Preacher's Delight

Tonight was the first night of Preacher's Delight, the annual conference for Pastors and Missionaries at our home church. We were so blessed to hear a sermon by Dr. Gibbs and Dr. Paul Chappell. Dr. Gibbs preached on pride and Dr. Chappell preached on how to have a great year for the Lord. The preaching was phenomenal. It was just what I needed.

Everything went really well. The choir sang three songs (I got to be in the choir) that really got the meeting started. It was such a blessing to look out over the congregation from the choir loft (before we sang) and see so many people from different churches that had come to get their batteries recharged and receive a little encouragement.

The auditorium in the church was packed. Many of Faith's people had to sit in overflow rooms to watch the sermons. We were so blessed to be able to sit in the auditorium. Preacher wanted to us be there with all the other pastors. It was so much better than when we were on staff and running from one place to another during the services. We were able to meet many pastors that we have not seen since we have been to their churches. We also met several missionaries who were on deputation the same time as us and are now also on their first furlough.

To cap off a truly wonderful night, Jason and I stopped by Starbucks on the way home to enjoy a pumpkin spice Frappaccino. You just can't end an evening any better. :-)

Tomorrow night I get to be in baby nursery for the first service. I am excited as this is the first time I have been able to help in a ministry since we have been back. I long to feel like every other church member instead of always feeling like I am special. I know many would argue that missionaries deserve special treatment and care, but many times we just want to get to work like everyone else in the church. I am shocked to find out that I miss the unseen tasks of the ministry the most since we have been home.

Happy New Year

It has been a long time since I have posted a blog. So much has been going on. We cannot say we have been bored.

We spend most of December in California. We spent most of the month staying at my in-laws house in Tehachapi. Tehachapi is located in the mountains north east of Los Angeles. We attended a few services at Lancaster Baptist Church and a few at Mojave Baptist Chapel. It has been great to see what God is doing.

We were able to visit a few new churches and even had to cancel a meeting because of Highway 58 closing due to snow. That was frustrating for us, but our kids loved it. This was the first time they had seen snow and we got about 4 inches of it. They built snowmen and made snow angels and even had a snowball fight. We were so thankful to everyone at Faith Baptist Church in Ontario who had given our kids coats, boots, hats, gloves, ect. We had a great time in the snow.

Tonight we had our New Years service at church. We were so glad to be in our home church to partake of this special event. Pastor Smith unveiled the new theme for this year as well as gave out Bible reading schedules, Prayer stickers, and church calendars for the next year. We are looking forward to going "Henceforth Unto Him" this year. I am especially looking forward to the Bible reading schedule this year. It will be great to be reading my Bible with everyone else this year. What a great thing to have several people on the same page with their Bible reading as you are.

I am also looking forward to being at our home church for a few weeks.

Audrey got a bunch of letters today from Shadow Mountain Baptist Church in Morgan Hill, CA. It is always a blessing for us to know that there are other people praying for and thinking about us. Just a simple little note means so much to a missionary. Thank you all so very much who write to us and let us know you are praying for us. We greatly appreciate it.

We look forward to serving the Lord in this present year. God has blessed us so much this past year. We can't wait to see what he has in store for us this next year. We pray that we will be able to lead many more souls to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sickness

There has been a lot of sickness at Bethel Baptist Church in West Carrollton, OH. I thought that I was getting it, but praise the Lord after sleeping almost all day I feel good enough to go to church tonight. I wasn't sure if I would feel good after lunch today, but a long nap with Joey worked.

Audrey has been going to school here the past two days and today her teacher got sick. Though it is only a 24 hour bug it comes with lots of vomiting. We are praying that no one here gets it.

We have been having lots of fun here. The assistant pastor, his wife, and the Spanish class took us to a Mexican restaurant for lunch today. The food was great and it was nice to be able to use our spanish again even it was only to order food. :-)

We have really enjoyed seeing the Hayden family again. This suit that Jordan is wearing is from them. It fits perfectly. What a blessing.

Tomorrow we head to Richmond, IN to be at the Smale's church. I don't know if we will have internet there, but we will see. If not then we will not have internet again until Thanksgiving when we are in Denver.

I am hoping to travel back here on Friday or Saturday as there is a sale at Hancock Fabrics. The Simplicity patterns are on sale for 99 cents a pattern. All of my patterns are size 4 to 6 and Audrey doesn't wear that size anymore. I am hoping to get some cute ones to take back to Honduras with me.

Six years old

We now are proud parents of a six year old. Audrey really enjoyed her birthday. We had a nice time at home with just us. She got to pick her favorite meal for breakfast and dinner. We had pancakes for breakfast and spaghetti for dinner. She was very excited to open her presents after dinner. The cake was not a dismal failure that I had feared it would be. I usually decorate the cakes for the kids, but this time as we were in a trailer with limited space, I bought one of those hard candy cake topper kits from Walmart. I turned out really cute. She loved it. I took some pictures of her opening up her gifts, but the ones of the cake didn’t come out. We have a really cheap digital camera that does not show you the picture that you took. It also defaults to no flash every time the camera powers off. It is a huge frustration on our part trying to use this camera. We really are hoping to get a good camera soon. It is so frustrating to think you got a good picture and then find out later it is all black.

Audrey got some nice things. One of the things that we found that we loved was a pair of earmuffs and a stole that have the pink poodle dog design. She loved them. She went to bed last night with them on. I had to remove them in the middle of the night.

