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"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

One of the most fascinating aspects regarding working with children is watching God grow and cultivate their individual gifts, talents, and personality traits throughout their lives.  Often, teachers will notice certain qualities and wonder how God is going to develop and use that characteristic in the future.  For example, we've watched students fascinated with science and space grow up, attend MIT, and work for NASA.  We've watched children who were fabulous at fixing broken items around the school grow up and become engineers or accomplished mechanics.  We've had students, who were wonderful tutors, attend the Concordia colleges and now are high school math teachers.  We've had kids that were fascinated with dissection become surgeons; while one student who was famous for doodling is now employed as an animator for Sony and Play Station...

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."   John 15:12

It was approximately sixteen years ago when my husband was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Although he has been very blessed with a slow progression form of MS, the doctor gave two immediate pieces of advice at his initial diagnosis. The first suggestion was to take up swimming, as swimming utilizes the most muscles during one workout. In addition, due to his unpredictable instability, the second piece of advice the doctor shared was "stay off tall ladders". Two jobs that Ken quickly became ineligible to accomplish were painting the outside of our house and hanging Christmas lights.
 
Having two brothers that are professional painters helped to resolve the first problem...

"Whatever you do for the least of these, you do unto Me." Matthew 25:40

Funniest comment from last week in the lunchroom... "Mrs. Palka, Guess what? I'm coming to the "Aggressive Dinner!"
 
The good news is that the only aggressiveness that will be present during this Friday night's Progressive Dinner is our passion to help children in need of clean water!
 
Listed below are a few details that will assist with the enjoyment of the evening:...

"But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Romans 8:25

Have you ever had to patiently wait for something? Perhaps it's a child getting ready for school in the morning, or a furniture delivery that was scheduled between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Sometimes, it may be waiting to hear about a job, or trying to call your Internet provider and being placed on hold. For many of us living in the Walled Lake area, it could be waiting for construction to end and the intersection of Novi Road and Twelve Mile finally opening!
 
For the past nine months, the Palka's have been patiently waiting for the arrival of our new grandson, otherwise known as "Baby Brother" by his two-year-old big sister.
 
This time, my role has changed from the anxious cheerleader in the hospital waiting room to now taking care of Emilia while mommy and daddy go to the hospital to get this baby brother everyone keeps talking about...