Life With the Riggs'

"Times They Are A Changing"

2009-06-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog Followers!

So as some of you know Randy & I have just recently made a move from Mooseheart, IL to St. Louis, MO. So with the move we feel it's only fitting to start a new blog page. This will keep you all up on our work in Urban Ministry here in St. Louis, MO with World Impact. I may keep this blog going for personal updates with the baby and such but if you would like to follow our ministry work please do so at www.riggsstlouis.wordpress.com

Again we can't thank you enough for your support, love, prayer and interest in our past year of ministry and hope that as you view our new blog you will have a better understanding of what God is doing in our life. We praise the Lord for each and everyone of you and look forward to continuing this relationships with you all from a distance. Oh and we LOVE visitors if any of you want to make a trip to St. Louis! *wink*wink*

-Hannah-

Our Time Is Near

2009-05-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here in the living room with our girls realizing we only have tomorrow left with them. This is a very bittersweet time for Randy & I. Although we are certain of being in the presence of God's Will for our lives with our move to St. Louis, we are also sad to be leaving these girls that the Lord has brought us to minister to for the past year.

Relationships have developed, love has been fostered, learning has taken place and the Lord has been ever present. We thank you all for keeping up on us this past year and lifting us up in prayer. There have been some difficult moments and moments of pure joy and laughter. We wouldn't trade this past year for anything. We have grown to love these girls with the Lords love and look forward to developing new relationships with them outside of being their Family Teachers.

We have been blessed to participate in some fun experiences in the past couple weeks such as graduation and Memorial Day. Here are some pictures of our time.

-2009 Mooseheart Graduation-

Our 2009 Graduate, Addy

-Memorial Day Weekend with Oregon Girls-

May Happenings

2009-05-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how May has proved itself to be even more busy then March. We have prom, track coming to an end, graduation coming up in less then two weeks and only 8 weeks till baby girl Riggs due date! The weather has been beautiful, trees are producing leafs, weeds are being pulled, flowers are in bloom, people are outside enjoying the longer days and windows are being left open to enjoy the Spring air. Well, I just thought I would post a few pictures of our Jr. & Sr. girls from this years prom. They all looked beautiful and had a wonderful time.

Junior-Senior Prom '09

Need a Hobby?

2009-04-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

So I would say about 5 months ago I found myself in desperate need of a hobby. One that didn't cost a fortune, didn't take up a lot of space and that I could enjoy any time of the year. I chose crocheting. I know that makes me sound like I'm a boring 70 year old woman but I wanted to give it a try. I was fortunate enough to have had Sarah Nelson, a friend back home, stop in to visit us the same day I decided to pick up this new hobby and she was able to show me a simple crochet stitch.

I took this project out to the girls to show them what I decided to take up and much to my surprise about 3-4 of our girls said, "I know how to crochet, I want to join!" So for the past 3 months it's become a house activity. I love it because not only does it bring us all together but it's something we can do while holding great conversation. It was a great distraction from turning on the TV. Although many have gotten bored with my new found hobby I'm still truckin' away and get so excited for each new project. Here are a few pictures of what I've been able to accomplish.

Baby Blanket #1 for my cousins little girl, Ava Cook.

Lap Blanket for my Granny

Cuddle Blanket for my niece, Mary Jane

Baby Blanket #3 for my niece, Ella Nevins

Scarf for Randy

The BIG 2-7!

2009-04-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

26 years ago... man life was good!

Yes, it's true. I turned 27 last week. I can't believe I've officially crossed over to being in my late 20's. Randy, my co-worker and the girls surprised me with a cinnamon roll breakfast and Birthday balloon which was awfully sweet. That night I made myself and the girls Funfetti Brownies... they are now my absolute favorite brownies EVER!

I was reminded by the girls that I had an "odd Birthday". I guess they think if I don't get the day off of work and go "party" my Birthday is offically lame. Can't say I didn't think the same thing when I was their age.

So for the past couple weeks Randy has been leaving me little notes to celebrate my Birthday. Such as, "Your Birthday is in 13 days and your Birthday suprise is in 15 days. I bet you wish you knew what it was, right? Just make sure you pack an over night bag". So needless to say my mind has been wondering for the past couple weeks, "What could Randy be planning?"

Well Randy had planned for a two day get away to Starved Rock State Park Lodge.

So we arrived around lunch time and enjoyed a nice lunch in the resturant at the lodge. Took a nice hour walk around the state park grounds and then Randy had scheduled a prenatal message for me that afternoon. I had the most amazing hour and a half prenatal massage that was heaven sent! I only wish Randy could have experienced it with me. After a nice relaxing massage we went for a dip in the pool and ended the night with a nice dinner.

