Trip to Houston

This past weekend, we traveled to Houston for the wedding of a dear friend! While there, we were so blessed to be able to stay with some other dear friends, the Riddell family!

Mr. and Mrs. Riddell have 3 daughters: Tara and Kelly and Elizabeth. They are SO MUCH FUN!!! and such a godly family too!

We arrived in Houston on Friday, and headed over to the Fiesta Fellowship dinner that the engaged couple hosted for many of their guests. We had a wonderful time catching up with Tara and Kelly (above) and also the bride and her sweet family!

Part of the Fiesta Fellowship was a "family talent show" for everyone to do something special for the bride and groom. The songs, skits, stories, and poems had everyone roaring with laughter! Our family wrote a song, and sang in public for our first time together ever!! :) Yikes! :)

Here is the lovely couple Katelin and Nathan on their wedding day! A special thing about their ceremony was that both of them saved their very first kiss for the wedding alter! What a special gift they were able to give to each other. And what an inspiration this was to Christa and me also!

Our whole family really enjoyed being able to serve during the wedding in a variety of ways. Before the ceremony, we took gifts from guests to a designated room, manned the guest book, and welcomed guests. During the reception, we helped to restock the "munchie" table... :)


...and Christa's and my favorite part was serving toppings for the ice cream sundaes that the family had at the reception instead of cake! Learning to spoon liquid caramel into a cup without getting it all over the table cloth, the outside of the cup, and the hands of the guest was quite a task! :)
Ice cream serving buddies! :)

We consider these 3 older girls, Kelly Riddell, Katrina Rebsch (sister of the bride), and Tara Riddell, our mentors, and we are so thankful for their friendship! We also had such a fun time getting to know Elizabeth Riddell (age 10) better over the weekend! She is a sweet friend too! :)

Praise the Lord for friends who encourage us in our walk with Him!

Family Choir Camp

This past week, we hosted a family choir camp at our church! We had some sweet friends of ours, Mr. and Mrs. Amon and Joy Baker, drive over from Arkansas to direct it for us. Mr. Baker is in his eighties, and Mrs. Baker is almost eighty, but both seem years younger!! Together, they have been directing choirs and teaching voice for over sixty years!

It was such a joy to have them in our home for the week that they were here! They are a lovely, vibrant couple that truly loves and serves Jesus, and it was so much fun to be able to get to know them better!

The choir camp was Wednesday and Thursday evening, and all day Friday and Saturday. We rehearsed six anthems to sing, and loved every one of them! Here is a picture of all of us squeezed into the choir loft! :) There were about 40 people participating - most of them from our church, but a couple homeschool families from other churches as well.

The fun thing about the week was that we had all ages participating: from six years old to seventy years old!! :) This is Christa with a new friend, Bethany, (17 yrs) and another little friend, Andrew, (6 yrs) in her lap! :)


Besides working on the six anthems to sing, we also had something called masterclasses incorporated into our rehearsal times. This was a brief personal lesson in front of the group to get Mr. Baker's advice and input. Though everyone was more than a little nervous to participate, there were quite a few who decided to take the plunge and put together a song to sing for everyone. :)

Christa playing the piano for our friends, Emily and Jenny, as they practice their duet to sing for a Masterclass.

The two sets of twins! :)

Hope and Grace Rohlin were my "second soprano buddies" during the rehearsal times!!

Mr. Baker...
And the joyful Mrs. Joy Baker!

Even Dad was a good sport and joined us for the week as a promising (but sometimes goofy!!) tenor! :)

On Sunday morning, we warmed up our voices in the Fellowship Hall, and then headed on in to the Sanctuary to present our program of six anthems as part of the worship service.

We closed out the week with a sad farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Baker. We had such an enjoyable time and felt like we benefited so much from the instruction we received!

Calming, Captivating, Commendable Colorado!!

Part 2 -
After having spent a week and a half in the Midwest, (pictures in the previous post below) we pointed our minivan westward to the beautiful mountains of Colorado!

In the lovely town of Fort Collins, we attended our biannual staff training conference for Campus Crusade for Christ, along with 4,000 of our "best friends!" :) The speakers were so inspiring as we heard reports of all that the Lord is doing all over the world as men and women seek to share the Gospel Message! We were able to meet up with old and new friends, and spend time with so many special people! Sadly, we were slackers and pretty much forgot our camera for the whole conference, so we don't have pictures of any of them but one of our dear friends, Libby Cox.
Yes, true gal friends always do each other's hair! :)

Libby is such a special friend, and we were so excited to be able to spend time almost every day with her! From shopping, to long chats, to taking walks, to picnics, to sitting in meetings together, we loved every minute of it! :)

And Mom (actually all of us!) always looks forward to reconnecting with Libby's mom (and dad!) whose sense of humor brings roars of laughter to us all!!

After the conference ended, we decided to spend a few extra days "tooling" around Colorado and spending time in the gorgeous countryside! We ended up passing through Colorado Springs, Denver, Boulder, and all the little "cutesy" towns in between! :)

One of the days, we decided to take a free 5 minute ski lift ride in Winter Park! Fun, fun, fun!!

Here we are in Boulder, walking through Pearl Street Mall! What a crazy, but fun place!

Our favorite times were when we could hike the mountains and explore in creeks and water falls!

Dad in hiking mode! :)

On our way home after a fantastic time in Colorado, we saw this beautiful rainbow! What a reminder of God's faithfulness to us!

HOME!!!

