I'll try not to bore you with too much info, so here are few highlights and I will expound on a few of them below in case you want to hear more.     · We are Mike & Sonja Williams - age 38 ·  3 kids - Chance, Macy & Grace - ages 12, 5 & 2 · We are very close to my family & lived on a 10 acre family estate until a couple Aug. 2007 ·  We have now moved to Gilbert Az (Suburb of Phoenix)          We are in love with God!  ·  We have worked in "Young Adult" Ministry, Youth Pastor's, Worship Pastor,  Family Counseling, & a Christian drug rehab but now we are taking a couple of years off from ministry to focus on family & Mike's new job.                                                            By Maya Angelo  When I say... "I am a Christian" I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."  I'm whispering "I was lost, Now I'm found and forgiven."  When I say... "I am a Christian" I don't speak of this with pride.  I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.  When I say... "I am a Christian" I'm not trying to be strong.  I'm professing that I'm weak And need His strength to carry on.  When I say... "I am a Christian" I'm not bragging of success.  I'm admitting I have failed And need God to clean my mess.  When I say... "I am a Christian" I'm not claiming to be perfect,  My flaws are far too visible But, God believes I am worth it.  When I say... "I am a Christian" I still feel the sting of pain.  I have my share of heartaches So I call upon His name.  When I say... "I am a Christian" I'm not holier than thou,  I'm just a simple sinner Who received God's good grace, somehow! We had a baby!  & a MIRACLE     Grace was  Born 3-7-06 3 lbs 8 oz IT'S A GIRL!     We were scheduled for a C-Section on 4-7-06.  That didn't happen. I developed a few problems during my pregnancy.  Most of them were controlled pretty easily (IE: diabetes & Anemia) but towards the end I also developed High blood pressure. This caused Grace to slow drastically in her growth.  The Doctor kept a CLOSE eye on me.  She preformed one test after another, and when they came back okay, she would run them again.  This being the 4th child to carry, Mike and I would laugh about her be paranoid!  I had been monitoring my blood pressure and on 3-6-06 it got a little too high. I went in to the Hospital to have them hook me up to the monitors and make sure Grace was not in any stress.  She was fine, and my blood pressure dropped to an acceptable level.  They called the Doctor in just to verify that it was okay to send me home.  Everything SEEMED okay but she wanted to do one more blood test to make sure.  Never in any of my other pregnancies had anyone taken all these test! But THANK GOD she did!  Within an hour, she came back and told me that we would be delivering this baby NOW! I had HELLP Syndrome.  It is what you get after you pass Pre-clampsia.  Besides the High blood pressure, I had started dropping protein and the big ones were that my Liver was enlarging and shutting down, and my blood platelets were dropping very rapidly. (blood platelets make your blood clot) Turns out, had she not found this, I could have had a stoke, or bled to death internally.  I have met someone since then that had HELLP that wasn't found, she was blessed! She only had permanent liver damage and her son has Curable Palsy due to lack of oxygen. Morale of this story is: God sent me to the RIGHT doctor, had me go the hospital that night when I didn't even know there was anything seriously wrong, and the doctor insisted on a test that she had taken only 3 days before!  = MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN!   Life @ home with a newborn...I almost went CRAZY!  (ok I did go  crazy) Wow....I thought it would come so natural.  This is what I was born to do right? Think again!  I almost went crazy.  Sleep deprived, and hormonal, I cried most of the day.  I was convinced that I was a failure at everything important.  I (like my husband) thought that since I was a "stay at home mom", that I would have the children clean, fed, had done crafts through that day, and the house sparkling clean with dinner on the table by the time he got home, after all, I had ALL DAY!  WRONG!  It was ALL I could do the feed them and the baby.   Well... I am adjusting to the new life and thank GOD the hormones are leveling out.  We have readjusted our expectations, and I have finding my peace in getting to be a FULL TIME mommy.   Updated 5-7-07- It is a year later and looking back I realize I am JUST NOW getting back to normal! I had not even realized how bad I had gotten!  I had a pretty bad case of "post partum depression".  It is only now that I fully understand how much it can really effect. I cried every day, I was lethargic, I wasn't getting anything done besides fedding the baby, and that's pretty much it.   Now a year later, I really think I am out of the hole that I was in. Things are good and I am still blessed with wonderful family!   I sure appreciate my mother so much more now! (She had 5) Surrogacy ~ I had my brother's baby After I had Chance, I knew that God told me that I would have a baby for someone else, but I never told anyone.   Several years later, my brother anounced that he was marring a woman that could not have children.  She had cancer and they removed all of her female organs.  We were alittle concerned for him.  