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Our magic clothes dryer…

The secret is out. The Troupe’s have a magic clothes dryer in our laundry room. It is a normal one, just like the one you may have but it has, according the Matthew, one feature yours may not. Ours makes and is the source of all new pajamas. He checks it several times a day just to see what may have appeared since the last time he checked…ten minutes ago. You see, we have a rule in the Troupe house: All clothes purchased or donated new or used have to be washed first. Matthew figured out a long time ago as his obsession with clothes and fabric grew into this pajama phase…if you tear up your favorite pair, no problem…there will always be a new pair “magically” being created in the dryer. When returning home from an outing and shedding the mandatory street clothes…check the dryer. Wake up in the morning…check the dryer. Diaper change…check the dryer. So our lives go at home. All the more reason we are so thankful for our new house with main floor laundry. Of course, we all know pajamas just don’t appear out of nowhere, right? One of us has to always scour garage sales, second-hand and thrift stores to score pajamas (he is especially fond of the footed blanket sleepers). On a side note, big boys are not especially fond of the footed pajamas, hence Matthew is primarily decked out in pink or purple ones adorned with princesses, puppies, hearts or kitty’s. Matthew doesn’t care, he will…
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Preparing the way for extraordinary destiny…

Yes, it has been a long time, and yes, I am still blogging! As you know life has a way of getting so busy and out of control. I am hoping I still have your ear and that you are still willing to partner with us as we live out this extraordinary life…I love that phrase. It comes from C.S. Lewis. “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny” C.S. Lewis Let’s see, since the last glimpse into our lives we have moved and have been working non-stop to bring our new home into “safe” and “functional” status. We have celebrated Matthew’s 13th and Sarah Anne’s 5th birthdays. We have participated in 2 county fairs (with one more to go). We just finished an illness outbreak in our home with Isaac lingering the longest (with a short hospital stay). We have just sent our two oldest on a 10 day missions trip to Guyana, Central America. And, we have an abundance of appointments/procedures lined up for Isaac and Matthew and a re-surgery of the stomach surgery Isaac had last a year ago in May that did not stay intact and needs to be redone. Many of you have been asking and are curious about our move. Here are the details! We are still in Ottawa County, about as Southwest as one can get in the city of Hudsonville, MI. There are far too many things to list and talk about in a short post…but, Theresa uses one word to describe the feeling of…
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May peace today be within…

The Troupe’s have been busy…surgeries, hospital stays, illnesses, busy work and school schedules…not unlike your own lives. Thank you for your faithfulness in praying us through the many trials and triumphs we face! We have great news to report! After an 8 month search for a safe, usable floor plan and conveniently located home…We feel we have found and have an accepted offer on a new home for the Troupe’s! More details to come after we clear all of the inspections, approvals, etc. The short is that we have found a new home (to us) in Hudsonville just 20 minutes from our church family which also happens to be where Kevin works. Quicker than the 30 minute drive we have now. We are still in Ottawa County which was important for the relationships and services we have had for the past 12 years for Matthew and now Isaac. We love the current home we live, our neighbors and the community…but, we have outgrown it in size, in safety and in function. The search was monumental and seemingly impossible to find the exact fit, all within a timely manner. We can’t deny that we were getting nervous and doubting the sale of our current home without having a new one in sight. We were down to the last 36 official days left to be able to stay in our current home which we had sold at the end of February. The countless hours of perusing homes online as well as going through,…
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Cleft repair #2…the Palate. Prayer needed!

We would like to send out a request for prayer for tomorrow for Isaac. He will be having his second cleft repair…this one on his palate at 10:00 am at the Helen Devos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids. If you recall, when we were about to have the first surgery, to close his lip and to start the repair of his nose, Sarah Anne, while explaining the surgery and how he may look different had this to say when we told her we were going to fix the hole in his lip…”Isaac has a hole in his lip”? When we explained that it would help him breathe better and to eventually be able to eat better she said, while crying: “I don’t want you to fix his lip…he is so cute the way he is”. Oh to be able to see beyond the obvious differences in others… If you would like to read the original post before the first surgery you may click on this link There’s A Hole In His Lip? Thanks again for being our prayer partners…we will try to update as soon as possible when he has been stabilized. He will be spending at least one night in the hospital. We would welcome any thoughts of sharing this prayer request with your circle of prayer friends and family. Use the convenient share buttons below…

Be Blessed. Be Grateful….Give Thanks

As we have completed the holiday season and launch ourselves into 2014 there are two words that would give an accurate description of the pulse of our household…Blessed and Grateful. Even before Isaac joined our family God had already taken us on a path of complete reliance and surrender when we were blessed with Matthew. As we look back a the year before Matthew was born it is clear that God had a plan in mind when we experienced some financial difficulties and Kevin took a “responsible” job, stepping aside from self-employment for what we thought would be a brief time. That was 14 years ago. What began as a job, God used to move us from an already strong faith into a transformation of being broken and being rebuilt…it is clear to us now that he was preparing us for a special journey of faith, a journey that would include our church family and beyond. Many of you reading this blog post have been a part of our journey of being broken and rebuilt. Whether through prayer, helping with caregiving, financial help, providing transportation (literally, in giving us a car), helping with yard work, house work or just sitting with us as we waited out a surgery or hospital stay. I wish I could say that we have been diligent in thanking each of you personally. We are learning that it is a progression of being blessed, feeling grateful and then giving thanks. As we have gone from one…
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Do you have a praying mattress?

