Leaves, leaves and more leaves...

Saturday was a work day for the Martens' family. It started out for me at 9:30 when I went to the church to work on making pies for a fundraiser. We had kids coming over at 11 to start the leaves. Jeff stayed home and welcomed the kids to our house. We had kids from the church come over and help us with our yard. It was a day of work, fun and fellowship. There was a lot of leaves bagged a lot of new experience and just a great day to be outside n God's creation. I think fall is the most wonderfulo time of year.

Tyler woke up from his nap and wanted to go outside and check everything out with the leaves. So we had a family photo op. Andy was back in town for a bachelor party so he stopped by for a little fun. He helped Tyler put his mittens on to go outside and work. Andy has been used to a little warmer weather living in Texas now. But it is always good to see him when he gets a chance to come home. He met Haleigh for the first time. Good times.

Posing for pictures. Ora and Lydia had some people in on the picture, Jeff and Seah, thought they exuded to be in it. The girls worked just as hard, if not harder, than the boys. Way to go girls!!

This day was a first for a couple people who had never crossed the river. It is amazing to me that in Topeka, Kansas there are kids who have never seen the river! It is awesome to be a part of building experiences for these kids that will last a lifetime. And sometimes raking leaves for a day and building friendships is what ministry is all about. It still amazes me how fun it is for them to come and rake our leaves.

It was a joint effort by all and we even made it a game. I discovered that I am a serious trash talking leaf bagger/raker chick! I love the competition and any time I'm involved in something like that I have to turn it into a competition. And no matter what...my team is always the best. Because I said so! We made it fun. We even did our neighbors whole front yard.
He was more than thankful and almost speechless the next day when he came to see if it was us that had raked his leaves. It is always good to do a little service and make someone smile like that. He had no idea what to say. He wanted to pay us or give us something or do something for us. But I told him we had lots of help and it was just a nice neighborly thing to do and I hope it helped relieve him of a few hours of work.

Sometimes it is good to be on the receiving end of things. I know it is way harder to receive than it is to give.

This was our team of rakers and baggers and all our bags of leaves. We had over 36 bags of leaves filled to the max. I"m sure our trash man will love us.