Calming

These adults from a local teaching facility are visiting us each week on Thursday. It is so neat to see them come and each put their thumbprint on the ranch. Each person that comes just adds something especially unique. One gentleman explained to us that even thought he doesn't ride horses very much he is a real cowboy. He was so thankful to us for letting us ride His horse. Another woman in a wheelchair thought the horse was a little high for her to ride, but she loved to sit next to it in her chair and pet its lower side. After she came out of the arena, she kept smiling and tightly squeezing others hands and pulling them close to her. It was like chocolate for the soul!
Apart from this group there are several kids that come either daily, biweekly, or weekly. One girl that plans to come every day until her school starts came today. I asked her what she thinks she'll remember of the ranch once she goes back to school. She said, "Calming...it just feels to nice to be with the horse. I'm going to miss it a lot when I go back to school." She is such a sweet girl to have here but seems to lack confidence and deep self esteem, please pray these horses and the love she has for them can be a reminder of how deep love can be. And that this love might guide her to the ultimate love that our Redeemer Jesus Christ has for us.

Encouraging hearts and willing hands

You know... it is easy to sometimes second guess that a certain conversation could have been improved or acted differently. The prayers of those around us gives us those moments of peace when your unsure if you did the right thing. Thankfully, God blessed us with a couple of volunteers last weekend. These two sisters (Amy Folkerts from Washington and Ellie Wettstein from Roanoke) were such an encouragement to our His Ranch staff and helped us complete a lot of our extra tasks around the ranch. Our project with the trailor has moved along nicely. It is now fully spray primed with all of its parts primed as well. Our next task is to spray the lower part black and the upper part "ford grey" to match Shannon's truck. We are all excited to see the finished product. Jennifer and Amber Rassi finished up their visit this past Sunday as well. Words can only get so far, however, we want them to know we are so grateful for their help and willingness to spend two weeks of their summer here to help with all of the slow and sometimes monotonous jobs. They sometimes didn't get the most exciting jobs but had the best attitudes. We are so thankful for their help and we need to say, we would never be this far along without their help.
I extend a big thank you to all those who have volunteered your time or money as well as our faithful prayer warriors. God bless you all!