I just love the innocence of life through the eyes of a 4-year-old. This summer a praying mantis has taken a liking to our front porch. Many times while entering and leaving our front door it is relaxing on a brick capped wall next to the door. The first time Sarah Anne encountered this new friend was on the sidewalk along our garage. She came in the house loudly exclaiming “there is a praying mattress on our sidewalk!”. We have certainly had our moments of needing prayer over the past 17 months with Isaac…and over the past 12 years with Matthew. Many long, sleepless nights of prayer on our own king sized Sleep Number “praying mattress” as we prayed those boys and our girls through life. As we have seen a break in between the medical crisis in our lives we have been busy praying other families in our CHARGE Syndrome family through their crisis. Theresa and I have been both touched and burdened with crying and praying for losses, surgeries, procedures and therapies for our other CHARGE friends. The “praying mattress” gets a lot of use. We know very well the fragility of life. Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? Corrie ten Boom We have learned over time that we do not pray for God to fix everything and take away all of our struggles. We learn that prayer is not the final resort, what we do after all else fails. Prayer should be our steering wheel,…
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Making yourself Grumpy?

As we were all hanging out at home one day this week (a rare occurrence lately in our house) we heard a familiar sound coming from Matthew. Having a child who is non-verbal can be challenging but we have learned to identify his sounds almost as if they were an assigned ringtone or notification tone on our phone. He was annoyed…in most cases it means that Sarah Anne has done something or taken something or is just generally in his peripheral space. Theresa called out the accompanying phrase “what’s wrong with Matt?” Usually the phrase is followed by a confession or an observation. This time the response made us all laugh. She responded with: “I didn’t do anything…Matthew is making himself grumpy.” We laughed at yet another Sarah Anne original phrase and went on with our day. It wasn’t until later in the day that the innocence of that phrase hit me hard. “The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God” Victor Hugo – Les Miserables As I was driving I began to recall moments that God plants in and around the trials we were going through. Funny how we tend to focus our entire energy on the trials and miss the small rays of sunshine…God’s reminders that He is in silently there, silently giving us everything we need. One such reminder was during an emergency trip across the state to replace a leaking…
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Know where you are…

June has been a busy month! I was able to go on my annual fishing trip with my good friend Brian, we celebrated Isaac’s first birthday, we celebrated Hannah’s high school graduation and celebrated Matthew’s twelfth birthday (we will skip that I had a birthday earlier in the month). I appreciate the break in writing but always eager to get back in the routine of sharing our lives with all of you. You inspire us as much as we inspire you! The place where I take my annual retreat and fishing trip is a beautiful 7,000 acre piece of property in Northern lower Michigan. Several lakes and nearly 60 miles of two-track roads criss-cross the land. One afternoon while it was rainy and windy some of decided to search out one of the smaller lakes that are only accessible by getting close via one of the roads and then trekking through the woods. We found a lake and got lost in the process. Getting lost only burned an extra hour but we did see part of the property that we have never seen before. It was an adventure with no map to go by, but we also knew that there are borders on the property and even on 7,000 acres one could not stay lost for long. A quote I read recently made me think of this time in the woods…and other times when I have been completely lost while traveling. “The best map in the world doesn’t do you any good if…
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Can Brokeness be a Gift?

A week ago we were preparing and packing for our trip to Mott’s Children’s Hospital for Isaac’s stomach surgery. Today, we are all back home and very grateful for how things have turned out. Very nice, simple bookends wouldn’t you say? The rest of the story is how God works in and through us while we go through the dark moments of doubt, worry, anxiety, lack of sleep, driving back-and-forth across the state to attend to family and work needs and setbacks…just when you think things are progressing. Most of all, the pain of watching your precious little one go through pain and wanting to take it away, even for just a few hours. I was looking back through the week this morning as I sat down to write a few words. What I could not get out of my head was a post I wrote exactly a year ago as we were fumbling through the first few weeks of Isaac’s life. I wrote a post about a few quotes in a book by Sheila Walsh called God Loves Broken People…here is an excerpt from that post…along with the quotes. I felt that it was worth repeating: “I told her that I still take medication, and every morning I take that little pill with a prayer of thanksgiving that God made a way for those of us who suffer like this on such a broken planet. And, I told her that in the darkest moment of my life, I discovered that…
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His name is Faithful and True…

Planning, scheduling caregivers, paying bills, packing, more packing…and somehwere between all of that, some nervous anticipation and worry. No, it’s not a vacation… We will be leaving in the wee hours of Monday morning (May 13) to arrive for Isaac’s scheduled surgery at 7:30 a.m. Ugh, that means a 3:00 a.m. wake up time for travel and pre-op! We are asking for you, our massive prayer team partners, to once again storm the gates of heaven with your prayer for this delicate surgery. Matthew had this same surgery, a nissen fundoplication, which is a procedure on the stomach that will eliminate the ability to burp, throw up and reflux. Matthew had this surgery at just a few months old. With Isaac we have had to wait until his esophagus was completely healed from his surgery at just a few days old and did not need constant dialting (stretching) to stay open. His small stomach was also something that played into the decision to delay this complicated prodedure. Today has been an emotional and joy filled day. We spent some time this morning with the elders of our church as they anointed and prayed with Isaac before we leave for his surgery. They prayed not only for Isaac but for us as a family. Today happens to be Mother’s day…Theresa was overcome with emotion as she held Isaac tight, recalling that just a year ago she was not even able to hold him on this same day. Another memory came flooding back as we sang 10,000 Reasons (Bless…
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