The next day we ventured out for a 2 hour hike which ended up kicking my butt the next day. I never understood what pregnant woman were saying when they talked about being short of breath and exhausted after a walk at the mall. Well, NOW i get it. I was pooped by the end of the day, but it was so worth it to be in the beautiful 70 degree weather enjoying the outdoors with my husband.

Here are some pictures from my Birthday get away. Thank you again babe for taking time to think of me and create a wonderful 27th Birthday for me. I love you!

March Madness

2009-03-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

Oregon Home Girls, Military Ball 2009

Well, March has proved itself to be a busy time here at Moosehart. The Senior activities on campus have started up, our girls just had Military Ball last weekend, girls track starts today which Randy is coaching, Spring Break picks up next week, Prom is a month away and graduation will be here before we know it in May. We are so happy the Lord appears to be blessing us with Spring weather. This time last year Randy & I were being chased out of Mooseheart by a snow storm, so needless to say we are so happy Spring is here. Bellow are some pictures of our girls from Military Ball last weekend. This Ball counts towards their grade in JROTC. We were honored to see one of our freshman crowned Barroness for her effort displayed this year in the JROTC program.

-This is one of our freshman and her younger brother who also lives on campus-

-These two are two of our higher achieving girls in the home, sophmore & junior-

-This is one of our freshman and her date-

-This is our one senior and her Military date-

As some of you know we have been taking our girls off campus for Church once a month to Trinity Church in Naperville. Randy & I have been blessed to become friends with Trinity's Youth Pastor and his wife, Matt & Cara. They are also expecting, due a couple months after us with their third child. This Church has taken great interest in not only our Oregon Home girls but of all youth here at Mooseheart. Matt & his wife Cara are the one's who put together a New Year's Eve party here on campus with our kids and their youth group kids.

They have just recently announced to us that along with the help of another carring memeber in their church, Sally Trinity's youth group girls have raised money to take our girls rock climbing at an indoor facility this weekend. We are so excited as well as our girls. We praise the Lord for this outside interest, care, love and support for our ministry here at Mooseheart. If you would pray with Randy & I that this activity allows for an oppurtnity for our girls to connect with these youth group girls.

We also have a spiritual update on our girls to share with you all and ask prayer for. After visiting Trinity Church this past Sunday and witnessing a baptism a couple of our girls voiced interest in being baptised. As you can imagine this excited Randy & I as we see a clear opening to see where these girls are exactly, in a spiritual sense. Pray that these two girls will continue to open up to us and learn more about the Lords love and grace through us and Trinity Church.

Blessings from the Riggs + baby

22 Weeks

2009-02-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

We Continue To Grow

So I'm 22 weeks now (19 weeks in this photo) and I wonder where all the time has gone. Last week, Thursday I was scheduled for my 21 week ultrasound. We couldn't have been more excited, this is the ultrasound that allows us to see what gender our baby bean is! Well, here we are at 22 weeks and we still don't know what we're having. After a wonderful 20 minute ultrasound the babies legs weren't spread apart enough to give our Doctor the confidence to say whether we were having a boy or girl.

Due to the lack of seeing boy parts she's going with a guess that it's a girl at this point. As she said," If I were to guess I would say with only 70% accuracy it's a girl. So if you buy girl clothes don't take the tags off!" So at this rate I can't say we're too settled saying it's a girl. Thankfully we have another ultrasound scheduled in about 9 weeks. We pray little baby bean will be more cooperative then.

Even though we didn't find out with certainty what we're having it was so very fun to watch our little one moving around. We could see baby trying to suck it's fingers, we watched it opening and closing it's mouth, saw how it's little face has developed since our 10 week ultrasound. I must say it brought me to tears to see how much our little one is growing.

I felt the baby move for the first time at 17 weeks. It felt like little bubbles popping inside my belly. It was very settle but I loved it. Now I feel it every day and Randy can actually feel the baby move! That was great, I love that Randy can now be more a part of this experience.

Baby 70%

Colorado Trip

2009-02-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

So Randy & I were lucky enough to get some time off work last week to go out and visit some of my family. My brother, Peter and his family live in Pueblo, CO and his wife was due to have their 4th baby last week. So Randy & I made the 16 hour drive and got to spend 5 days or so out there with them. We enjoyed being able to play with our niece and nephews, visit with Peter & Kristin, enjoy some hiking and spend time with our dog, Winston.

Uncle Randy, Solomon, Zeke & Mary Jane

Peter & Kristin

Randy & Winston

Randy & I just had a nice time visiting with each other and taking time looking forward to the excitement this next year has in store for us. We are excited to be in town in the next couple weeks which will probably be our last visit to Indy till June. Randy & I hope to save extra time to take off when the baby is born. Remember July 3rd... that means you all should have some Holiday time to get out of town and visit us and our new addition over the 4th of July -come see us!

