The Sistahood

Brenton, Taylor and Ethan have formed a group called "The Brotherhood" that is essentially a group of lads intent on steering clear of the species known as the female persuasion in the interest of deepening their walk with the Lord. Bachelorhood is good, in other words. It's pretty entertaining to hear them lay out the laws, by-laws, ordinances and other rules and regulations that they live by. Taylor is the Pope of the group, in case you're wondering. Well, their younger sisters banded together with some friends to form the "Sisterhood" -- the idea being something along the lines of getting hitched someday -- but it appears even 7-year-old Madeline and her friend Lydia have gotten in on the act. This blog has obtained -- from an anonymous source (as a member of the press I'll go to jail to protect my sources) who we'll call "Deep Sticky Fingers" -- a previously unpublicized copy of the "Sister in Christ Hood girls club" document. It has a member list that runs eight deep and includes "Becca and her sister if she wants to come." Here's the "rools" of the club that we are copying verbatim:

1. If you enter this club you have to stay in it.
2. You have to keep secrets.
3. No boys aloud.
4. Only Madeline and Lydia can be the hed.
5. Always bring your Bible to come with you.
6. You don't have to dress good.
7. You have to love God.
8. There's a meeting on May first.
9. Do not say bad words.

We had a chat with Madeline about being rude (boys are allowed, or aloud, and free to go in and out of the room they are holding meetings in) and bossy (all leadership positions in the club are open to members and not reserved solely for those two). We're on board with the part about loving God and no bad words. If you're interested in joining the club and think you can keep the rools, please contact Madeline or Lydia.

Teenless In Philomath

We packed all of our teenagers off to Virginia earlier this week and we can't get over the strangeness of not having them around. The food budget is enjoying a rare surplus, but it's just not right around here. What an adventure for them, though. On Sunday night Taylor, Ethan and Claire managed to successfully fly across the country, stopping in Las Vegas and Atlanta before arriving in Richmond, Va., at about 10 a.m. Monday morning. My biggest concern, as expressed to them just before taking off, was that they'd blow the 80 bucks I gave them at the slots and craps tables in the Vegas airport. When I said that, Taylor gave me the look that says, "You funny Dad. You real funny."

We called them on the cell phone at each layover, including a 2:30 a.m. chat when they were in Atlanta. They made it just fine and friends picked them up in Richmond. Praise the Lord. They come back on Thursday, but this time fly in broad daylight. Plus they're veterans now, so methinks I'll be more relaxed about this leg o' the journey. Brenton left town on Wednesday, but we don't really worry about him traveling across the U.S. of A. This is a guy that made a 24-hour solo trip to Israel when he was 18. He departed from D.C. at around 8 p.m., flew to Heathrow London, where he had something like an eight-hour layover, then when he got to Tel Aviv he had to find a cab and communicate to the cabbie where to take him in Jerusalem. Mind you there was this issue of a "language barrier." To top it all off, we didn't finally receive word he made it until a couple days later due to various Internet availability and telephonic "issues." But the Lord is with that kid, I tell you. We know the kids are having a great time with their friends back home, and getting their braces fixed as well, but we're ready for them to come back. Yesterday.

Of Boys And Peeing

We are closing in on the day when we will embark on potty training our 7th son. The usual modus operandi involves bribing, er rather `encouraging,' the potty trainee to go in the toilet rather than his underwear by giving him M&Ms. As added incentive, each successful deposit into the toilet results in him passing M&Ms out to his siblings. The idea is that the bros and sisses will be constantly asking the potty trainee if he's gotta go and leading him to the toilet in hopes of scoring chocolate candies. Ingenious, eh?

Now if we could just nail down the whole `lifting up the seat' thing. What is it about little boys and not lifting up the seat when they gotta take a whiz? Is it beneath them? Are they in too much of a rush? Is it their way of marking their territory? (You would think I would know the answers to these questions. But like the deepest cosmic mysteries -- such as how does Julie keep getting pregnant? -- I don't.) No matter how often I remind, cajole and even threaten them, more often than not the toilet seat shows signs of another drive-by peeing. But then, every once in a while, we get a Hallelujah moment. Such as tonight, when I heard our 4-year-old Eli proudly announce to his mother he had gone to the bathroom. "I didn't pee on the toilet!" he hollered out. She's so proud. So am I.

