Operation: Asa Joy

I have done close to nothing on the house the past two days. Do I feel guilty? Not one bit. I have spent the past two weeks working so hard to clear out the house. I am almost done the first purge of the whole house. The kitchen is left and a little work in the master bedroom. I think that I really just burnt myself out. I was so tired that I was falling asleep at 8:30 at night only to woken up by children an hour later. I got just enough sleep that it took me a while to fall back to sleep again. Not that I minded my children coming in and telling me that they love me, including my almost 16 year old son. It is worth it losing a little sleep to have my three biggest boys come in and tell me that they love me, every night. I want them to always be able to come to me and talk. Right now I am listening to the sounds of the bigs and my husband prep the upstairs for painting. Progress is being made. Hallelujah!!! I am excited. I even went to pick up the first of the paint at Lowe's tod...

To be honest, I am frustrated. For anyone who has ever watched Mom's Night Out, I am stress paralyzed. Yes, that scene in the movie. Yes, that is where I am. I am surrounded by stuff. Stuff I do not want anymore. Stuff I cannot seem to get rid of. Stuff that is taking over everything and stealing my … JOY. Oh, it makes me sad. I say all of this to remind myself that this is actually a good thing. It is a good thing to de clutter and to purge our possessions. It is a good thing to live with less. It is a good thing to donate things to people who are in need. It is a good thing to get our focus off of ourselves and onto others. It is just…HARD in the midst of the purging. I am one of those many people who get nervous and anxious when my house gets out of order. I do not like it. I try to fix it. Right now though I am trying to go through each room and purge A LOT. There is only so much that can fit in a travel trailer. Going from 10 years of stuff accumulated by 10 people in a 2200 ...

We have spent the last month calling this idea just "the idea". We knew we had to come up with a name for this journey we are embarking on. We told the kids to start thinking of some ideas. I was sitting in church last Sunday listening to our elder once again say things that reaffirmed our decision. The name Asa Joy just popped into my head. The name is special for several reasons. First - Asa is the name of the child we recently lost. We were not able to determine the sex of the baby but in my heart I believe it is a boy. Joy was the middle name of the girl name we had chosen for the new baby. Second- Our whole family has always struggled with the issue of joy. It is something we have been working on for a while. While I was sitting in the service I was thinking about Asa and how it stands for Always Seeking After Joy. That is a reminder for me to always focus on where our joy comes from and that is from Jesus. Third- Our family has struggled a lot and some of the relatio...

I sit here and I wonder how to start this post. How do you explain to people a crazy idea that is completely, absolutely turning your life upside down and inside out? How do tell people this crazy idea that the Lord has placed on the heart of our family?  M y name is Kimberly Trautman and my wonderful husband is Carl. He is in the Army Reserves and I am so proud of him. We have 9 children. Eight are here with us on this earth and we have one precious blessing waiting in heaven for us. We homeschool our children and go to a family integrated church. We live your typical American life with a house, two cars, and lots and lots of stuff. That is all about to change for our family.     I guess a little back story is necessary. When Carl and I got married we always knew that we wanted to eventually end up is some kind of Christian ministry. We talked about it but always said we should wait until we were ready. We wanted to be a little bit more mature in our faith. We wanted ...