So exactly a week after our arrival to Colorado to visit our family my sister in-law gave birth to baby #4, Eliana Joy Nevins on February 5th. Ella is just as beautiful as all her other siblings. I can't wait to see her this spring. So join me in welcoming Ella to this world.

Christmas & New Years

2009-01-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

So let me catch you all up on our Christmas here at Mooseheart with the girls and New Years. We were blessed to have a donation of Bible's, The Message translation, given to us by my parents. We looked up scripture to designate to the girls and wrapped the Bible's up for the girls as Christmas gifts. Although some girls use them as door stops others read them daily which is very exciting!

It was confirmed to us just how much the Moose Lodges give to Mooseheart. These youth truly don't need for anything, nor should they really want for much. The Moose Lodges truly pour out their pockets to provide for these youth all that they are shorted from by natural families. These kids are blessed to have what Mooseheart offers!

Randy & I, when able, have been taking our girls to church off campus to Trinity Church in Naperville, IL. Through the friendship we've struck up with their youth Pastor, Matt, Trinity approached Mooseheart about hosting a New Years Eve party for the campus. This kids had a fun night of games, food, more games & more food. It was so great to have our kids meet and create friendships with youth group kids. That is one thing we desire for our girls is for them to make stable connections outside of Mooseheart so when they graduate they have another place to turn to for help, direction and guidance.

We hope you all have a blessed New Year!

"Labor of Love"

2008-12-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

This is my Christmas wish to each and everyone of you. That this song and scene would replay over and over again in our hearts this Christmas season.

Merry Christmas!

Before Christmas Get's Here...

2008-12-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

So I realized we are way too close to Christmas and I haven't even let you all know how our Thanksgiving was. As some of you may know Randy & I have every Thursday & Friday off, those are our two days a week in which we don't work. Well as you all know Thanksgiving fell on a Thursday a couple weeks ago. We requested to work Thanksgiving so that we could spend the day with our girls. We were so blessed to have this time with them.

We had a writer from the International Moose Lodge request to spend the day at our home. He wanted to write an article in next months Moose magazine as to what Thanksgiving meant to us and what traditions we had. I would encourage you all to read about it on Moosehearts web site, http://www.mooseheart.org/news/2008-Oregon.asp.

One of our girls building a tower of cheese before it melts away in our home made Mac 'n Cheese.

The girls suggested we create a chain of links. We wrote on each link things that we are thankful for. A few things listed were.... Make up, Family, Hot Water, Friends, Mooseheart, Food, TV, Beds, Thanksgiving Meal and on.

Sara & Randy getting ready to cut Tom the Turkey.

Another one of our girls cuddling up for an afternoon nap after a full tummy of Thanksgiving food. Oh let me mentioned she crocheted this blanket all herself, it's so pretty!

This past Tuesday, December 8th Randy & I had our first ultrasound. It was such a beautiful miracle to see, it was hard to hold back the tears. Here is baby Riggs debut.

10 weeks and 4 days

Baby Riggs due date has been changed to July 3rd. After they measured the baby out it was measuring smaller then 11 weeks. So it looks like we'll be having a July 4th ish baby! Good news is you all should have time off work around then to come up and see us and our new little one. *smile* We expect and hope for visitors.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Baby Riggs

2008-11-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

October 23, 2008: 10:08pm

Randy & I had just come home from Target after I carefully selected "the right" pregnancy test. I carefully read all the instructions and rushed myself to the bathroom. The next 3 minutes Randy & I were leaning over the bathroom sink waiting for that life changing moment. Would it read, "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant? Before we knew it our 3 minutes were up and the test read, "PREGNANT"! I couldn't believe it, we are actually pregnant! I quickly responded as I did when Randy proposed. I backed up into the hallway away from the test and started flailing my arms and squealing... quickly followed by tears as Randy continued to stare at the test over the sink. We quickly hugged and praised the Lord for blessing us with such a beautiful gift.

November 13, 2008: Thursday

We finally get to go home and tell our friends and family! We kept quiet for 3 weeks until we could tell our parents in person. In the 3 weeks of silence we made a quick trip to the Carter's Outlet store where we purchased our first baby item(s). Two sets of bibs that read, "I love Grandpa" and "If mom says no ask Grandma". We put these in gift bags that we presented to our parents as we shared with them our exciting news. Our families were so very supportive and excited for us as were our siblings. Our friends were rather shocked but also responded with great excitement and support. This weekend I caught a cold and started to experience a little bit of nausea for the first time in 8 weeks of pregnancy. Thankfully the Lord has been good to me as the nausea has stopped and the cold is passing with little unpleasantness.

