Restoration

We just got back from a week in Louisville with our youth group serving on a mission trip.  Except for a two night hospitalization for Mike (stupid cellulitus) it was an amazing week.  The worship was amazing and the preacher was one of the best I have ever heard.  He preached on Joel chapters 1-2 and the theme for the week was Restoration.

I know that this week was for the kids but this youth leader was certainly blessed beyond words with the message and our service this week.  It has been a tough year for many reasons, and being reminded how God restores hurts, challenges, and disappointments blessed me.  I recently did a study on the life of Hosea and I studied how God redeems what the locust take and then to hear about locusts again in Joel blessed me.  It has been a year full of locusts and I have faith that God will restore the challenges.

My best girl served with these amazing girls at a park in Louisville.  I am thankful for Kim and Victoria who were the other gal chaperones on this trip and for serving our youth all week long.  Seeing these youth have bibles open each night during worship and take notes on the sermon just about made me want to weep.  May their hearts stay devoted to God.

Kyle, David and I got to serve along with some other awesome youth in a refugee community in Louisville.  We literally went door to door interviewing families on behalf of encounter ministries asking lots of questions about where they are from and how long they have been in America before offering services on behalf of the ministries.  Despite our current political climate regarding refugees I was blown away how many homes we were welcomed into. 

We also invited all the children we saw to come to the park each day from 1-3 for fun and VBS type of activities.  It blew my mind how many parents allowed us to take their children with us to the park-the level of trust overwhelmed me.  It was a magical week of learning about different people, different cultures and different religions. 

The evening worship was so good!  David was a big fan!

I took so many notes from this week but I will always remember the preacher challenging us that we cannot witness to the World if we look like the world.  We have to be set apart and look differently. 

I will also remember the phrase " I am not worried about you going to church I am worried about what you are doing to benefit the kingdom of God!" Amen and amen! 

We are not perfect and certainly we all have sins to lay at the cross, but this week I was such a proud youth leader to see our kids step up.  They stepped up when we went one chaperone down, they stepped up at their sites, they stepped up their behavior and were so good, and I am just so proud of them.  Youth ministry is a challenge (especially when someone always ends up in the hospital) but it is such an honor to see these youth outside their comfort zones serving the kingdom of God. 

I will never ever forget this week in the city of Lousiville learning about God's restoration from the locusts and watching our kids step up for the Kingdom of God.  It is always hard to come back to reality after a week serving the Lord but I am thankful for the awesome time we had. 

I am thankful also for the laughs that we have as a group!  If anyone thinks it is boring to follow Christ come hang out with us.  We crack ourselves up so much because there is such joy in serving the Lord.  We may have shushed a few people this week and set off an alarm or two but our joy could not be denied.  A life following Christ is a blast! 

I never will forget the beautiful people of all races and colors who also claim Christ as their savior.  I was humbly reminded this week that Jesus is not white and he welcomes all the little children of the world.  Heaven is going to be a diverse and beautiful place if it resembles Maplewood refugee community. 

Thankful and Joy

 It has been a full and wonderful Thanksgiving break around here.  I love time off together and I love it when our schedule allows for shopping dates with Mike, family night at the movie theatre (boys saw Creed and girls saw Grinch), family time in Radford, and.......


the annual Virgnia Tech and UVA football game!  It was cold, and dramatic and some of us left the game smiling when VT pulled it out in Overtime!! It was such a fun time with extended family:)

Thanksgiving Day was spent in Radford with this strong-willed, hilarious woman and my parents!  She is doing well despite her cancer diagnosis.  She is sweet as pie but can give the nursing home folks a run for their money. :)  She is something else!

It is officially basketball season here in our home!!  Kyle is on varsity and Dave is the middle school team manager.  Hope is also on her Daddy's AAU team and they play in tournaments on Saturday.  This is the time of year when life gets busy but we love every moment of it.  Hope is also swimming one day a week, taking piano one day a week and is learning the basics of volleyball.  I keep reminding myself that one day we will have no one to take to practice anymore and we will miss this. 

