Faith Brielle Pentimone - Our Faithie-Love
And so we come to the last little Pentimone, our dear little “Faithie-Love”. Three years younger than Ellia, everyone was again very excited to have another addition to the family. Faith’s due date was one day before Daniel’s 18th birthday. As it turned out, Faith was born on Daniel’s 18th birthday. That didn’t make for a very fun 18th birthday for Daniel, but he has seemed very happy ever since to share his special day with this precious girl.
From a very early age, it was apparent that Faith was extremely gifted when it came to numbers. She would look at books, not to see the pictures, but to see the numbers on the bottom of the pages. She was able to count much earlier than the others, and she was able to count much further than they could at those ages. Surprisingly, Faith has not continued to be super excited about numbers. While she does very well at math, her interest is much more in words. Faith wants to write and write and write. She especially enjoys developing characters for her stories. Very recently, Faith has become interested in fonts, illustration and animation on the computer. We will have to wait to see how this will all work out. Faith also enjoys riding her bike, going on walks, and her disc golf game is improving as she will often join the rest of the family for a round of disc golf.
While Ellia didn’t qualify for the National competition of the Bible Bee the first two years, Faith qualified her very first year at the age of seven placing 4th on the qualifying test. We weren’t sure whether we should be happy or sad, knowing how much work there was to prepare for the national competition. Although Faith didn't advance to Finals that year, she went on the following year to place 2nd in the Primary Division. In her years in the Bible Bee, Faith has made semi-finals 6 out of 7 times. She has placed 2nd and 3rd in the nation in the Primary Division, and 5th in the Junior Division. Faith is very diligent about Scripture memory and is currently memorizing the book of Ephesians.
Faith came to know the Lord at the age of 9. Faith and Dan were reading Proverbs together consistently. Faith began asking more and more questions during their time in the Bible together. Dan took this opportunity to talk about faith in Christ, repenting of sin, and the cost of following Christ. During these conversations, Faith came to know the wonderful grace of Christ. She repented of her sin and placed her faith in Jesus Christ alone. She was baptized by Dan shortly thereafter.
In her zeal both to write and to make friends, Faith has a number of pen-pals. The current total stands at eight pen-pals. As soon as she gets a letter from a friend (and that is really often), she is off to write a response. Usually she will not mail the letter for a few days because she is concerned that she is sending her letters too fast!
Faith and Ellia were a great source of joy to their grandfather during the eight years he lived with us. He would say how God gave us those girls to be his little friends. They would spend time with Grandpa almost daily playing games and often reciting Scripture to him. We are excited to see how God will use them in the advancement of his kingdom in the days ahead.
We are thankful that Faith is only 13. That means we have her in our home for a number of years yet, God willing. We love this dear girl and are thankful for her!