We are back home!! After almost a month of traveling like gypsies, :) we have returned and have finally gotten a handle on bags and bags (and bags and bags) of "stuff" to unpack, mountains of laundry, hundreds of emails, stacks of dishes, etc! But it was all worth it!! The Lord gave us a terrific time, and so many unexpected blessings during the month! We'd like to share just a few of these with you now!


Our first stop was Illinois to stay with my dad's sister, Diane, and her new husband, Don! (on the very left in the picture above) While there, we got to spend an evening with my dad's other sister, Julie and her husband Randy (in the middle of the picture) and their children Meagan and Nick and Nick's fiance (not pictured). And of course we had to make a stop at Whitey's ice cream with everyone! On the Sunday that we spent in Illinois, we visited one of our sending churches, and saw many of our special ministry partners and friends! Though we don't have pictures of any of them, we were so blessed by our time with each one!!


Next stop was Union Pier Michigan (the very southern tip, and I do believe one of the most beautiful places on earth!!) We rented a little cottage right on the beach and stayed up there as a family for the first few days, then Aunt Diane and Uncle Don came up from Illinois to join us for the rest of the time! It was wonderful to be able to take a little break from our busy schedule and rest by the beach!

Activities included:

Badminton,


Rock hunting,

Walks along the beach,

Frisbee,

Bike riding along the darling little streets of Union Pier,

Reading aloud as a family,

Canoeing,

A campfire and s'mores,

And of course swimming!

There were huge waves on a couple of days!

Here I am trying to tame "Finley"- my out of control blow - up dolphin! Impossible! lol

One morning we took a bike ride to "The Whistle Stop:" a little breakfast place,

And another morning, we had special visitors walk by our site on the beach!! :)

Out to eat as a group after a long day in the sun!

Sweet Mom and Dad!

Beach twins! :)


Stay tuned for part 2 of our summer travels: to the Rocky Mountains and beyond!! :)

The Blessed Tree Swing

-Sunday morning, 9:00 AM. -

"Yahoooooooooooo!!!!!!!!"

I looked out the kitchen window to our backyard. I had my suspicions as to who was making all the commotion, and what I saw confirmed I had guessed correctly. Four little boys all trying to pile at once onto our little green tree swing. Four little boys all yelling at the top of their lungs. Four little boys running around our tiny backyard and tackling each other mercilessly.



"It's the neighborhood posse, come to make their rounds!" Dad announced from the family room, where he was ironing his shirt in preparation for church later that morning . I grinned at him. This "posse" was a regular visitor at our house because of our fun swing, and also because of the "free" water and suckers we are so well known for in these parts. :)

Let me back up a little bit. Four years ago, we had our handyman, Mr. G, put up a cute little green swing that matched our cute little green picket fence from our huge sycamore tree in our backyard. For several years now, our backyard has been a "hotspot" among many neighborhood children because of that swing, and we loved the many open doors this has provided for us to get to know and reach out to these children. Most or all of them come from not - so - good families, and don't have a clue as to what it means to know Christ personally. So we go out to give them "underdoggies" on the swing, and give them water and suckers (and bananas and apples...) and talk to them about Jesus.



So when we were informed just recently that our huge tree was dying, or mostly dead, we were terribly disappointed! If we cut down the tree, then this meant no more swing, and no more swing meant no more children. So we came up with an idea: why not just cut down all but the trunk and the one branch that the swing hung from?

Yes, you may laugh (and all our neighbors did! :)) but the kids keep coming, and there is still enough life in that trunk and one branch to give the kids many more hours of fun! :)

So back to Sunday morning, the noisy boys soon ambled up to our sliding glass door to ask for a drink. They claim we have the best water they've ever tasted!! Then they asked me to come out and give them underdoggies, since I'm bigger than they are and can push them higher. :) So I did, even though I was dressed for church, and right in the middle of lunch preparations to take to our church potluck.

Soon, to my surprise, spiritual conversation came up. Coy...

...9 years old and the most outspoken, told us "Victor doesn't believe in Jesus."


Victor is 10 and twins with James. (I'm sad to say that I don't have pictures of either of them!) They are sweet little guys, and don't actually live in the neighborhood, but come to visit their grandparents every once in a while who live on our street.

So we were off and running, talking about Jesus, and soon Dad joined us to talk some more. At one point, when Dad was talking about heaven and hell, Coy looked up aghast at Dad and questioned, "isn't that a bad word??" lol!! There was some obvious interest from the three of them, and it became very apparent that Victor, in fact, was open to Jesus, but there was one other boy, Gavin - 9 years - that seemed distant. He left for a while, and we thought that he probably wouldn't come back.

While he was gone, the three other boys all expressed that they were ready to ask Jesus into their hearts!! We were so excited, and made sure that they understood the decision that they were making. Just when we were about to pray, Gavin came back, and bowed his head with the rest, repeating the words after Dad to make the Lord their Savior. Praise the Lord!!

Victor looked up after the prayer. "Why is my heart burning??" he asked slyly. Coy joined in: "and why is everything changing colors??" Ha ha, you silly guys! It was so fun to hear all the cute, fun things they had to say.

Gavin, normally the most wild, was surprisingly a bit more sober than all of them. We found out why just a few moments later. His uncle had been murdered just the night before, and his whole family was in shock and grief. So we were able to go over and talk to his parents, who are not Christians at all, and offer our help in any way that we could.

So we completely missed church, but we made church in our backyard instead that morning! God works in wonderful ways, and we praise His Name!

We are not sure if these boys were sincere or not in their decision that morning, but we do know that seeds were planted, and we fully intend to follow them up!

Would you join us in praying for each one of these four boys and their families: Coy, Gavin, James and Victor? Also for Gavin's little sisters Audrye and Jana (pictures below). Thank you!!