My Puzzle Piece

God must have known in the area of arts & crafts, I would be seriously deficient. (Does music qualify as art?) :) So He gave me a husband to fill in the missing parts of my life with strengths of his own.

One such example of this is Jeff's creative, artistic nature. Being the son of an artist, he has been exposed to art his whole life, so not only was his environment artistic, so are his genes. Recently he has developed an interest in raku pottery and has learned enough about it to make his own kiln and order all the supplies to make and glaze and fire (and do whatever else you do to pottery) his own raku pottery. He has also started taking a pottery class on Monday nights; that was his Father's Day gift from the boys and I which just now started up.

In any case, his day off today was filled with experimenting with this new kind of pottery; and what a great learning experience for Josiah (and to a lesser extent, David)! Jeff was so gracious to let Josiah help him with the paints and glazes; to see Jeff include his son in things that would have been easier to do alone was a spectacular example of sacrificial love. Josiah was delighted and even at the end of the day was asking to do more pottery. :)

Some of the materials Jeff was using to make the kiln were dangerous, so he pulled out the gas mask we had gotten in Israel during the beginning of the war with Iraq when there was a strong possibility that Israel would be attacked with missiles from Iraq, just like during the Gulf War. (At the beginning of our time in Israel, every person was required to have one of these gas masks and CARRY IT WITH THEM AT ALL TIMES. That was a sight to see--children going to school, carrying their gas masks. Mothers with their babies at the park, with their gas masks handy. What an introduction to a country!) Fortunately, we never had to use it in Israel, but we thought it would be fun to bring it back to the States with us, and it was useful today during Jeff's project! Doesn't he look handsome with it on??? :) (This, by the way, is the reason Josiah wanted to also wear a mask today, so he got to wear a smaller white one. I thought he would get tired of it quickly, but he didn't--and ended up wearing it a significant part of the day.)