for. We met them for dinner at their hotel and visited for a while. While at the hotel, we were just getting on the elevator when an elderly African American gentleman walked on. He was all dressed up with a baseball cap on. When he stepped on, he held out a baseball card in a protective cover and asked me if I had ever seen the man on it. It was a baseball card of himself! His name is Joe B. Scott and he was the first African American to ever play in a game at Wrigley Field. I spoke for just a few moments on the ride up and when I got ready to step off of the elevator I started to hand him the card back, he just shook his head and told me to keep it. He had already signed it before he gave it to me. Pretty cool!
Saturday morning we met Hannah's parents for breakfast, did some outlet mall shopping, and then brought them to Mooseheart for a quick tour before heading to Owen and Hillary's wedding.
Sunday was our first anniversary! I can't believe it's been a year already! I've heard that the first year is sometimes rough and that makes a lot of sense that it would be. But, I've got to say, there has been nothing hard about spending the last year of my life with my beautiful wife, Hannah. She is an amazing wife and I feel like the luckiest man in the world! I thank God for her!
We revisited Orchard Valley Community Church again Sunday and I think ruled it out as an option for us. This church shopping thing is tougher than I realized.
Well, need to head to training!

-Randy-

May 18, 2008

Today Randy & I celebrate 1 full successful year of marriage! We look back in amazement for what the Lord has done in such a short time. We have had so many wonderful memories built from just this first year. I can only imagine what our albums of memories will look like on our 50th wedding anniversary. In the past year I have moved to Knightstown, been a nanny, worked at First Church, Randy has served as Knightstown Chamber president, continued management at Hinsey-Brown and we both continued to serve at our church as the opportunity allowed it.

Now we face this new chapter of serving the Lord at Mooseheart and continue to move forward in excitement for what the Lord can do through us here. We look forward to many years of serving together as one and living many happy/joyful years together. We give God all the praise and glory. We are also grateful for all our family and friends for their love and continual support.

Mr. & Mrs. Randy Riggs 5-18-07

-Hannah-

May 12, 2008

Okay, so I'm having trouble focusing tonight. Where to start? I guess I'll start with our Church search. Randy mentioned on our last post that we were excited to visit Community Christian Church in Naperville (YellowBox). We ended up visiting this past Saturday Night at their Saturday Night Service. We were definitely impressed with Pastor Tim Southerland to say the least. Next we went to visit The Orchard (http://www.orchardvalleyonline.com/) in Aurora Sunday morning where we also were impressed with many aspects of their service. So clearly the Lord is providing in regards to finding a church to get plugged into. Neither one could/will take the place of First Church but will do.

Training has been rather interesting. Although Randy & I are the only ones going through training this quarter here at Mooseheart that doesn't mean we're alone. We have been accompanied by a man & woman from Bulgaria who are seeking knowledge about Moosehearts program to take back home and implement at their orphanages in Bulgaria. Neither one speak English so they have accompanying them a translator. So Randy & I have had to learn to tune out another conversation going on at the same time during training in a whole different language.

There is a lot of information to obtain during training but all of it is very interesting and has been rather easy to grasp. I'm finding the biggest struggle is retraining myself to be truly aware of my words and what I'm saying as many ears are listening in and hanging on my every "teaching" word. We are truly being taught how to "teach to behaviors" good and bad. Praise the youth for all the positive they do and find ways to praise them in moments of correction while also giving them understanding as to why their actions may not be beneficial in life.

Randy & I were offered a cabin at Moosehearts campgrounds (Camp Ross) just about an hour and a half north west of Mooseheart this past weekend. It was very nice to get away and clear our minds of all the change we've been through in the past month or so. I can imagine Randy & I will spend as many of our days off at Camp Ross as possible, especially with summer around the corner.

Whirlwind!

So far Hannah has been the only one to post anything on here but from now on we will both be adding from time to time. As I'm sure all of you know, Hannah and I moved to Mooseheart, Illinois yesterday, just west of Chicago. The last two days have definitely been somewhat of a whirlwind. On Saturday night we stayed with my brother Dave and his family in Avon before leaving early Sunday morning for the drive up here in the U-Haul. Once we arrived everything went pretty well. All of the girls helped us unpack so it went pretty quickly and by last evening we were settled in but exhausted! We began our three weeks of training this morning and so far that also is going well. We are beginning to get to know the girls, although we have been told to expect it to take several months before most of them feel comfortable around us since many of them have had abusive histories with adults in their lives. Tonight Hannah and I went out to dinner in Naperville and we also checked out a church that our Pastor Troy had suggested to us. It is called Communtiy Christian Church (communitychristian.org) and there are several campuses across the Chicago area. The one we visited was Naperville Yellowbox. They have a cafe that is open during the week so we went there to study some of our training materials. We are planning to check out services there this weekend! Ok, I better get to bed so I can be rested for another long day of training tomorrow!
-Randy-