Lower Brule

We made the trip out to our reservation church today. We haven't been there since I went on bedrest in July. Someone has been filling in preaching for me. There are basically NO adults coming to the services anymore. Indians become attached to their missionaries and do not like change, thus the decline in attendance. Overall, just going out there was a lot to handle. It's 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there. The babies did well in the van. The difficult part was trying to feed them in a really little room with no chairs or anything...(enough said). It's not just that aspect that is keeping me from returning to my responsibilities. As I've written before, it's mostly the balancing of everything on my "plate" right now. Twins are a 24/7 responsibility. They don't cry A LOT, but, If one is crying, usually the other one wants to compete. I do not get enough housework done during the day, so that means that when David gets home from work I make something for supper and then work on laundry and other things around the house. I am not complaining though - I love my life.. but sometimes I think, "when can I sit down and just breath?" I do have my quiet times when I am strengthened with God's word, and blogging right before I go to sleep helps me clear my mind, but other than that I'm a busy bee. Lately I've been trying to spend more time with Harmony though. Even though there are ALWAYS things to do around the house, sometimes I just have to take a break and grab her for a story, a tickle-fest, or whatever. I don't want her to think that Mommy only has time for babies and housework. ANYWAY... I guess I sort of got a little more detailed about things than I had planned for this post... but the point is that I have A LOT to balance. I know that God called us to pastor at Lower Brule in these last few years. When I found out that I was having twins I resigned as pastor, then after a few months of being pregnant I changed my mind and said we would resume pastoring after the twins' birth. So here we are and they are 3 months old, and I just can't handle resuming my preaching. For those of you who aren't preachers - messages involve a lot of prayer and study. It's not that I don't want to -- it's that I know I wouldn't be putting the amount to time into my messages than what they would need. Let's not forget calling. We've lost all of our adults and resuming pastoring would mean A LOT of visits. Hmmm.. twins in a stroller in South Dakota's winter weather? (we have a lot of wind and negative temps) Not gonna work. I just feel guilty that I can't just "get it all together" and resume pastoring. Is God relieving me of pastoring and calling me to take care of my kids at this time? Is there ever times that Christian workers need to take several years off in which to fulfill other responsibilities in their life? I know that my situation is very different since I am a lady pastor. If anyone has any thoughts, you can either comment or email me at: davelizmills@yahoo.com I guess until I feel a firm thumb in my back, I'll just try to balance the Mills household. Okay... video below... No adults showed up for the service at Lower Brule, so we stayed for the children's service. The video was taken on my phone during memory verse time. The kids weren't as bad on the video as what they were the rest of the time. Usually there are kids jumping over pews, crawling under pews, running around, fighting, spitting... I've seen even more than that. The workers have to be extremely careful about disciplining the kids. If you even touch their arm, some of them will go home and tell their parents that they were abused at church. If the kids get TOO out of hand, one of the buses takes them home. (the worker are very tolerant though and usually the services are..umm.. CHAOS!) Usually they have 50-60 kids come each week. Today was a lot lower though.