Honoring Her through Him...

We have a new and AMAZING thing to share with you!

We knew that we wanted to supply the village with some cows and something for the school... but we had been waiting to hear back from our contact on the ground in Kenya to see what the exact needs in for the school there would be. Well, after much prayer for God to make it clear... it is clear.

We are going to build a classroom. And we are going to donate it in my mother's name.

Classrooms are the biggest need right now. A neighboring village, within walking distance, where the young children (grades K-8) from Chemergui that attend school is in desperate need of classrooms. There are more than 60 sponsored children attending school there in need of classrooms. These classrooms are long rectangular buildings made of iron sheet metal. They last much longer than the current mud hut situation they currently have.

This is what the iron sheet metal classrooms look like that will be built

I have been praying and praying that God would show me how to honor my mom this Christmas. I didn't have any clue what that would look like, but I wanted to do it none the less. And when I was chatting with my contact at Christian Relief Fund and she was talking about the needs there and she said the biggest most emergent need is classrooms, I intsantly thought of my mom.

My mom loved the Lord. She also loved teaching children (and educating mother's of young children). She has spent most of her adult life educating children either through pre-school, Parent's as Teachers, or teaching kindergarten. 

My mom also loved her grandchildren and loved to support them. Last Christmas my mom bought socks for all of her kindergarten students. They did a scavenger hunt to find their missing sock to make a match. They talked about Kenya  and the solar pump and animals... and how these socks were so much more than "just socks". My mom also raved about the socks she had bought for herself. That they were so soft and comfortable. When we went through her things after the funeral, as strange of a thing as it is, I took her socks.

It just feels right.

I talked to the kids and told them the need for classrooms and talked about donating it in Marmee's name. They all agreed it was a great idea! I called my dad to get his blessing and he said, "I think your mother would be very proud to be part of this." That's all I needed to hear.

The price tag of a classroom is $2,000... after the purchase of 2 cows, our total price tag is up to $3,000! That is a little more (ok... almost double)than we orginally planned on, but we strongly believe this is what the Lord wants us to do, so we believe He will provide.

So... how can you help? Glad you asked. :)

HERE ARE A COUPLE OF WAYS TO HELP:

1- PRAY! We are almost doubling the amount needing to be raised with less than 2 weeks until Christmas! We need this thing covered in prayer! We have 2 opportunities to sell to the public this coming weekend- Friday evening at the elementary school and Saturday at the middle school Holiday Bazaar. Please pray they are successful!

2-ORDER SOCKS! Online AND in-person sales are still going on all the way through Christmas Day! If you are local- call, text, message- I will get you your socks! I have a ton coming in this week I would LOVE for you to take off my hands! If you are far away (or have family and friends far away) order HERE before December 20th for a Christmas delievery!

3- SPONSOR A PAIR FOR $5 FOR A CHILD WITH CANCER.  For every 3 pairs sponsored that is $9 toward the classroom and 1 pair for a local homeless person. All the socks sponsored will go to a child fighting cancer, donated in my mom's name. Please let me know through Facebook or commenting on this blog if you want to sponsor a pair of socks!

4- DONATE! Socks aren't your thing but still want to see this awesome things happen? We've got you covered! You can send donations to be applied 100% toward the classroom project through PayPal to krietechristmas@gmail.com HERE or you can send donations to:

Cassie Kriete

27595 Avonlea Ct.

Mechanicsville, MD 20659

5-SPREAD THE WORD! If you have already bought socks or donated... please spread the word! Share our story and our mission! Wear your socks! Take pictures and tag me in them! We are relying on you to help us get the word out!

We have some BIG goals to accomplish in the next 12 days... but good news is, we have a BIG God!

Thank you for joining us on this journey!

Socks for the Season... Again!!!

We are once again SUPER excited to be partnering with We Help Two to raise funds for our Kriete Christmas in Kenya project!  This is crazy easy and something you can do no matter where you live!

Here is how it works...
You order a package of super cute cozy pairs of socks (you get three pair!!!). They have men, women, boys, and girls sizes. There are 4 NEW fun prints AND the 4 prints from last year!!! (some prints are limited... but more on that below) Every time someone orders a package of socks, we get 60% of the profit for the Kriete Christmas in Kenya Project AND they will send us a pair of warm socks to donate to a local homeless shelter! 60%!!! Free pair to donate!!! That's it! It's that easy and that AMAZING!

Our goal is to raise enough funds to purchase a cow and school supplies for the Chemurgui village in Kenya and to put warm socks on 200 people in need this winter. If you haven't read our story... go HERE to get the whole scoop.

