Some special visitors dropped by this week on Tuesday to see Efrain and had so much fun with the kids. We are incredibly blessed to have such good relationships with the bio-families of all our kids. It is really sweet to see Efrain with his little brothers, and we always love getting caught up with our other “daughter,” mama Malinda.
Then Thursday Efrain had another visit, this time from Efrain Sr. and cousin Nathan. They ate pizza, drank soda, spilled soda, and had a blast playing X-box games.
On Holy Thursday evening, after dinner, once again we gathered in the living room for devotions. One of the remarkable blessings of this pandemic, in which our schedules have all been so simplified, has been a renewed focus on our family devotional practices. For our family, this looks like: eating dinner together every single day, followed by Paul leading devotions including a bible reading or retelling of a bible story, and explanation for the children, followed by prayer time together using either the Chaplet of Divine Mercy or the Rosary, with emphasis on the different mysteries (during Lent we have focused on the Chaplet, using the Sorrowful Mysteries), and asking the children for prayer intentions with each decade. It’s been a time of beautiful formation and foundation-building. On this Holy Thursday, Paul talked about Jesus celebrating the Passover with his disciples, and then he brought a bowl of water and a cloth, and gently washed the feet of his children and me, demonstrating Jesus love so memorably – and emphasizing the command with which Jesus finished:
“If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet,
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