Left Behind? Not Us

We get asked quite frequently here at Team Sabo headquarters if we've ever left a kid somewhere. Apparently there's a perception that with so many children, there may be situations that arise where one child gets left somewhere. I scoff at that notion. Accidentally leaving a child somewhere, like at church for example, is surely a sign of bad parenting.* We would never do that. But to clarify, there may have been one occasion where due to a series of extenuating circumstances (we'll clarify this shortly) one little Sabo may have found himself in a situation where he was "temporarily without direct biological parental supervision." He was not abandoned.

Here's what happened. We were at church in Williamsburg, Va., and after the service was over we loaded up the van and drove out of the parking lot to a nearby convenience store just a couple of minutes away. Did I mention the convenience store was less than a mile away? Some of our older children were going home with friends so there was perhaps some confusion numbers wise on the proper amount of Sabo children that should be in the van. We got to the WaWa, a nearby convenience store, to pick up some snacks and refreshments (which is a sign of excellent parenting; taking care of the needs of the children), when I got a call on my cell phone. It was a friend from church named Lori.

"Hey Matt, are you missing something?" Lori asked.
"I bet you know the answer to that question," I said.

It turns out, a 2-year-old child who identified himself as "Eli" -- and who our good friend Lori seemed confident was an "Eli" we knew very well -- was back at church. An inspection of the contents of our van turned up no sign of an "Eli Sabo." We quickly deduced it may well be our Eli at the church and immediately headed back to resolve this unfortunate situation. (Another sign of excellent parenting; quickly figuring out if we were a kid short and making the command decision to return to the place where our "temporarily displaced" child was last seen.)

When we arrived at church, it was verified that the "Eli" in question was indeed the Eli Sabo who should have been in his car seat in our van. We were quickly reunited and have mostly lived happily ever after (unless you count the time we wanted to purposely abandon him alongside I-80 on the "Oregon Trail" when he was throwing a Category 5 Hurricane fit of apocalyptic proportions.)

*Technically, it's not an "abandonment" if you don't arrive at your final destination before figuring out that you're a kid short.

Dream Dreams...

Sometimes Scripture just leaps out at me. One of those moments occurred a few nights ago while I was reading through Joel. Here's how Joel 2:28 is written in my NKJV Bible: "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." So many things spoke to me in this passage, particularly the ideas of promise and hope. At the ripe old age of 40, I'm closer to the end of my life expectancy (78 years and change, though I want to add the disclaimer that kin on both sides of my family tree journeyed on earth into their 90s) than my exit from the womb. So the fact that this passage speaks of "old men shall dream dreams" is such a great promise, not only for those of us advancing in years but for those who are already livin' the dream, so to speak.

The greatest aspect of this passage, at least for me at the moment, is how all ages will be participating in being filled with the Spirit in the last days. The young all the way to the old will have dreams, visions and prophesy. I would say this passage spoke so forcefully to me at this moment because I was among hundreds or more at Calvary Corvallis who participated in a week long fast, where we heard the prophetic words, Scriptures and exhortations spoken during the week of prayer and worship meetings. I'm still sorting the week out and meditating on some of the visions and Scriptures. But it remains fresh in my mind, as does the promise of Joel 2:28.

Just Curious

Anyone want to throw out a month on when the next Sabo baby will be born? I'm not saying anything or making any huge announcement other than some things in life are inevitable. And I'd like suggestions on names, particularly girl names and a middle name for a boy that goes with Judah. Thanks.

How To Kill A Snake (Or Not)

Today in School of Ministry class we discussed Adam and how thanks to him we're all born sinners. A snake was involved in all this original sin stuff and naturally my mind wandered -- briefly! only briefly! -- to an encounter with a serpent at our first house in Virginia. It was a warm, muggy June day (that's redundant when you're talking about Virginia) and we had just moved in. I was upstairs writing away for the newspaper and the kids were out back in the yard playing soccer. At one point I heard some bloodcurdling screaming and hustled outside to see what was up. Fearing someone had busted a leg, instead I saw Evie running in circles and screaming. I soon learned why. Sunning itself against the brick foundation was a nearly three-foot-long snake. As snakes go, it was a serious snake. I alertly told everyone to calm down and considered my options: Shoo it away? Try and take it out? Make it a pet? I had heard about a poisonous local snake called a "copperhead," but wasn't sure if that's what was parked in my back yard. Brenton theorized it was a garter snake. Um, yeah. I told Brenton to stand guard and make sure no little kids decide to play with the "garter snake" while I ran upstairs to the computer and googled "copperhead."

