GRACE"S article " God Working Thru a Crying Baby" Is the winner for the January  article competition!!  Grace received a $5 gift card to Swirls  frozen yogurt shop for her prize. It was a very close race with runer up only 1 or 2 votes behind. Thank you all for voting we look forward to next month. 

We've finally posted a new batch of articles! This means we need you to vote on which one is the best.  The article to receive the most votes wins and the author will receive a special prize. Please read all the articles, taking into account the age of the author, and then cast your vote.

Please Vote By Friday February 3rd.

We can't wait to hear from you!

~The Schamel Children

It was late in the evening on the 17th of January when our cousins were just leaving a friends house. They just had a birthday party for my cousin Jonathan.

Most of the family went straight home, but Paula and Alethea stopped to get gas in their green Geo Prizm.

        After filling up, the two girls started home. The two were driving on highway 142 near Myrtle MO when head lights came speedily over the hill in their lane! Paula slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The drunk driver smashed into them in a head on collision. The force of the other vehicle pushed the Geo Prizm backward almost 20 ft! The front of the car was crushed into the windshield and both of the girls were trapped inside of the car.

        Paula could hear her sister screaming in pain. She tried to get her cell phone, but her right arm was broken and she could not find the cell phone with her left hand; they would just have to wait for someone to call it in. Paula started crying out to God, that he would help them, they were trapped in the car and she could not even call 911. Just a few minutes later an off duty first responder drove up on the accident on her way home.

        Meanwhile the rest of the family was at the house wondering where the girls might be. Soon my uncle Robert got the kids in the car to go look for them, leaving my Aunt Lydia, the baby Lydia and Jonathan at home. Uncle Robert drove about eight miles from the house and saw emergency lights everywhere. Pulling off the road with that very deep sick feeling in his stomach, he waited hoping that his two daughters were just pulled off the road because they saw the accident. Then Uncle Robert saw Alethea being put into the helicopter. There was no mistake; they had been in a very dangerous car accident.

      When the emergency team got to the accident the car was so smashed they had to cut the top of the car completely off and cut the floorboard in a few places so they could stretch the car out to get the girls out. They immediately flew Paula to Springfield; she had a little bleeding to the brain and broken bones, but was fairly stable.  Alethea on the other hand was not doing very well, on the way to Springfield her pulse stopped for about 30-40 min, so they took her to West Plains first to stabilize her.

        Doctors at West Plains gave Alethea a blood transfusion which stabilized her enough to get her to Springfield. There was probably not one doctor or nurse that expected her to make the trip, but we know a living God that is still answering prayers. At the St. Johns hospital in Springfield, they were able to take a look at all of the injuries both of the girls had obtained.

        Paula had a broken right arm, broken right leg and a little bleeding to the brain, but they were able to get that stopped.

        Alethea had a shattered pelvis bone, broken legs, internal bleeding, and one of her kidneys were severely damaged and the other was having trouble. God has been answering prayers from all over the world for these young girls.

        Paula is doing much better and they have set her broken bones and she is in rehab already!

         Alethea is doing much better also. They were able to get her internal bleeding to stop, she is able to respond more and react to the doctors commands. She is going into have surgery on the 26th of January and they will go from there.

        We thank all of you for all of your prayers, and we ask that you keep praying for the girls and their family as they make their recovery. Although they will have a long and hard road ahead of them, we thank God for working wonders for them, and that it is only because of all of those precious prayers from all of you. 

For the last several years, we have been breeding our two Labradors, Princess and Buddy. Our business is called “Breeder Buddies.”   Breeder Buddies has provided families with 46 loving “best friends” over the past 3 years.

     On December 16th Princess had her last litter of puppies. It was the smallest litter yet! Five. We decided it is time for Princess to retire, since she is 9 years old. We wanted to keep Breeder Buddies going, so we were looking for a replacement for Princess, when we found and unexpected answer.

     A lady from Albuquerque, New Mexico was selling, not just one female, but six females and two males. One named Little Ann was due to have puppies on the 11th of January. Dad, Ben and I decided that since the dogs were only $2,100 that we would take all them.

         We rented a U-Haul and on Saturday the 14th of January we went to Albuquerque and picked up 8 new dogs. The one that was going to have puppies on the 11th had not had them yet, but looked like she could pop at any time. I was afraid the stress of moving might make her go into labor, but God spared us the trouble.

        On Sunday the 15th David went to the barn and 2 of the dogs dug out. Ben and I were filling sick yet, out chasing dogs. What fun.

         On the 16th of January, Little Ann had 9 puppies. It was freezing cold the night before. So When I went to the barn I saw that 3 had froze. Ben came down and prayed for the puppies. Two hours later we checked on the puppies and all of the puppies were alive. Now we have 23 dogs. 13 of the dogs are puppies and 10 adults. 

    Two years ago dad would never have let us have 23 dogs at one time! We don’t know exactly what we are going to do with all the dogs yet, since we really only need 3 females and 1 male.   But Breeder Buddies has definitely expanded.