Welcome Home...

Well it's been another hum dinger of a week around this place...imagine that!!! Life never seems to be boring around here. Each day presents new adventures and so many ways to learn about God that if I miss a couple, the next opportunity is just around the corner. I am certainly being schooled in HUGE ways right now no doubt.

As many of you have now read on someone else's blog, Luvin (my prodigal son that I blogged about previously) showed up at our gate on Thursday night about 6 pm. Cindy came running back to the porch and saying Luvin's calling you, (which is the phrase they use when someone's calling on the phone and when someone's calling your name), so I was trying to figure out whose phone he was calling on and how he got the number. I stood there looking confused and Cindy said mama come on. So she led me out to the gate where the kids all said, Luvin is out there, and he was timidly off to the side hiding. So I had the guard open the gate for me and I walked out to meet him. I hugged the stuffin's out of him first and then I had all kinds of questions. What are you doing here?? How did you get here??? Long story short, he had escaped from Casitas Kennedy under the wall at 5 am in the morning...spent all day long on buses going first to Jimmy Hughes cause he knew how to get there and he knew that Jimmy knew us. He asked Jimmy for enough money to get here, and Jimmy also gave him some shoes, as he was barefoot. Then he asked for the name of the town we live in and Jimmy told him Santa Ana and so in little boy writing on a Wrigley's gum wrapper he wrote Santana and showed it to every bus driver he could find and asked them to bring him home. When he showed up he had used his "extra" money that he didn't use on the bus to buy fruit for all the kids. He came bearing gifts from a very sorry little heart. So we talked for a few minutes and he said mama I'm sorry, I'll do whatever you want me to do, I will learn the good things, I just want to come home. A broken heart wanting back in the gate, who had traveled a LONG day to get here.

So needless to say Luvin is back home. We are still working on the paperwork with the judge again, but that'll be worked out soon. He is very different so far. Obviously with a past like his, the rough edges will not completely go away in a 2 week stay at Casitas, but his eyes and his heart are much softer. We sat down last night to start memory verses together every week and he loved that. I gave him a notebook with a cross on the front and when I gave it to him he kissed the cross. I just believe God's love and God's word change things, and it gives me all the hope I need for this little guy who fought to come home.

Please pray for us. We aren't here for easy and fortunately we have a crew here who are committed to fighting for the down and out. So we'll battle from our knees and ask that you join with us and battle from yours.

If I feel one iota of the joy about my boy being home that God does when His walk back to His gate, I've learned yet again more about the amazing love of God and all that means.

Blessings to you on your week dear ones!!