The snake that showed up on my computer was a dead ringer for the one sunbathing in my back yard; a long, scaly, brown, deadly thing with a distinctive diamond pattern on its back. Not exactly a playmate for the kids. I ran outside and immediately took charge, hustling into the garage where I snagged an edging shovel and a machete that the previous homeowner had left behind (among a truckload of other useless items.) With the edger I jabbed at the snake right below his head thinking I'd just lop it off. That didn't go so well. All I managed to do was pin him against the bricks and he started coiling around the handle, his forked tongue flicking in and out. Occasionally he opened wide and bared his fangs. My kids were wigging out so I had Brenton hold the edger while I grabbed the machete to finish him off. One problem. The machete was so dull it wouldn't even slice butter. And come to think of it, they make boots out of snakes, right? Which means these serpents must have pretty thick skin ... so I told Brenton to hang in there while I ran into the garage and basically cleaned it out of yard implements. A pitchfork, shovel, leaf blower, chainsaw...the usual assortment. Fortunately, like any self-respecting Oregonian, I've got an ax. As Brenton kept the choke hold on Mr. Copperhead (I'm almost positive it was turning blue at this point), I took a swing with the ax. Thwunk. And with that, the deadly copperhead was neutralized as I lopped off his melon. If only my man Adam had tried that back in the Garden of Eden...

Haiku For You

Against my better judgment, we're posting a couple of excellent haikus that were creatively produced by our multi-talented, five-person "house group" from the School of Ministry. We are undertaking a project for our "Perspectives" class where we had to send a missions team to an "unreached" people group -- basically an entire group that almost entirely doesn't know the Lord -- for spreading the gospel purposes. We picked Japan. I'm not sure why, come to think of it. We just did. So we put together an outline on sending a missions team to Japan that includes the hurdles, obstacles and other things to overcome, as well as why Japan would have open doors to us beautiful Americans. I'll share the final results with you in the future. It's cool stuff. But as part of the process we decided to write some haiku. Well, actually I decided. Everybody else was working hard and I was over on a bar stool goofing off, er, um I mean penning world-class haiku. As a refresher, haiku involves the use of 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second and 5 in the third. So here we go. Let us know what you think.

An ancient people
Wintertime for Japanese
Spring forth Jesus Christ!

Rice and kimonos
Toyota, Honda, Sony
Lion of Judah!

So, uh, you think I should keep my day job? (Which, come to think of it, would be really hard seeing as how I'm an unemployed student.)

`Dat's Just What Boys Do.'

Julie has three sisters and no brothers. So you can imagine what it was like for her when her first three children were boys. Growing up she played games like "Beauty Pageant" and "Dress Up" and other assorted uninteresting activities. It's beyond me how she survived childhood without having dart fights in the house, amping up the Fourth of July party by blowing things up with homemade sparkler bombs, or playing "Smear the Queer" with the neighborhood homies. She had so much to learn about boys. Such as how the outdoors are their bathroom, or how wrestling, roughhousing and indoor football are all excellent activities, or even how the funniest conversations for boys usually involve discussing some sort of bodily function -- passing gas is best -- underwear, being buck naked or, best of all, a combination of all of those. Even after 19 years of sons, she's still learning lessons about boys.

The most recent lesson occurred recently when a fashion trend swept the young Sabo boys. As best I can describe it, it entails "manning up" and is best exhibited by taking off shirts and walking around shirtless. It's unclear what exactly the point of it is, or the genesis of this fashion trend, other than it's a very masculine endeavor to walk around without a shirt on. The other morning, Julie noticed four little boys without their shirts on. Curious, she asked Eli what was up with it. Ever have a 4-year-old look at you like, "Duh." Well, that's just the look Julie got. Eli explained it best this way to his mother when he said, "Dat's just what boys do."

