Children (Part 2)

Where was I?

Oh yes, kids! I was just saying how God answered our prayers with a daughter. It turned out that she was a really nice baby, good looking and very quiet compared to our three lively boys.

But money was getting tight. We had now met our first option target - 4 kids. So prayerfully, I went through the procedures to get a vasectomy. We thought it would be a miracle either way: if we had the vasectomy could copld make it fail and provide more kids, but if we didn't go for it it would take a miracle for us to NOT have more, being a fortunately fertile couple.

As the big day approached, we started having serious doubts. Yes, money was tight, but we didn't feel complete. On the actual day, I had more or less decided not to go through with it. BUt to clinch it and to give me that reassurance that God was guiding - on the morning taht I was due to go in the hospital phoned me up. I was the only person on their list for the day, and the surgeon didn't want to travel owing to the heavy snowfall - did I really want it? I said 'no', and praised God. Not to long afterwards, baby number 5 came along. This was another girl, to confound the doctors even more, and provided a good play mate for the first girl. I am one proud Daddy!

Money was really tight now, and we left it a long time before thinking again. We still had in mind the original target of six. And when we were doing a headcount to check we had not lost anyone in the supermarket we kept going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, where's the other one? So in the end we had to go for it. Number six was a wonderful little boy.

Around this time, the govornment changed its benefits system, so what had previously been the "working families tax credit" became "Children's tax credit" and was widely publicised as 'Money with your name on it'. I had never dared applying for such things in the past - I did have a good salary and thought the clerks would laugh at me for applying. But in the new regime, presenting these things in a much more positive light, I stuck in an application to see what would happen. The result was much more generous than I had dared to dream of.

So God had tested our faith. He had lead us through th steps of building up the family that he wanted us to have. He ahs pressed us financially to see if we would trust him in it. And then, once the family was complete, and we had passed the test of faith, he provided the finance needed for the large family. We did not go in to having a big family with any expectation of 'living off benefits' - but we do benefit from the govornment's policies which are aimed at reversing the falling native population of these islands. My kids will pay for your pension!

We thank and praise God for his provision in our life - providing a large family of exceptional kids, and providing the finance for them.

The adventure continues, and gets a lot more scary than this!