Julie Gumm - Author

Summer Catchup

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I really did not intend for my blog to take a summer hiatus but it kind of has. I had really good intentions of writing a lot last week but to be honest I was doing my best to keep my head above water.

Mark was gone for 8 days on another trip to Kenya with World Orphans. With the kids out of school that meant a little extra effort to juggle my work schedule and just when I thought I had everything figured out Satan threw me a whammy and 3 out of the 4 kids got sick – Natalie first, then Noah and Wendemagegn.

You think I jest about the whole Satan thing, but I’m completely serious. He knows when we are at our most vulnerable and I think he thinks he can get me to whine and complain about how hard it is to handle everything while Mark is gone and then maybe he won’t go. Well ha! I AM ON TO HIM!! Yes, it’s stressful and it always seems to get more so than I anticipate but it just serves as confirmation for me that Mark is doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

The kids handle his being gone fairly well. There were some tears from the girls and Beza was more emotional this week then she has been for the last month but I think a lot of that was because dad was gone.

I did add to the stress a bit by finding a GREAT deal on a condo in Anaheim for the week. Problem is check in was the day after Mark got back 🙂 Which meant that I had to get everything ready by myself including having some work done on the van. It was also crazy, nuts, off the hook at work trying to get a bunch of stuff done for a new series we start next weekend.

But we did it, we survived. Mark got home safe, got one good nights sleep in his beloved Sleep Number bed and then we left this morning for CA. First road trip for Beza and Wendemagegn and they had a hard time wrapping their minds around 6 hours in the car. But really the did pretty good other than Beza (and Natalie) asking “Are we almost there yet?” about a bazillion times.

After getting some pizza delivered I took the kids down to swim and Mark promptly fell asleep. It was after 10 before the kids were finally asleep and I ventured out to the grocery store to stock us up on food for the week.

What the kids DON’T KNOW is that we are going to Disneyland on Wednesday, courtesy of a man Mark met through World Orphans who has one-day passes for us. It’s huge blessing as we wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise. Noah is the only one of the kids who have been to DL and that was when he was 3. We’re going to tell them tomorrow and then sit back and watch them bounce off the walls for the next 72 hours.

Swim Progress

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Friday we spent the day swimming at our friend’s house. Dad told the 3 youngest kids “No floaties!”

I was curious to see how all of them would do. Natalie is right on the brink of being fully independent in the water. As long as she doesn’t try to cross at a really wide part of the pool, she does great at swimming underwater, gliding. Gotta work on her freestyle some more and being able to get a breath and continue.

Wendemagegn and Beza stayed in the part where they can stand up for the most part but they had a lot of fun swimming back and forth. It’s really fine tuning – like getting them to kick with mostly-straight legs, and “scoop” the water instead of slap it with their hands. They got more adventurous as the day went on and even went down to the deeper part, would jump in and then swim back to the side (w/ mom standing by for backup that was unneeded).

Here’s a couple really short clips we took to show dad when we got home:

Answering the prayer of a little girl’s heart

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I was just commenting to someone last week that it seemed as if we had not had as many grieving tears lately – especially from Beza (she’s the one that shows the most emotion about leaving Ethiopia and Grammy behind).

Well I’m not sure exactly what set it off (although I’m sure it was exacerbated by lack of sleep) but last night the tears were flowing. She even told me she wanted to go back to Ethiopia and not come back. (I knew she didn’t really mean it, so I didn’t take it personally.) We have told her before that we would love to take her and Wendemagegn back to Ethiopia some time but it is very expensive and so we’re not sure when we will be able to do that. Her concern is that Grammy will die before she gets to see her again.

So I was comforting her the best I could. I asked if she maybe wanted to write a letter or draw a picture for Grammy tomorrow and she said “No, it’s not the same. I want to SEE Grammy.” So we prayed that God would keep Grammy healthy until Beza and Wendemagegn could see her again, that we would be able to have the money to make a trip to Ethiopia sometime “soon” and that he would help Beza not to be sad.

I finally left the girls room only to hear her calling me a few minutes later to come back up. When I got up there she was trying to figure out how to stick a picture of Grammy on the wall next to the nightlight by her bed so she could see it. So we taped it up there. Then Natalie asked if she could sleep with Beza so she wouldn’t be sad (isn’t she sweet). So we compromised by throwing all the blankets and pillows on the floor and they slept together.

This morning as I was scarfing down breakfast I grabbed by Blackberry to scan my emails. There in my inbox was an email from the family friend in Ethiopia. Attached were 4 WONDERFUL professional pictures of Grammy and the kids half sister Mesret. I totally got chills at how God answers Beza’s prayer. I know it wasn’t exactly what Beza meant when she said “SEE” Grammy but what a wonderful reminder that God cares about what is in her heart. He sent us a visible reminder that Grammy is well.

She is a beautiful woman and to me embodies so many things including courage and selfless love.

Grammy