Bedtime (Is Happy Time)

It's 9:15 p.m. and I just finished a 45-minute bedtime. I wouldn't call it routine because bedtime, like snowflakes, means no two are alike. At least that's the case in the House O' Sabo. Let me quickly account for the Sabo children. I believe there's 12 of them. Our three oldest boys are out watching a friend's soccer game. Our two oldest girls are playing with our baby while Julie is talking to one of her sisters on the phone. I believe the two remaining girls are in bed. That leaves four little boys who, last I saw, were in bed upstairs.

From the time I announced it was time to get the p.j.'s on and brush teeth, to the time I walked out of the room, I do believe 45 minutes had expired. In between were three reminders to Eli to brush his teeth and don pajamas -- I was doing this while loading the dishwasher with 9 bowls from our ice cream dessert and miscellaneous cups to quench thirsts of varying degrees. Claire, bless her heart, helped Ezra into his pajamas and brushed his teeth, then eventually I made it upstairs. Tonight I read Acts 9 about Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus, then I read a Jonah and the whale storybook, then we said prayers, then by popular demand I told a story.

So to be brutally honest, the story may not have been the best subject matter. I understand my audience (that would be 4 boys between the ages of 2 and 9) so the storyline revolved around a prince who had an issue with um, flatulence, due to his love of bean burritos and how he had to give those up to secure the love interest of a beautiful princess. The bottom line was that it was well received: Mission accomplished. Then two of the boys wanted to tell their own stories ... and the bar was set pretty low by yours truly ... eventually I made it out of there exhausted. Now it's time to try and get Miss Olivia asleep. Not only that, but to successfully get her in her bed while still sleeping. Then it's time to study for my Old Testament mid-term on Friday ... adios.

Anniversary Time

Five years ago this morning I woke up as a stranger in a strange land. Gloucester, Va., where the county motto is "The Land of the Life Worth Living," was my new home. Our first home was a Comfort Inn. Two rooms to be exactly. When we hit town we didn't have a place of our own yet -- our house in Corvallis was still on the market -- and we shacked in a motel until we could find a rental. It turns out that we spent 15 nights in the Comfort Inn because no one would rent to us due to the size of our family (even though at the time we only had 9 kids). I'll share the story sometime of how some newfound friends invited us to live with them until we could buy a house. One of my first memories of Gloucester was walking outside the motel room and hearing this frightening screeching sound coming from a grove of trees out back. I could only imagine what sort of wild beast was back there, surely ready to devour my children. Needless to say I parked far away from those trees. Eventually I learned that the sounds were actually emanating from harmless little tree frogs making mating calls. Or something like that.

We moved to Virginia when the Lord gave us a peace about going out there to take a job with the Daily Press in Newport News. Let me tell you, Virginia is a long ways away. My running joke when I drive guests over the Coleman Bridge spanning the York River is that if you look real hard out to the east across Chesapeake Bay, you can see England. In five years we've had three children, owned three houses, started a youth Bible study that the Lord has blessed, moved back across the country to Corvallis (albeit temporarily), been stretched like a rubber band (the Lord has a way of doing that to all of us, eh?) and grown so much in our faith. It's been hard -- no check that, real hard. We left behind everything we knew, our family, our dear friends, summers without humidity, bug-free living ... so many things. As much as we love it here, our home is in Gloucester. We can't wait to get home.

The Party Is On

Evie turned 12 on Friday and she's celebrating this afternoon in style. Eight or 10 friends came over -- there's just a lot of bodies in this house right now; it's hard to count -- and they're playing a game Evie concocted. It's an acting game where they divide up into three groups and act out a movie with three judges deciding which group was the best. First up was "Sleeping Beauty" and perhaps the most impressive performance was turned in by Eli, who played the Prince. The part where he killed the dragons was especially powerful. Now they are performing "Aladdin" and my sneaking suspicion is that the team with Brenton is going to win. Brenton can recite and sing the whole "Aladdin" movie and do all the parts. It's absolutely amazing. What a talent. Needless to say, we're so proud.