November 16, 2008: Sunday

Tonight we tell our girls. We shared our news with our co-worker and shortly after called a "family meeting." We all sat together in our sitting room as Randy breaks the news to our girls that, "we are getting another kid in our house." The girls eyes widen in concern as our house is at full capacity right now. Randy follows up with, "yes, Hannah & I are expecting." Still at this moment the girls are thinking, "You guys are expecting.... WHO? Who is moving in?" Randy responds, "Girls, Hannah is pregnant!" Quickly the girls respond with, "Are you guys joking, you've joked before... you better not be joking!!!" Once we assured the girls this was not a joke they were all very excited. We assured them this didn't mean that we were leaving but that they would get to share in this process with us.

Tuesday 18, 2008: TODAY

Well, we have found an OB/GYN and will be scheduling our first doctors appointment today. Again, we suspect that I'm in my 8th week and possibly due June 27th - 29th. We will be sure

keep you all posted on our progress and post photos of baby Riggs as we get them. We appreciate you sharing in this exciting time with us and ask that you would pray for continual health and safety over myself and the baby. Would you also pray that the Lord would prepair our girls for this time of adjustment and for us to be as aware as possible of any of their anxieties, that we may calm them in any way we can.

stay posted.....

Autumn Is Here!

2008-10-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

So I absolutely love Autumn! It's safe to say Autumn is my favorite season. I love how it's kicked off with all the back to school items in August, yes I realize August isn't fall, it just simbolizes to me that Autumn is around the corner. Then slowly we start having some cooler weather. The sweatshirt and shorts weather, the jeans and t-shirt weather and you bring a jacket or sweater with cause you know by the time the sun goes down it'll be chilly.

Slowly the leaves start changing color and out of no where you start craving Apple Cider. You start looking in the paper and around the serounding towns to see what Fall Festivals are happening. I love that we have a fire place and can wind down our evenings with Randy working diligantly to make us a nice, soothing and relaxing fire. I love the sound of leaves crunching under our shoes as we take the girls for a walk every afternoon around campus.

Here are some pictures of Mooseheart in the Fall.

I also love that this Autumn brings the end of this election year. Inspite of the excitement that this election year has brought I must say I'm ready for this to be over. I love that I've been able to follow this election year of firsts; Hillary Clinton as the first female to have a legitimate chance to win the Presidency, Obama as the first black person to hold a major parties nomination for President and Sarah Palin as the first female running as the Republican parties Vice President.

Here are a few pictures from the first McCain/Palin rally the Republican National Convention held in Cedarburge, WI.

We woke up at 5am on our day off and drove 2 in a half hours to this little town of Cedarburg, WI with a population of 11,298. The town was not expecting more then around 3,000 to come out and support the McCain/Palin rally that day. This charming town had over 6,000 more then they expected that people were miles down the street just hoping to catch a glimps of McCain and Palin. It was such a site and I'm so glad Randy drug me out of bed for it.

So Autumn may not be your favorite season but what things do you look forward to in the Fall?

Blessings from God

2008-10-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

We continue to find ourselves blessed here at Mooseheart. We are working with these 10 girls and among the daily frustrations of balancing school, home work, athletics, outings, house hold chores and relationship building among all 10 girls we can't help but count our blessings.

Randy & I have the blessing of spending our days together.
Daily we see these girls changing their family tree for the better because of their success here at Mooseheart.
We have down time in which we can fellowship with other Family Teachers/believers here on campus.
God conintues to develop us in new and exciting ways.
We don't drive often so we are protected from dealing directly with the crisis in our economy at this time in the way of gas.
The Lord provides for us a balanced meal 3 times a day and then some.
One day Mooseheart will provide a way for me to work and be a stay at home mom.
The Lord has been good to us and allowed us time off to be with family and friends for important events in life.
We continue to see God bringing believers to Mooseheart and I are so excited to see what the Lord does with all of us here.
We have been so blessed to have many visitors from home, that we miss dearly, come up to campus and visit us.

What things are you thankful for? In what ways is God blessing you in your life that all too often get over looked?

Randy has new blog!

2008-10-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Just a note to let everyone know that I am starting a new blog at rariggs.wordpress.com. Hannah and I will continue to use this blog to keep everyone updated on our life at Mooseheart and general news in our lives. My new blog will be focused on the discussion of fighting the injustices of the world. I'm just getting it started but feel free to check it out!
Randy

My First Half Marathon

2008-09-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Many of you know that I've been training for the Chicago Half Marathon. Over the last few months I have run a few 5k races in the Chicago area and have been doing as much running, biking, and strength training as possible to train for it. I was doing really well at first but then the last few weeks of training I kind of slacked off a little bit so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. The half marathon (13.1 miles) was this past Sunday in downtown Chicago. It also happened to be the rainiest weekend on record in Chicago with 10 inches of rainfall. It rained the entire race so it was somewhat miserable, but I finished and beat my goal time. I had hoped to run it in 2 hours and 10 minutes and my actual time was 2 hrs. 4 mins. and 31 secs. so I was really happy with that. Unfortunately because the weather was so bad Hannah wasn't able to get pictures so I am going to be ordering some that were taken by a company at different points along the race. I will put those up when we get them. I hope to run the Indy Mini-marathon in May and my long term goal is to train for the Chicago Marathon (26.2 miles) next October!
Randy

The End of Summer

2008-09-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

Another update anyone?

