project chickens

Isn't this sweet? Goose is all about quality time and is most likely to seek out Daddy to just hang out. This was an afternoon of watching some sort of televised sport. I couldn't resist these precious photos. Anyway, about the chickens.....

Goose has been wanting to raise chickens for about a year now. We've always just said, "maybe someday" but for some reason we have felt like this is something we should let her do this spring. She does love animals and this is the least we can let her do out here in the country. She has been very excited anticipating chicks this spring.

Last week we finished reading the book George Mueller for school. We finished it way ahead of schedule as we had a hard time putting it down. For any of you who don't know about George Muller, he lived about 200 years ago and is well known for his trust in God's provision. God led him to open an orphanage for 30 kids in Bristol, England which grew to housing 1,000 kids at a time. He never asked ANYONE but God to provide the money or means to meet the needs of the orphanage. He simply prayed and presented his needs to the Lord and God miraculously provided for them. A famous story is having 300 orphans sit before their empty breakfast plates while he thanked God for the food that He was about to provide them. They had NO FOOD in the orphanage at the time and after the prayer, someone knocked on the door who had a truckload of bread to donate to the orphanage. Minutes later, a milk wagon broke down in front of the orphanage and the driver asked if they could use the milk so he could empty the wagon to make repairs. The book is full of amazing stories like that and by the time of his death, he had cared for more than 10,000 orphans through his 5 orphan homes. Everyone should read this book.

So having finished this story, we talked about what God could do if we only ask Him and believe. Goose excitedly states, "Jesus just talked to my heart and I want to raise chickens so I can send their eggs to the hungry people in Ethiopia!" Of course I melted right there and explained it would be tricky to mail eggs to Ethiopia and that it would probably work better to sell the eggs and send the money. She was so excited that she counted out the money in her bank and placed it in an envelope labeled "chicken money" so she would be able to buy lots of chickens and we would get lots of eggs! All week she told anyone who would listen about how Jesus wanted her to sell eggs for the poor and we had to check out 6 books at the library about raising chickens. No backing out now. :) Today she and I drove about 90 minutes round trip to pick up a big ol' rabbit cage we are going to transform into a chicken coop. This is going to be a most interesting springtime. I'll eventually take pictures.