Evie was born in Redmond, Ore., during a snowstorm. She was supposed to be born at home but came out at the hospital courtesy of a C-section (the little girl was breech and wouldn't turn around). Even as a baby she had these big kissable lips and big eyes. Julie always called them Rosebud lips. What a cutie. Now she's almost in high school ... hard to imagine. Her name means "life" and we have always thought it described her perfectly. Evie is so lively and energetic. On Thursday night we were at a weekly event at our church called "One Voice" that draws a couple hundred middle school, high school and college kids together for a night of worship and teaching. It's just an awesome time and on Thursday it was a night dedicated to worshiping our Lord. I remember at one point looking up toward the front during one of the songs and seeing so many of the kids with their hands raised in worship. Then in the front row I saw these little hands raised high and I could tell they were a girl's hands and she was jumping up and down. I craned my neck to see better and quickly cracked a smile. It was Evie.

A Fast Fast? I Wish.

Yesterday as I was driving home with Brenton, Taylor and Ethan from a three-hour prayer session at church, I began fantasizing about a ham sandwich. Mayo and mustard on two slices of wheat bread, half a pig's worth of ham piled beneath lettuce, pickles and onion...oh baby. Our church began a week of fasting and praying on Sunday (Yes, Super Bowl Sunday. Interesting timing on that. That's all I'm saying.) and let's just say I'm struggling. I confess I've downed several dried apricots, a couple of crackers and a few niblets of cheese in the last four days ... oh, and a half-dozen grapes. There's no condemnation, of course, but I'm just trying to keep it real here. I had no clue going without food would be so brutally tough. Another confession: I'm a weenie. Julie keeps telling me I'll make it to Saturday evening when we break the fast (God bless the woman for her encouragment and faith), but I'm just feeling weak.

Scripture cites frequent fastings (with Jesus pulling a real humdinger of a one at 40 days and nights, as recounted in Matthew 4) and Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, "Moreover, when you fast..." There's something to this fasting thing, I have to say. The prayer meetings at church this week have been spectacularly powerful. And I'm weak, but the Lord is strong. Your prayers, however, are appreciated as we take this week to seek the Lord's will in our lives. And maybe even throw up a prayer that I'll be relieved of these fantasies about ham sandwiches and bacon cheeseburgers. Shoot, at this point brussel sprouts almost sound good. I said almost.

Q&A, Take II

More questions, more answers.

What makes our family interesting and unique: Duh. Like 12 kids for starters. I’d say one of the unique things about our family is how caring our kids are to each other. Our teens are great helps around the house and I’m not sure what we’d do without them. When we eat out at restaurants or are out and about in public, I’m always so blessed by people telling us how well-behaved our children are and how much they enjoy seeing a large family together.

What obstacles does our family face? Uh, where do we begin? Energy, patience, wisdom, 19 years straight of changing diapers, having teens and terrible twos at the same time, trying to balance letting our kids do activities with not running ourselves ragged … oh, there’s so much. Like remembering middle names and birthdays. That was kind of embarrassing when I couldn’t remember Olivia’s middle name at a School of Ministry study session in October. One of the students was saying how cute Olivia is and then asked her middle name for some reason. I totally couldn’t remember it. Does that make me a bad dad?

Are there any financial issues?You’re kidding, right? We have four teens who eat food by the ton, all four of them are in braces, we spend all sorts of dough on diapers (we have two of them in diapers at the moment and let’s just say our little ones have a fast metabolism, if you, um, catch my drift). We’re a single-income family living on a relatively meager newspaper reporter’s salary…and yet the Lord provides for us. Finances are one of the biggest struggles for us as a family. We don’t have a lavish lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination, but just the size of our family forces us to make tough financial decisions. But hey, we're saving money on birth control! Generally speaking, I always struggle with feelings of cheating my kids because we go without certain things, even though when I really stop and think about it I know that they have a wonderful life. (Go ahead and shed a tear or two.)

Is our family religious? Well, no. I define religion as man reaching up to God. We’re Christians, in which God reaches down to man through His son, Jesus Christ. We are non-denominational, attending Calvary Chapel, which is distinctive mainly by the fact that the pastor doesn’t give topical sermons but rather he teaches through the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book.