> August 11th - 15th: The Oregon Home goes to Green Bay!

Our co-worker Sara is from Green Bay so she invited the girls to visit where she's from and her father kindly hosted us at his home. Our first stop on the trip was to the Jelly Belly Factory.

Packers pre-season game at Lambeau Field!

The following days we went to Heritage Hills. Heritage Hills is a plantation of old homes, a village of old homes really. The girls got to tour and see how they lived in the pioneer days. Then we went to the Green Bay Moose lodge for dinner that evening. The girls went around greeting and thanking the Moose memebers for all they do to keep Mooseheart running.

The next day, Wednesday, we went to Bay Beach where they had a little amusement park. I, Hannah, got sick from all the spinning rides and had to sit out the rest of the morning. Then that evening we went to a local water ski show. We ended the trip with a visit to the beach.

All in all we had a wonderful time. We ended each evening by watching the Olympics. We just had a very nice restful time relaxing and bonding with the girls and were greatful for safe travels. Oh! While Randy & I were in Green Bay we recieved the news that we are now approved drivers. So we helped our co-worker by driving home from the trip.

> August 29th - September 1st: Labor Day weekend at Lincoln, IL

We just got back from a long weekend away with the girls camping. The Illinois Moose lodges hosted a camping trip for our campus down in Lincoln. We had beautiful warm days and nice cool evenings. They had all kinds of games Saturday morning...

Water Balloon Toss

Sack Races

Balloon Walk Egg Toss

That evening we enjoyed a little karaoke and a lot of dancing.

The rest of the weekend we hung out and visited with the other homes from campus, had a camp fire and roasted some marshmallows, went to Church in Lincoln, went swimming at a lake in Clinton and just had a great time. So summer is officially over now and school has started. Now we have girls volleyball and football games to look forward to. Autumn here we come!

Some have requested photos of our quarters and house on the inside. So stay posted and we'll try to get that taken care of. Well I know this was quiet a general update. Randy tends to be better at giving detail so maybe he can post the next post. We thank you all for your continued prayers and support and look forward to catching up with all of you in the near future.

-Hannah

Update by Randy!

2008-08-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

I guess I've been slacking on my postings on here. There is quite a bit to catch up on so this one could be a little longer than usual.
One of the things that has been consuming our time lately is running. Hannah and I are both training for races on September 14th in Chicago. I will be running the half marathon and Hannah is going to be running the 5k. We have been training with Mark and Rebekah, some friends of ours here at Mooseheart. As part of that training we have been running in some local 5k's. The area where we live is pretty active and running is huge in this area. It seems like there is a 5k in the area just about every week. It's definitely been nice to be able to be more active. It's been a lot of fun so far, but 13.1 miles is still pretty intimidating. If anyone wants to come up on that weekend to cheer us on let us know!

Mark and I proudly wearing
our t-shirts from our first 5k,
the Windmill Whirl in Batavia.

Our group grew for the Viking Sunset

5k in Geneva. A couple of girls on campus

went with us and ran the one mile fun run.

A couple of weekends ago we were able to take the Oregon Home girls to Wisconsin Dells for a weekend of camping and waterpark fun! Special thanks to the Wisconsin Moose Association who paid for Mooseheart Day at Noah's Ark, the world's largest waterpark. We had a great time and it was just another example of the extreme generosity of the Loyal Order of Moose.

We were able to go camping, visit local shops, spend a day at the waterpark, and go to a drive-in movie. I really wanted to go bungee jumping while we were there but it didn't work out, maybe next time!

Trying on some pretty cool hats at one of the shops in Wisconsin Dells.

Hanging out at Noah's Ark waterpark.

Posing before the movie starts at the drive-in.

This coming Monday we are leaving for a home trip to the Green Bay area. While in Green Bay we will be visiting several Moose lodges. The Moose members always appreciate being able to visit with the students that are supported by thier financial generosity and commitment. We will also be going to a Packers game, (Hannah wants to wear our Colts jerseys but I'm not so sure that would be a good idea), going to the beach, and touring the Jelly Belly factory as well as visiting a few other local attractions. It should be a great chance for the girls to be able to have some fun before going back to school.

Speaking of school, Mooseheart school begins on August 2oth which means that our girls who have been visiting thier guardians for the summer will be coming back soon. Some of these girls left shortly after Hannah and I started here so we haven't had a chance to get to know them real well. We are also going to be getting a new girl into the home who we haven't met at all. This will put us to full capacity with 10 girls in our home for the school year. Please keep us in your prayers as these new relationships are formed.