He had a daughter that passed away of SIDS and had always wanted more kids.  He responded by telling us that they were going to look for a surrogate to carry a child for them.   At that moment I knew that I would be the one to do it, but..... now I had remarried a man that had no children of his own and desperately wanted to.  Mike gave me the go a head to have my brother and his wife's baby before we had our own! The first year of our marriage, I was pregnant with someone elses baby.  What an AWESOME husband! He pampered me as if I were carring his child!  All went well and I had my nephew on 3-15-02 and celebrated our 1st yr anniversary on 3-25-02.  Within 6 weeks of having Austin (my nephew) we were pregnant with the baby girl that he had always wanted. Young Adults Our passion has been working with young adult for the past 4 years.  It is such a difficult age.  If you had been in a youth group, you usually get kicked out.  Once you have graduated from high school, you are now expected to "make something use-full out of your life".  Some parent kick them out and expect them to be productive members in society, but society gives them NO help. In fact, young adults are the MAIN target of the PORN and ALCOHOL companies.  I had always thought that the highest suicide rate was among the teens, but I was wrong,  New statistics say that it is now young adults.  We have opened our home as a "young adult Hang out", just to give them a place to be encouraged, and give them somewhere to be besides to bars.   Now that we have taken on a new Youth Group, we Will integrate some of the Young Adults as Peer Leaders. Youth We have always had a soft spot for the younger kids, but I just didn't think I was ready to jump into to Youth Ministry.  It is even more work than Young Adults!  But.... God had it ALL under control!   I really fought it, but when we agreed to take over a virtually non-existent youth group, my heart fell in love with these kids too!   We have a group of kids that are outcasts!  These kids are straight "off the streets" per say.  They weren't raised by "church" families.  These kids have spent time in battered women shelters, some of them live with other family members, and most of them have either never met their fathers or haven't seen them since they were very young.  Since we have started only a few weeks ago, the group has gone from 5 kids to 20 kids.   Chance ~ Asperger's or Something else?    We always knew Chance was special, but only thought he was just a little genius.  Only after we put him in school did we realize that he had some other issues that went along with his very high IQ.  He was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. It is under the umbrella of Autism.  We have been told that there is no cure, however....After our last testings of Chance, they say he doesn't have Aspergers!  The Doctors says that it might have been that he was taking Prozac for 3 years and it could have kick started something.  I think it was GOD healing him!   With all the tests we were able to have down with Mike's insurance, we were able to get a MUCH CLEARER insight on Chance's strengths and weeknesses.  Although I HATE LABELS.... it is neccesary to have some "diagnosis" for the schools benifit.  Chance has a "written language disorder" which makes it very difficult for him to WRITE what he is thinking. This was shocking to us but made so much since! How can he TELL me the answer but not write it down! As you can imagine, this contibuted to MOST of his academic problems.  The teachers thought he was just refusing to do his workl.  It is hard to see how intelligent he is with out produceing his assignments. He also has ADD and OCD which when destracted, it is more dificult for him to refocus than it is for most kids.  Then add on there that he has a genius IQ, well... there is alot of stuff in Chance's head!   We are working on leveling out his writing skills with his grade level, but for now placement in traditional scholls will be tough.  He is at grade levels 3rd in writing and up to 1st year college in other subjects. We have decided to place him in 7th grade, and he will have tutors for writing, and be in accelerated classes for most everything else.  Thank God for technology!  Now we know what to work on and how to do it!       Phoenix update- Chance is now in 8th grade in public school.  The daily schedule of classes a different here.  They alternate classes each day. (ei: math, science, elective - Monday & Social Studies, Language, etc. on Tuesday)  This gives the teacher 50% more time to finish a lesson than if only having 30 mins a class and so much wasted time in packing up and transfering classes so often.  This has GREATLY help Chance.  It allows him to get into class and get focussed, and gets 90% of his work done at school instead of the average of 4 hours a night of homework that he had in Texas.    The other great miracle is he has FRIENDS!  Chance had an awkwardness (mostly due to his IQ) that kept him from having friends.  For the first in his life he has a social life!   PRAISE GOD!!!!!  IT is so hard for a mother to see a child that wants friends, but never have them.   Life out of appointed Ministry,  but NEVER out of  Ministry!    Since Mike & I got married, we have been in an office of ministry.  A few months ago, we resigned from youth ministry, and me being a worship pastor.  It was a decision that we both felt confident in.  