Like and dislike about a large family? You know, if I could trade in say 6 or 8 kids, or even 10, for a more “American” lifestyle I honestly wouldn’t. One of the biggest struggles for me, aside from finances, is just having time with my wife (I’ve obviously had enough time on occasion) or even there are times I get frustrated with not being able to do something I want to do. But when I think of not having this family, I really don’t like it. I went to Virginia for 3 weeks over Christmas to work for the newspaper and stayed in our big house in Gloucester and really didn’t like it. It was too quiet. I was so lonely. I love babies, I so enjoy how much our children love each other and I am just amazed that God has blessed me so richly.

Answers to Big Questions

Recently I was asked to fill out a questionnaire about our substantial family. So I thought I would share. I'll probably divy this up into two takes. It asked for quick bios of the characters that comprise Team Sabo, followed by some other questions. So here goes:

Julie, 40, is the matriarch of Team Sabo. She’s birthed 12 children, all naturally and drug-free, which is remarkable in and of itself. She leads a Bible study, homeschools all of the children, wields a mean wooden spoon, is loving, caring, kind … she’s a keeper.

Brenton, 19, just finished a two-year Bible college program with a 3.92 GPA. He’s called to be a pastor and we’re praying about planting a church when we return to Gloucester. He plays guitar and is also doing the School of Ministry with me. We pretty much have our own congregation, eh?

Taylor, 16, leads a Bible study in Gloucester and when we moved to Oregon joined the local high school cross country team. Even though there was only 4 weeks left in the season he made varsity and helped the team to a 5^th-place finish at the state meet.

Ethan, 15, will be joined by Taylor and going on a missions trip to Brazil with youth from our church in Corvallis in March. He is a perennial All-Star in the summer baseball league and ran cross country this year as well. He’s also learning to play guitar and sing worship songs, following in the footsteps of his older brothers.

Claire, 13, is quite the baker – cheesecakes and chocolate chip cookies are her specialty – and enjoys the usual teen girl fare of shopping, snapping photos, Facebooking, etc. She is really enjoying hanging out with Godly young women who are discipling her.

Evie, 11, enjoys playing soccer and is a voracious reader and our little artist. She’s outgoing and makes friends easily and loves to e-mail and Facebook with her friends back in Virginia. Like Claire, she's enjoying being discipled.

MerriGrace, 10, cannot write a sentence on someone’s Facebook wall without a minimum of two exclamation marks. She loves to play piano and is our mini-mommy and can often be found carrying around the baby and putting her to sleep on her shoulder.

Abram, 9, loves building with Legos, particularly Star Wars, and is a pretty quiet little dude. He’s very observant and also has been putting the hurt to the Tooth Fairy lately as well.

Madeline, 7, is very social and enjoys going to her friends’ houses and is very talented at memorizing Scripture and picking up concepts in school. She’s a vivacious little girl who always has a hug for her Daddy.

Gabe, 6, still likes a good sniff of his favorite blankie. He likes to play Legos, go over to his friends’ house and go swimming and when we roll through the bakery at the grocery store likes to pick out his wedding cake.

Eli, 4, can tell you pretty much anything about Star Wars or Narnia and reenact entire battle scenes. He’s a fan of Spiderman as well. We’re trying to cure him of his addiction to video games.

Ezra, 2, is a daddy’s boy and likes going to the market with his dad to get potato chips and gummy worms. His favorite book is “Goodnight Moon” but if you ask him his name he’s liable to say, “Billy Bob Joe Stinky Diaper.” It’s a long story…

Olivia, 10 months, is a pure sweetie and the proud owner of 4 teeth and the longest set of eyelashes you’ll ever see. She likes to crawl around and cause trouble and eat whatever she finds on the floor. Who needs a mop?

What does our family like to do together?: We like to go to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg together (picture in your mind taking 12 children to a theme park … do you see yourself having a good time?), or we like to go pick blueberries, go to the beach, go to church…the usual stuff. We usually try and go up to Washington D.C. for the day once or twice a year to see some history stuff. We’d like to go to Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home. We like to drive across the country together. Well, not really actually. But we’re going to do it anyway. We like to be home a lot to tell you the truth. We have a good time being together. Crazy, isn’t it?