We have the socks! All 8 designs!!! We love and wear them all. They are super cute and super cozy. And after distributing 550 pairs of the warm socks to those in need last year, I can tell you they are great quality socks!

Here are a few things you should know about sock availability...
There are only 4 styles available when you click on our campaign. The drip style socks (new boy design) is only available for in person sales. I have 20 pair, and for now, that is it. The striped boy option and the other 3 new designs are available when you click on our campaign. If you are wanting a striped option from last year not listed, simply send the We Help Two administrator a message and they can hook you up and get us the credit!

So there are a couple of ways you can order this year...

Option 1
Go online HERE and place your order and have it shipped directly to your house, no matter where you live! It is 2 day shipping. They will ship you your cute adorable socks and you can immediately enjoy or gift! If you choose this shipping option, and want them guarantee for Christmas, DECEMBER 20th is your deadline.

Option 2
When placing your online order, if you are local, you have the option to "ship to campaign host" for FREE! You pay for your socks online, but they will ship to me for FREE and I will get them to you. If you choose this option, you must place your order by DECEMBER 15th to have socks by Christmas!
*Edit* I will get one shipment on all "ship to campaign host" at the conclusion of December 15th. Orders will be distributed the week before Christmas.

Option 3
I have some cash and carry socks on hand! If you are local we will be setting up a place to sell socks at Polar Express night at Mechanicsville Elementary on the 15th and at the Holiday Bazaar at Margret Brent Middle School on the 16th.  If you need your socks for an event or Christmas exchange before a local shipment can arrive, I can help you out! I will ONLY have the 4 new designs... so if you are looking for the stripes from last year, place an online order... I can get them to you!

That's it! It is super easy! The campaign will stay open until Christmas, but if you you want socks by Christmas check your deadlines listed above (depending on your shipping method). 

So order socks!!! Order for your mom, dad, brother, sister, cousin, Aunt Sue, Uncle Bob, grandma, teachers, Secret Santa, sports team, to donate, or give them to a stranger! We just want you to order socks!!! And share our story...because we want all your friends and family to order socks too!!!

So to re-cap...
When you order socks you-
-Get a super cute 3 pack of cozy fun socks AND
-Help raise funds for the Kriete Christmas in Kenya Project AND
-Provide a local homeless person with a warm pair of socks for the winter!

Thanks for joining us on this journey! I can't wait to see how the Lord works through us this year!

God uses the tired...

I am tired.

In every sense of the word, I am plain exhausted. 

It has been quite the year at our house. We started the year off with finding out the my mom had cancer... and the very next week we found out we were very unexpectedly expecting a new little bundle. We spent the spring time with me traveling back and forth to Missouri to spend time with my mom and being super sick pregnant and all the exhaustion that comes along with it.

My mom died. She loved the Lord and even though I know she is in a better place than this broken world, it is hard. It is a gut wrenching, emotionally draining, physically exhausting kind of difficult to lose my mom. Thinking of doing the holiday season without her makes me emotionally exhausted. I really miss her.

And then October came and we had a baby. And that is an entirely different kind of tired. This baby is amazing and wonderful and I didn't even know how much I needed this little guy, but by golly... I'm tired. I've done it 4 times before, so I thought I could jump back into it... but it has been a while and I am a tad out of practice with the up every 2 hours. 

On top of that... there is just life. Life of having 4 other children that are involved in activities, have school projects, trying to build their character without crushing their spirit,  a husband that works and travels... it's just life, and everybody does it... but sometimes y'all, we just get tired.

But guess what? God uses the tired. He uses the exhausted, run down, don't know how to add something to your plate person in the most beautiful and unlikely ways. 

If you know me personally, or have ever read my blog, you know the Lord likes to use my children to get messages across to me. God uses these little people in my life to do HUGE, AMAZING, WORLD CHANGING things. 

If you don't know... here it is from the beginning...
Several years back, my husband and I decided that we needed to scale back on Christmas. We celebrate with Santa in this house, but we wanted to make Christmas about giving rather than receiving. So we decided that Santa would bring 3 gifts to our kids on Christmas morning, and our gift to our children was to give them $50 each that they have to spend on someone else. 

The first year we did it, it was really more fun for us to watch than them I think. :) We got the Samaritan's Purse catalog and they spent the longest time looking through deciding what to do with their money. Did they want to buy chickens, or goats, or school supplies, or medical supplies, or combine their money and buy something bigger like a donkey? It did this momma's heart good to watch them spend hours looking through to decide what to give others. I think all in all that year we ended up with mosquito nets, chickens, school supplies for 50 children, and a goat. Not too shabby for $200.