Hope recently had her piano recital and did amazing!!!  Piano has taught her so much confidence and we love it.

Recently we had a stock holders dinner at youth where our youth served a dinner for  those who have supported their faith development and they spoke about their experiences in youth.  It overwhelmed me to hear in their own words how God has been working in their lives.  My hearts was so proud and happy that I could have wept tears in gratitude.  GG and Pops came down for the dinner and here are our kiddos with them.  Youth ministry is a family affair in this house and we love every moment of it. 



Speaking of youth, we have launched our big Christmas project through Santa's Elves.  We have adopted 40 kids to shop for for Christmas.  The youth LOVE doing this and it blesses my heart to see how much love and care they put into shopping for our kids.  We will be hosting a party for the kids on pickup day before Christmas.  We are all pretty excited about this.

This month I have been doing a daily bible journaling on gratitude.  Between the bible journaling and spending a weekend at Hearts on Fire with some awesome senior high girls from church it has been a wonderful month.  I have slowly realized that happiness and joy are two different things.  Happiness is dependent upon circumstances and joy is feeling content despite your circumstances.  I am focusing on joy for the rest of 2018:)  Joy is time with family on a break, watching my youth serve so well, watching my kids play a sport they love, and spending time worshipping God. 

October

October despite the rain and sudden temperature change... you have treated us well.  Life is full but life is good.  I am finally OFF of the scooter and trying to live my best life despite all the hardware in my ankle which makes each step a wee bit painful.  I am so so so thankful to be on this side of the ankle drama of 2018, but I have learned so very much during this painful season and I am thankful. 


One of the blessings of the month so far was traveling to Knoxville on a random Thursday night to hear Jen Hatmaker!  I have read many of her books and I have learned so much from her books about widening who is invited to God's table.  One of my favorite Jen quotes is "As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live-we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love.  The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self." 

I aspire to be an includer-one who invites all to God's table to taste and see that He is so good.  I am not always a model christian (hello, road rage...) but I try so hard to boast about God every chance I get.  It was a wonderful and unexpected evening and it blessed my soul.  We also were blessed with Nicole Nordeman's gorgeous voice. 

Our "girls" are getting so big and I love them.  They are funny, they are curious and they make me happy.  We are somewhat concerned Tractor Supply may have mislabled one of our girls and that Felicia may indeed be a rooster instead of a hen.  I cannot even imagine saying "bye felicia" to her but if she is indeed a rooster we will have to rehome her.  We should know in the next month or so if Felicia is a boy or girl by the scientific method of waiting to hear her crow! Ha!

Thankful I had an unexpected night out to see Jen Hatmaker.  I have always shared that I would have loved to have had a bigger family but our kids are at such a good age and because my parents came to help chauffer kids and feed them it was pretty painless to head out of town for a night that was good for my soul.  Mike was out of town teaching his heart out to fellow administrators.

A joy this fall so far has been family and friend time at VT games.  We love our Hokies but spending time together trumps what happens on the field.  We are a dysfunctional bunch but we do love each other and have a lot of laughs.  My brother is the tailgating drill seargent getting us all organized and hyped for the game.  All of our boys are growing so fast.... Pops looks like he is shrinking but our boys are catching up to him.

Kyle was blessed with a great day of ACC football with his friend Jonathan and our friend, Dr. Bill.  They were gone to North Carolina for 20 hours and caught the UVA football game followed by the Va Tech football game.  They had such a great time making memories. 

This has been a busy season with our youth at church.  Each week I lead a bible study for middle schoolers after school on Wednesdays, we then have breakfast club at Mcdonald's every Thursday morning before school at 7:15 a.m., and then Mike and I are leading a study to guys and gals on Sunday nights.  I love every moment of it.  Youth ministry blesses you when you least expect it.... One of our girls admitted at bible study Sunday night that she finally "gets it" and it starting her journey of faith after being involved in our minsitry for several years.  To see these kids fall in love with Jesus is amazing and blesses my heart.  This is a place I never ever dreamed we would be yet here we are surrounded by teenagers....Life is good and God is so very good. 

October you are living up to your hype!