Adventures with the Millers

Mrs. Beaver:

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that on our way home from Ohio, we visited our friends the Millers. When we get the chance to stop by, we always enjoy the fellowship our two families enjoy on their beautiful farm.

I've learned so much about happy hospitality for a LARGE crowd from my friend, Mary. No matter how many children we add to our family, it doesn't seem to phase her. She's a great cook, capable of massive scale!

Fun is always on the menu at the Millers!

After getting the younger children to bed, we played Speed Scrabble. We were tickled when Mary hauled out Webster's 1828 Dictionary to check a spelling and then got distracted reading definitions.

In the morning, Chris and Mary's oldest daughter, Megan, walked over from her nearby home with her children for pancakes.

Chris and Mary are blessed to have six grandchildren already.

Jaynie and Natasha enjoying Megan's oldest two sons as they eat breakfast on the deck.

I wish I'd been more careful to capture a better photo than this of Megan. She's a beautiful young mother who's not only given birth to four children in five years, but she's given of herself as she's stayed home to care for her husband and children full time. She's doing a great job--her little ones are well-behaved, respectful, confident and charming.

One of the reasons we repeatedly leave the Miller's home encouraged is that they have a multigenerational vision for drawing their children and grandchildren into surrender to Christ as their Saviour. That vision is already being lived out by Chris and Mary's adult children, who live to serve the King of Kings whom they love. Now Chris and Mary's children are training the next generation to love God with all their hearts. What a beautiful picture of Psalm 78:1-8:

Listen, O my people, to my instruction;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
We will not conceal them from their children,
But tell to the generation to come
the praises of the Lord,
And His strength and His wondrous works
that He has done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers
That they should teach them to their children,
That the generation to come might know,
even the children yet to be born,
That they may arise and tell them to their children,
That they should put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.

Megan took most of the children in both families to see the 125 chicks living in her laundry room due to the unusually cool weather. While they were gone, Lissie was SO happy. She got to held Megan's 3-month-old son. Lissie is a baby lover through and through!

We thank God for our friends the Millers! We thank Him for their willingness to open their home and their hearts to our LARGE family. We thank Him for the way they live out the Bible's commandments to be hospitable. We thank the Lord for their kindness and their generosity.

We love you, Miller family!