In one of the last posts Hannah mentioned our desire to be able to give the girls a Bible translation that they would be able to easily understand. A few weeks ago one of the girls noticed me reading my Bible and started talking to me about it. She told me that she had a
Bible but didn't really read it because she had a hard time understanding it. She brought her Bible to me for me to see and even though it was a fairly modern translation it is very difficult for our girls who have no church background at all to make sense of what they read. Our students are also on average a year behind where they should be academically so that just adds to the problem. We just found out this week that Hannah's mom has ordered The Message paraphrase bible for each of our girls and want to thank her for that!

Once all of our girls are back we hope to be able to implement a bible study of some sort once a week. We have discussed purchasing some Nooma videos to use as part of this. If anyone has ideas of video or other materials that you think would be useful for this we would love to hear your thoughts. We are also excited about receiving our clearance to be able to drive the girls soon. We have to wait for the Department of Child and Family Services to approve us but once we have that we will be able to take our girls to church off campus every once in a while. We are praying that we will receive clearance soon!

Wow, this was even longer than I thought it would be! I will try not to take such a long break between posts next time!

-Randy-

July 4th, 2008

2008-07-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm going to make another post however this might be my last cause no one appears as interested in my posts as they do Randy's (look at the ammount of comments, I mean the lack of comments).

So a couple weeks ago Randy & I were able to make a trip up to Michigan to visit with our friends back home for the 4th. We had a great time visiting and relaxing on lake Michigan. The first day we enjoyed kicking back and hanging at the beach, floating on the lake, kayaking & flying kites... yes flying kites! OH AND SAILING!!!

That afernoon we took a dune buggy ride and finished the evening with a camp fire on the beach and repeated the day after.

We ended the trip with a nice walk around town and a dinner together. We couldn't have come up with a better way to celebrate the freedom of our country then with a fun weekend away with friends. We love you all and can't wait to see you all again.

July 7th, 2008

2008-07-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

So what's new with the Riggs? About three weeks ago Randy & I were able to make a trip home to Indy for a suprise Anniversary party that the Riggs children have been planning for the past 6 months or so. Yes, Dale & Vicki Riggs celebrated 40 years of marriage this past month.

It was so wonderful to celebrate a marriage that has held together through keeping their lives centered on the Lord. We praise the Lord with Mom & Dad Riggs for their hard work and commitment to the Lord and their marriage. God is Good!

While we were in town we also had the pleasure of visiting with our friends from Indy, Knightstown & church. We joined our First Church group in Indy to watch an Indians game. We had such a great time catching up with everyone. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such great friends. We see God at work in each of their lives and it's so exciting to share in that with them.

We were also able to visit with Randy's old co-workers at his Hinsey-Brown boss's surprise 40th Birthday party. It was so wonderful to share with them how our ministry at Mooseheart is going. Randy checkes the obits often to see how they are doing. Although he has changed profession his heart is still with them and we pray for God's blessing on Hinsey-Brown. Happy 40th Kevin!

I admit it was difficult for me to re-adjust to life back at Mooseheart after such a great visit home. The Lord has been great to us and provided us with wonderful friends right off the bat. I just find myself home sick for our Church and Church family. I just have to keep reminding myself that this home sickness for our Church is the very reason we are here. To share with these girls what that would/could feel like. To find a love that's so great they don't know how to live without it. The love of the Lord that never fails and grace that is new every day.

Please continue to be in prayer with us that we may see every opportunity to show Gods love to these girls. That we would find a church off campus that would fill a void in their lives that they can't help but desire the Lord to be a part of their lives. Also pray that we would be able to implement more activities into the home that would image the Lord, i.e. Christian video's, bible study, prayer time.

On that note; I know some of you have been asking if there is anything the girls here are in need of that you could buy and donate. In all honesty these girls have their every need provided for. However, if you would want to help in regards to our minstry here we would like to have a bible for each girl here at the house for their use, The Message translation that is. The girls have access to Bible's but have a very difficult time understanding even the more modern translations, as they have no background to base their reading on. One of the girls just recently made this complaint to us and we would like to make something available to them that would encourage them to read. We have a total of nine girls in the home. Also we would love to start a collection of Nooma video's by Rob Bell to watch with the girls and any teen girl related devotionals or books (even fiction would be great).

-Hannah-

Update by Hannah

2008-06-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

So I feel there is a lot to catch all of you up on. so I'll go date by date.

May 24th
Mooseheart Graduation. Oregon home had one graduate this year. Her fun personality has been missed by all and we are excited to see where her future takes her.

That afternoon our home entertained Oregon Moose members for lunch. The girls did a great job expressing their appreciation to the Moose members and all that they provide us to keep our house up and running. The Moose members presented the house with and their state flag.

This is the whole gang except for our graduate and one other girl who went home for the weekend, this particular weekend.