The next year when they were looking through the catalog in October, Brayden (8 years old at the time) was reading each section. He was very thoughtfully reading the description of what each thing would provide, and trying to make the best choice he could with his $50. He said, "I think we should supply clean water for Christmas." I told him, that he didn't have enough for the hand held water pumps. They would clean water for 1 household for up to 3 months. But it was $250. I told him he would have to convince his brother and sisters to combine their money, and then they would have to try to raise $50. He said, "No Mom, for a whole village. I want clean water for the whole village." I kind of laughed and said, "well buddy, that is $10,000. I don't have $10,000. We only have $200." He looked at me with the most sincere and serious face and said, "well... we have to try."

That is where the idea was born. I could not turn him down. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted him to know we did everything possible. I wanted him to know God could do BIG things. So scared to death, we let the kids write a letter to friends and family.

We spent the next 2 months doing so many little odds and ins chores for generous people. The kids were 3, 5, 7, and 8... so we were a tad limited on what we could do. But people came up with some crazy awesome things for these little people and we did it! Sorting Legos, picking up sticks and pinecones, decorating Christmas trees, feeding farm animals, addressing Christmas cards, making Christmas cards... if people thought of it, we tried to do it! We baked about 9 million cookies for cookie exchanges and Christmas parties. The kids went through all their toys and started selling them. They gave their birthday and Christmas money to the cause.  A local paper picked up the story, and MOPS international picked up the story. We had all kinds of people sending money in that were far away, but wanted to help us reach our goal! Any where from $2 to a $2,000 donation came in. It was unbelievable and humbling.

As we got into December we learned that Christian Relief Fund (another amazing organization) had an anonymous donor that would be willing to match whatever we raised! We were so excited! All in all the kids ended up reaching the goal and building the well! It was such an AMAZING lesson for my children God can do ANYTHING! February of 2014 when the well was dug, they sent us pictures and it was the amazing awesome feeling all over again!

Every now and then we check in to see how things are going in the village where the well was built. We received this message from our contact in the village: "Chemurgui Well has given amazing help to the community here; in fact, this is the busiest well in that location.  Because of this particular well, we have planted a church here and the community has been touched. This is the place we have built our Bible school: Victory Christian Training Institute.  In fact, it became favorable for the training because there is plenty of water there, thanks to the donor. The Bible School students use the water from here; the church uses the water from here; the community uses the water from here; the children likewise.
Because of the busy use of the well, the cry of the community is to help them put a solar and a submersible pump and tank on it so it can increase its flow in the community. Water can be pumped by the solar pump and run everywhere. The school is also working on horticulture, once water can run to the farm. I don't know if the donor is comfortable to help with this number one need. However there are other several small needs, such as goats and cows to help the area."

So last year God moved in ways beyond our wildest dreams. The kids had a goal of earning $6,500 to provide the solar pump for the village. We sold pasta sauce and salsa and did a few odds and ends jobs, but God provided us with an amazing partner WE HELP TWO... we had no idea what was about to come. 

The socks gave us so many opportunities to reach people. We got to share with kids in the public school system about Kenya and solar well pumps. We got to educate people about homeless and needy in our area. When delivering socks we got to share our story. People from all over the United States jumped on our crazy sock bandwagon... and it was AWESOME! I watched my children become little evangelist... sharing our story and what God was doing with total strangers. It was the best Christmas present I received!

The generous hearts of people from all over the United States raised $8,029.33 to help a little village in Kenya! We were so much beyond the goal of $6,500  that they purchased beds, and mattresses, and lots of goats and chickens for the community in addition to the solar well pump!

And beyond helping the village on the other side of the world, y'all bought a ton of funky socks! And with the generous WE HELP TWO we provided 550 pair of warm socks that were distributed all over the state of Maryland, Washington DC, Missouri, and a few states in between for people in need over the winter time. And not only that... but 174 pair of fun funky socks for kids in the hospital!

I'm going to be super honest here... I had ZERO intention of doing any sort of fundraising/outreach this year. 

ZERO.

We were still going to let the kids spend their $50 each on helping someone, because that is our Christmas gift to them. We feel that is important. So on the way to school last week we were discussing what they wanted to spend their money on. Their reply: "What about the socks?" I told them I wasn't really planning on doing anything this year. It had been a really hard year and I thought we would take the year off. They had such disappointed looks on their faces. And then that little voice from the Lord... "When have I ever taken time off?" Dang it! Conviction through the eyes of my children. 