We knew that there is a season for all things in our lives.  Mikes job really needed full time attenion and so did our kids.  They are only young once and babies aren't babies for long enough.  So, we had total peace that this is what God wanted for our lives for a season.  (We think 2 yrs)  Life out of appointed ministry....... wow.  I have had mixed emotions since we have taken this time off.  Mike & I both have discused the strangness of noone (other than our kids) needing us.  It is a relief, and yet leaves you wanting.  There is nothing that can compare to the feeling of being needed, being able to make a diffence in someones life.  To be called upon and the satisfaction of being able to give of yourself.  The since of purpose and accomplishment.   The pain of contantly re-inventing yourself, to make sure you have purpose!  I have done this so often, and yet this one, I think, has been the hardest.  There is no greater since of belonging or the honor that you feel when you are being used of God.   We have been attending a church that I attended years ago.  It is pretty big so it is easy to sit back and soak everything up.  Mike made a comment right as we were walking into service one day.  "I am NOT in ministry for 2 years". A man in his 40's and his wife, sat down in the row in front of us.  A couple of songs into worship, and the man appeared to be in some kind of pain.  Mike lean over and whispered in my ear, "I think he is having a heart attack".  Sure enough, his wife ran out, and came back with a small vial of pills that we recognized as Nitro from Mike's heart attacks.   He put one in his mouth and sat down, his wife erged him to leave.  He kept telling her, "no".  Mike finally reached up and laid his hands on the man's back and began to pray.  The man stood back up and lifted up both arms in worhip, and by the end of the service was feeling no symtoms at all.   On the way home Mike told me what was going on in his mind through it all. He said that God told him to pray for the man when before he started showing symtoms.  He argued with God saying that he was "not in ministry" right now.  He finally gave up the argument with God and obeyed.  I know that God probably sent someone else to pray for the man had Mike not obeyed, but how awesome is it to be used by God!   One more time Mike made the same statement, "I am not in ministry".  That evening, God sent someone else to him to remind him that we are ALL ALWAYS in ministry!  For as long as we serve God, we are all needed to minister in some way.  A smile, a hug, an encourageing word, a cake, or diner.  The ways are endless that we can minister to someone and bring a little bit of healing to a broken, hurting,or lost soul.  Moving to Phx. Wow.  From the time Chance was born, I have lived with or a block away from my parents and my sister Debbie.  While I was a single mom, my mother was Chance's primary care giver.  I know we mothers don't like to think of it, but if we have to work, our children are with someone else more than they are with us!  Thank GOD that it was my mom instead of a day care.  Until Chance was 3 1/2, I worked outside of the home and only saw him a couple hours a day before bedtime.  In 1999 My sister & I were worried about my mom & dad's retirement.  My dad had spent most of his life in a full time ministry position, and church's usually don't have great retirement plans for here on Earth.  So we quit our long term jobs with AT&T and USWEST to move to Texas to pursue a land developing business for my parents.  This would hopefully provide a residual income for them as they got older.  And no, we are not that saintly....we were supposed to benifit from it as well on a long term basis.  9-11 changed everything!   We were on tract and doing very well, but everything started taking a nose dive!  Long story short... I eventually resigned from the land business and left it to my sister & my Dad.  Single income family ~  Wow!  It is hard to make it now days on one income!  It proved to be too difficult in Texas for us.  Mike was offered a job in Phx, and we took it.   Life in Phx without Family!  The complete solitude that I have had to over come is undiscribable.  Since Chance was 6 months old, I have had my mom & sister either next door or one block away!  This is not just a loose of childcare, but a profound loose companionship, and emotional support.  Being a staty at home mom, just having the ability to walk next door and hang out when ever I wnated to, or call and have someone come over and get the kids when I was sick.  I know these are things that most peopl never get to take advantage of, but I was the very blessed one to have it all!  And I can say, I loved every minute of it, but wow!!! It is really hard to readjust to life with NO outside support.   Things are getting better.  We just got another car so I am able to have transportation when Mike is at work.  That has made a huge diffence mentally for me.  I have joined a mom and me group, and we are looking for a church closer to us that is more relationship minded.  We just haven't felt connected to the one we had been attending. I write all of this, not to post a "woah is me", but to show transparency for others to realize they are not alone in everyday struggles.  And to say that God does not always deliver us from trials but he ALWAYS sees us through!