May 27th

We had a new addition to our house this day. Some of you may remember that we asked for prayer as our house adjusted to a new youth in the home. She put forth a good effort and we look forward to her return this fall as she is visiting with her grandmother this summer.

June 13th

RANDY'S 27th BIRTHDAY! We enjoyed a Friday night celebration with few friends at Mooseheart at the Roundhouse in Aurora, http://www.walterpaytonsroundhouse.com/ . We had a great evening having dinner, watching a stand up act and then enjoyed some live music in their outdoor garden/patio.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY!

June 14th
Batavia Moose lodge put on a fishing clinic for all the youth at Mooseheart at our lake. So we took all the girls to go fishing for the day and believe it or not ALL girls fished and caught a fish; multiple times! All the girls got to keep the fishing poles so you can trust we will make many more trips across campus to the lake so Randy can get in his man activity as he's dominated by much girly time.

Whose Role Is It?

2008-06-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

Great posts from the last discussion. Continue with those thoughts!
I think the question of "Does Faith affect our politics?" has been answered pretty clearly and our goal will be to define exactly what that looks like for followers of Christ.
Several different topics have been mentioned and we will get to all of them eventually. Right now I would like to focus on one in particular.
Much has been mentioned about the role of government, specifically when it comes to caring for the poor and oppressed. As followers of Christ we are called to care for and love those who are seen to be "in the margins" of society. It was mentioned in one post that "we are all children of God no matter what our status, race, gender, nationality, etc." We are to follow the example of Christ in loving and caring for all people. However, when it comes to "government programs" and subsidies to help those less fortunate in society, we find that many evangelical christians would line up against these programs. Is this contrary to the bible? Another post mentioned that although we are called to care for the less fortunate the bible does not say that it needs to be provided by government. I think this point will define our discussion. We know that the early church had a practice of caring for each others needs. They sold posessions and goods and pooled their resources to give to whoever might have a need. (Acts 2:44,45) For the next two thousand years the church continued to care for those who had needs, and not until the last century did the government get involved. Is the "church" still capable of caring for those with needs or has this problem become too big? Did the government step in because needs weren't being met?
Does our biblical calling push us to support a candidate who will create larger and more effective programs to care for the poor and oppressed in our country? Or does it call us to reject government involvement and stand up as followers of Christ to support those with needs both in our country and around the world? What say you?
-Randy-

Wanted: Honest Opinions

2008-06-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've heard my whole life that the two things that you don't dare discuss are politics and religion. Well, I've never really been one to steer clear of controversy so why start now?
Last night I had the thought for this post while I was lying in bed. I honestly could not go to sleep because my mind wouldn't stop racing. Here's what I want to do. I want to have an honest and open conversation about the two forbidden topics. I would like to have discussion on some of the following questions:
Should our faith or lack of faith have an impact on our politics? Should followers of Christ be concerned with political powers? - As a follower of Christ what are your hot-button issues? What would make you vote for one presidential candidate over the other? As a person who is not a follower of Christ, what are your hot button issues? I'm sure there will be many other questions that arise as we begin this discussion.
I would like to start with having anyone who reads this post to comment with either a specific issue or a list of top issues that you feel are important when deciding who to vote for in the presidential election. I will use these comments to drive the topics of future posts. We have five months before the election, I'm sure we can cover quite a bit during that time. haha.
Note: if you are reading this on facebook notes you can join the discussion by going to www.lifewiththeriggs.blogspot.com
Let's do this!
-Randy-

Random Thoughts

2008-05-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-05-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-12T19:14:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-05-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

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-

April 29, 2008

2008-04-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

So we are 4 days away from the BIG MOVE! Although we are so very sad to leave our families, friends and church behind. We are so very excited to see what the Lord has in store for us at Mooseheart. If this is new news to you let me share with you about our new adventure...

I would say this journey really began 19 months ago, or so. When Randy & I started dating the Lord directed us to First Church of the Nazarene in Indianapolis. I believe the Lord started His work on us the day we stepped foot in those church doors, February of 2006. Since then the Lord has been pouring His love on us by bringing a community of believers to our side in friendship at First Church.

The Lord started molding our hearts to be more ministry related in our free time. We got involved in the mentorship program with our youth, chaplain program with our church's soccer program, playing a support roll in our Saturday Night Worship Service and helping in any other areas in between. After about 6 months of marriage we both felt the Lord wanted to push us farther then Indianapolis ministry. We started a vast search online and separately both came across a ministry opportunity at Mooseheart Child City & School Inc. in Moosehear, IL.

We entered an extensive interview process there with the hopes to be hired on as "Family Teachers" were we would then live with 10 children and teach them every day life skills and behaviors. We were offered the job at the end of March and have seen the Lord continue to confirm that we are doing what He wants of us day after day after day. We have started this blog to keep all family, friends and our church up to date on our journey as well as communicate areas in which we could use support in prayer.