Y'all... I'm tired- remember? But you know what... God uses the tired. 

Matthew 11:28-30“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

These kids constantly remind me, life is so much bigger than me. There are so many ways the Lord can use us. God does the real work... we are just the hands and feet.

Here are the kid's goal for this holiday season:

-Buy a cow for the Chemurgui village

-Provide needed supplies for the school there

-Put warm socks on 200 local people in need

How can you help?

- Pray. Pray, pray, pray that we reach the people that need to be reached and that we continue to make this about God and what He can do.

-Buy socks! We are SUPER excited to be partnering with We Help Two again this year! They have new prints that are super cute! If you are so excited and can't wait to order you can go

HERE, but we are working out a few details and will post more on the official sock campaign later this week.

-Sponsor shipping cost for warm socks.

-Spread the word. Share our story.

We are so excited to see how God works this year! 

This is a wild (and exhausting :) ) life... thanks for joining us on the journey!

First Month- 10 Things

I have a baby y'all! It is so crazy... never in a million years would I have dreamed I would be doing this again... but here I am... living the dream! ;)

Jaxten Walter Kriete arrived October 2nd, 2017 @ 11:41am via c-section. He was 9lb 10oz and 20 3/4 inches long.

I'm utterly exhausted and absolutely in love. I'm ever so thankful that the Lord knows what I need better than I do. I don't have a ton of uninterrupted time lately so we will break this blog post into 10 bullet points.

10 Random Things from the First Month(and a boatload of pictures)

1. Jaxten is just so precious. I find myself just sitting and staring and enjoying every little moment (sleeping or awake) with this little guy. My house is going to be a mess, and there will always be a pile of laundry... but one of the perks of having a "bonus baby" is you know how fast time flies... so I'm ok with it. I'm enjoying every moment.

2. Poop. I forgot how much newborn babies poop. I mean I have already done this 4 times already, so you think I would be prepared... but I wasn't. SO. MANY. DIAPERS!

3. This baby has made me fall in love with my husband all over again. Watching my husband with this baby seems different. I don't know if it is because we know what is coming :) or if we are older and can appreciate how fast time flies with these little people... but man, I love watching my husband love on this baby.

4. I actually miss exercise. I know... crazy... and nobody better remind me of this when I am released to do it, but I do. This was my first c-section... and let me tell you... it is a very different recovery! It just hurts in a whole different way, and has made be aware of every abdonimal muscle that exists... and how you use them for EVERYTHING! I was running all the way up to 32 weeks, so it is really weird not to physical be able to do anything... I'm ready to go for a run.

5.I have an unhealthy (in every sense) relationship with peanut M&Ms. I crave them on a daily basis, and indulge quite frequently. (Which is probably why the loosing of the baby weight has come to a complete hault ;) ) Fastest way to my heart these days is peanut M&Ms and pebble ice in my drink.

6. This big kids at the house are so fantastic with Jaxten. Constantly competing for holding time, diaper changing opportunities, and fetching whatever he needs. This little baby will be spoiled rotten... and I am ok with that... I think. :)

7. I have spent 90% of this month in a baseball cap. I have 2-3 I rotate between... but pretty much any time I have left the house in the last month I have had a hat on my head.  It is what it is... I'm tired, almost always make-up free, and the effort (and time) to fix my hair just isn't there. #blessthismess

8. I was worried about jealousy issues with the kids, (especially Addi) knowing that babies require so much time and attention. The biggest jealously issues have come from Lily, the dog. She really only does it when Eric is holding the baby, never me. But she always goes and sits next to him or tries to get in between Eric and the baby when he's holding him... it is really quite funny to watch.

9. Distance isn't a deal breaker. I was really worried about having this baby when we were so far away from all of our family, but it ended up fine. We had someone here from our family every single day of the little man's first month. Between Eric's family and my family, we had lots of family visit and love on this little guy... and make us (and the other 4 kiddos) feel loved as well.

10. We may not have family that live here, but boy do we have a great support network! We have so many people that love and support us here, it is really overwhelming. From neighborhood friends, school friends, church friends, Secret Service friends... we were overwhelmed with food, gifts, and visits. I have been so worried all of this pregnancy what it would look like to try to get by so far away from our friends and family in Missouri... but it was more beautiful than I could have dreamed. I am ever so thankful (and still working on all those thank you notes) for all of our friendts and support network here.

Well, it has taken me 4 attempts...scratch that, make it 8 attempts (sigh) and more than a week to try to get this blog post out... so we shall see how often they come. :)

It's a wild ride... thanks for joining me on the journey.