Today we are going to visit with Pastor Gordon who was the assistant Pastor at Faith when we were in college.

This weekend we will be at Heritage Baptist Church in Canal Winchester, OH. This is the church that Jason visited when he brought Carlos from Honduras for the Smales. Last night as I was getting the clothes out of the church dryer with Joey, who was in his jammies, I was talking to one of the church ladies. I was telling her of the blessing all of the clothes donated to us when Jason came with Carlos was. I told her that even Joey’s jammies that he was wearing were donated. She looked at them and told me that those used to be her sons. She was the one who donated them to us. I was amazed as I had no clue who the things were from. I was glad I finally got to say thank you.

Seeing Old Friends

Today we were so excited to be able to go to the Hayden's house for dinner. We got to know them pretty well while on deputation. We had a great time with them. After dinner Karilee and I went to the Ladies Missionary Meeting at Bethel Baptist Church in West Carrollton. I was surprised to see some ladies that I had met in Oklahoma while on deputation. One family moved here thanks to the US Military and the other ladies are now teachers at the Christian school here.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to Ladies Bible Study. Audrey gets to attend school and so I won't have to worry about taking care of her schooling while I am at the meeting.

We had a great time at Heritage Baptist Church in Canal Winchester. We were showered with love and many snacks. :-) One of the ladies in the church gave us a bunch of gifts that we are excited to take back to Honduras for the kids there. We are hoping and praying that we will find a way to get everything back. We are looking into several different options on how to achieve that goal. We are just praying that it won't cost a lot of money.

Mommy’s vacation week

This week is going to be a treat for me. We are in Kissimmee, FL at Bible Baptist Church. They have a Christian school of 600 kids and have invited Audrey to attend classes with them. It was so nice to day to get things done in the morning that normally have to wait until the end of the day.

Yesterday we went to Walt Disney World. We were taken to the park by a retired employee. Every time she gets inside, she can bring three people in free of charge. The church has several of those, so two families went together to help us get in. We had a blast! Upon entry in the Magic Kingdom we met Pluto and went to have him sign the kids' autograph books. Jordan went right up, but Joey wanted nothing to do with him. Next we went to Mickey's house to have him sign the kids' books. They waited in line for about 30 minutes, but when they were finally there it was worth it all. They take the kids one family or two at a time to another room where Mickey is and they can have pictures taken with him. Jordan and Joey were so excited. Jordan kept telling Mickey that he had him on his clothes. Joey wouldn't stop hugging him so we could take a picture. When we finally got him to turn around, we took the picture and started to leave. Joey ran back and kissed Mickey on the nose. It was so cute.

Audrey especially liked the Princess room. She got to meet Belle, Snow White and Cinderella at the same time. That was great. Afterward, we went on lots of rides. The kids' favorite ride was Splash Mountain. I was amazed that Jordan was tall enough to get on it. I was very nervous that he would scream the whole time, but he did great. In fact he wanted to get on again, but we didn't want to wait in line for over an hour just to ride it. Our first time on it we had fast boarding tickets. You can get one at a time for quick boarding at a set time of the day.

The kids got a special treat when we were leaving. They got to ride in the front of the monarail car with the driver. When they got off they received a "co-pilot" license for the monarail.

We saw the parade and Jason and I enjoyed seeing the kids' faces more than the parade. They were in awe of the whole thing. We are tired after the full day, but we have a lot of memories of a great day.

Jacksonville

Well, here we are in Jacksonville, FL. It is kind of neat being in the city where I was born. I am amazed that my parents were able to stand this heat for a long time. It is a lot cooler today and humidity is down. The past few days have been very hot though. It makes me very glad that everything we have done has been indoors and the air-conditioners work very well. It is funny talking to missionaries who are based in Florida talk about going to other parts of the country and talk about how cold it is all the time.

We had one problem while we were driving here and that is that the siding of the trailer started to come off. In the front on the drivers side we had serious delamination occur. We have it sealed off with duct tape for now. We can only drive about 50 mph or it baloons up so we have to get it fixed before we leave here. We had one estimate for $1,800 to $3,800 depending on the damage to the wood underneath the siding. We are looking for other estimates as we do not have that kind of money.

This week we are at our Field Conference for Latin America which is being held at West Jacksonville Baptist Church. At the same time they are having their Missions Conference. We are having a great time and the church is taking such good care of us. We have eaten far to much and today they took us Ladies out shopping. I was able to get a beautiful dress and some earrings to match. I also got a nice casual shirt and a necklace to match that. It was such a blessing to have not only the fellowship of other missionaries, but also to get to spend some money that was just for us. I tried to buy some jeans for Jordan (he has outgrown all but one and is close to growing out of those) but the other missionary ladies wouldn't let me. They said it was for me and they were going to make sure I spent it on me. :-)

The preaching this week has been excellent. This morning Pastor Kelley spoke on Belzaleel from the book of Exodus. He was a man that was the master craftsman who built the tabernacle. He showed us that God inroduced him in Exodus chaper 31 (I think) and then showed us how Aaron didn't use him to build the golden calf and how wasn't that odd that Aaron didn't try to use the best craftsman in all of Isreal to make the calf. He said the Belzaleel was saving himself for the work of God. He was the only human to touch the Ark of the Covenant and live. It was a great sermon. We have had one great preacher after another. We only have one more day of this. :-( God has really touched our hearts this week.