Some of you may be asking some questions so I'm going to do my best to answer the most frequently asked questions of us.

1) No we can't take our dog Winston with us. Very very very sad! We have found a home for him in Colorado with my brother, sister-in-law, nephews and niece which we are very happy about.

2) No we haven't sold our house, we are fortunate enough to hold onto it until we finish a few home improvements to put it in position to sell when the time comes.

3) Randy & I do get vacation days, personal days, sick days and 2 consecutive days off a week (more then likely not weekend days)

4) Yes we are encouraged to share our faith with these students. This is a lot of why we felt Mooseheart was the right fit for us.

5) Where exactly is Mooseheart, IL? Mooseheart is about 35miles west of downtown Chicago, just North of Aurora just about the center of Batavia.

This is the house we'll be living in, "Oregon House". There are 30 resident home's named after different states within the United States.

340 S. Fellowship Lane Mooseheart, IL 60539
www.mooseheart.org

May 18th, 2007

2008-04-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Our wedding was May 18th, 2007 at 7:30 in the evening in Indianapolis. After the ceremony Randy surpised me with a Limo that would escort us to The Garrision at For Benjamine Harrison for our reception. There we danced the night away in celebration with our friends & families.

The next morning we flew out of Indianapolis for our honeymoon in Jamica, Negril at the Riu Resort. There we shared a memorable 7 days and 7 nights; we had the time of our lives.

December 4th, 2007

2008-04-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

It was a Saturday night, and I had come down with the horrible sinus cold. Randy had wanted for us to go downtown to see the monument circle all lit up for Christmas. Well, Mother Nature wouldn’t allow it. We had horrible winds Friday which blew the lights down and out. They wouldn’t be able to repair it till Tuesday of the following week. So we went about our business on Saturday. Randy’s funeral homes have a Christmas Memorial Candle Light Service every Christmas. So after he went into work Saturday morning (really he was meeting with my dad asking for my hand in marriage) we got ready to go attend these services. After that we went to New Castles Christmas Home Tour. Toured these beautiful homes all decorated for Christmas and then finished the evening with dinner and a stop at the store for more cold medicine for sick-o Hannah. We made it back to his house and I went to the restroom so could put Vaseline on my nose that had become so raw from blowing it all week long. I came out of the restroom and Randy comes walking to me still dressed in his suit, so handsome! I held my hands up and told him, “I’m just warning you, I just put Vaseline on my nose and I look pretty nasty!” He pulls me in to hug me and tells me, “You could never look nasty, you’re always beautiful. (Pause) You know all those homes we saw tonight were beautiful and I know my house doesn’t look like those, but I like my house. It’s just missing one thing…” I said, “YEAH, it’s missing me!” He chuckled and said, “Yes, it is missing you. Maybe I should do something about that.” Then Randy whispered in my ear, “Hannah will you marry me?” I replied with, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you… you know I’ll marry you.” At this point not realizing he’s serious. Until he pulls out of the hug and starts reaching into his pocket, I backed up and started flailing my arms screaming in my very horse voice, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” He shows me the ring and I started crying… at this point I have mascara streaming down my face along with snot and Vaseline from my nose.” Pretty picture, right? Hahaha… and that’s our story. We got married May 18th @ Castle View Baptist and I am so excited to be Mrs. Hannah Riggs!

Colts vs. Bengals; 2005

2008-04-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

We met November 20th of 2005. It was the Colts vs. Bengals game and one of my girlfriends was dating one of Randy's friends. So I met up with this group who got together every Colts game & there was Randy. He kindly introduced himself to me and he struggled to keep my attention as I was distracted visiting with my girlfriend. A couple weeks went by and we met up again for another Colts game. There was Randy... he shouted out to me, "Hey Hannah". I leaned over to my girlfriend and asked her what his name was b/c I couldn't remember but was impressed with the fact that he remembered mine. He asked for my number that night and as I left I was sure we wouldn't have anything in common and our phone conversation wouldn’t exceed a couple minutes. Well, I was wrong. We were on the phone a couple hours the following night and everything he said made me smile. The thing that truly captured me was these words, “I’m not looking for a relationship”. We had just both gotten out of long term relationships so all I was looking for was a friend & thankfully so was he. Well the Lord had something else in mind. From that night on I couldn’t get him out of my mind. So we talked & texted on the phone that whole week and met up with each other again to watch a movie with some friends. He was just as good looking as I had remembered and now I knew what he was about which made him all the more attractive. I couldn’t fight it… as badly as I thought I didn’t want to start another relationship I knew in my heart this was worth it b/c I had just met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. The rest is history… we never had a “define this relationship talk”, or a “where is this going” it just happened naturally as the Lord intended it to be for Randy & I. Now everyday I thank the Lord for bringing us together as he did.