VBS Advertising and Setup

We are so excited as it is our favorite time of the year,
Vacation Bible School!

Last Sunday after church, we had a window painting party and wrote on everybody's vehicle windows so they could be moving billboards for VBS.  Sadly, Sunday Night it rained and washed all the windows clean.  I wrote on our windows again on Wednesday Night and again within an hour or so the sunny skies turned gray and washed my handiwork off!  Today I knew I would be running all over town so I painted the van windows again!  So far so good and the windows are still decorated!

Every year we have the Rickard family come and do our VBS.  We have had the whole family do it for us for years and they do an amazing job!  As their children have grown, their children have left their parents and come and helped us put on VBS.  This year we have the youngest two, Nathan and Mary, here to run it for us.  Nathan and Mary got here tonight and we spent time decorating and getting the
santuary ready for the very busy week.

This year the theme is "Be All You Can Be for the Glory of God"

The missionary story this year is Dr. Vic and how he came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  The daily verses are on the walls allong with a few doctor charts that will be used in the missionary story. 

We are so excited to see what God does during this week and we are praying that we have a lot of kids and that these children and their parents will hear the gospel of Christ and be saved!







"Jesus Loves Me" Wall

One of my favorite things to do at every church we serve in is to make a "Jesus Loves Me" wall.

Every child that comes to Sunday School or Wednesday Night Bible Adventures gets their picture taken.  I then cut around their picture and stick it on the wall with sticky tack.  We have this in the main hallway where everyone passes by it. (This why the pitutre is slanted!) 

All the kids and adults love it and there are always a couple of kids or adults standing there talking and laughing as they point out all the different faces they find, old and new friends, bus and church kids, and some that have moved or grown-up.  The kids also love to find themselves and will let me know if I have forgotten anyone!  It is so fun when years later the kids look at the pictures of when they were little and firsted started coming to church.

Everytime I walk by the wall, the song "Jesus Loves Me"

 pops into my mind.  Flintstone style that is!

Jesus Loves Me (Sung to the tune of the Flintstones)

Jesus, Jesus loves me

Jesus, loves me, loves me this I know,

For the, For the Bible

For the Bible, Bible tells me so!

Little, little ones to Him belong,

They are, they are weak but He is strong!

 Jesus, Jesus loves me

Jesus, loves me, loves me this I know!

Scream Ball

What do I do when, on a Sunday morning,  the kids are extra hyper and not sitting quietly and not focused and listening?
  I break out the Scream Ball!

The kids love the scream ball and pay extra attention when I pull it out.

When the ball is my hand the kids have to be totally quiet,

but when I throw it in the air.................

The kids scream as LOUD as they can!  As soon I catch the ball again..........

Everyone has to be totally silent! 

I do not use this every week, as I want to keep the Scream Ball special and not something the kids expect.  I do not like raising my voice in class so this works well to get and keep the kids attention on the days that the kids are having a hard time sitting still and staying focused.  I have to mention that we usually have one kid who tries to be onery and lets out a little scream after I have the ball in my hand while all the others are quiet.  When this happens I immediately hand out small treats to all the kids except the one who did not follow directions.  This usually solves the problem immediately as no one wants left out from getting a treat!



My Sweet Daughter-In-Love

Chandler and Saraina celebrated their one year anniversary last week.

It has been so much fun watching them as God leads and guides them in their new life and watching them grow in Christ as a married couple.  From the moment Chandler started courting Saraina, she fit right into our crazy and wacky family.  She loves to laugh and tease but she also can be serious, she loves God and her favorite place to be is at church either serving in Sunday School or sitting and listening intently to the sermon, she is quiet and kind and compassionate but at the same time she stands up for what is right and wrong.  I tease Chandler often that he married my mini-me as Saraina acts and talks and thinks like me in so many, many ways.  He rolls his eyes at me and smiles and says, "I know, I know, I don't know how it happened!"

The other day, Saraina and I were sitting and laughing as we always do and she said to me, "I don't think a Daughter-in-law is supposed to get along this well with her Mother-in-law!"  I know that in the world today many realtionships between mothers and daughter-in-laws are strained but God wants us to have rich, full and loving realtionships with each other.  Saraina is such a loving and sweet young woman and we have a wonderful relationship without drama or strife but full of laughter and tears and so many long wonderful talks about God and family, politics and everything else under the sun.   

We love Saraina and are blessed that she is a part of our family and we are looking forward to watching as she and Chandler bring a new little one into our family and raise him for God.



A Quiet Father's Day

We were so excited this morning to watch Chy get baptized!  Chy and her mom just moved here from Idaho and have been a wonderful addition to our church family.  Chy's mom was blessed to lead her daughter to the Lord and Chy then followed her salvation with believer's baptism.

(I know it's blurry but it's the only picture I got of the special moment!)

The sermon today was so good!  Even though Chep preached a Father's day message it really convicted and challenged me!

Chep said he was exhausted from a long week so we ordered pizza, spoiled him with a few presents and then let him take a well deserved nap!  A very quiet Father's Day but still very special as we spent the day together, worshipping the Lord.

Paint Day

I am exhausted, sore and totally sunburned! 

The church has been in need of repainting since last year but we just have not had the time.  With the new building going up soon my husband wanted to get it painted.  The church was painted a dirty eggshell color with brown trim and my husbnad wanted to paint it bright white with dark blue trim to match the siding and roofing of the new building. We started at 8 o'clock this morning and finished at 9 tonight. 
Whew, what a long day!

Very inventive way to reach the roof peak!

I didn't get an after picture because it was so late when we finished but the color change is a big difference and the blue against the white looks wonderful.  We are praying that the change will draw attention as people drive by and bring us some visitors.  Now it's time to clean up and get ready for another wonderful day in the Lord's house!



Ladies G.A.B. Night

Tonight was our monthly Ladies G.A.B. Night (Gathered Around the Bible).

All our ladies love G.A.B. night and I'm not sure if it's because of the devotion, the food, the craft or if it's because of all the laughs we have!  Tonight our devotion was  "Are People Afraid of You".  So often our children, our friends, our family and even our husbands are afraid of us because of our words and reactions to what they say to us, what they share with us or the decisions they make that we do not agree with.  Psalm 19:14 says that our words and thoughts need to be acceptable in God's sight.  Our words and reactions hurt others and make them fear us because we feel that things should be done our way, that other's ideas are not as good as ours, that others are not seeing the the situation or problem the same way we are, or that other's actions or way of doing things inconvience us.  We had a wonderful Bible study about how all our thoughts, our actions, and our words need to be gentle and not grieveous, loving and not harsh, soft and not full of strife.  Psalms 141:3 says we need to constantly be asking God to help us set a watch over our mouths so that nothing unrighteous comes out of our lips .   

For our craft we made magnetic words to put on our fridges,bathroom mirrors or desks at work.  Some ladies chose verses from our Bible study and some ladies just chose words from those verses to remind them to keep their words gentle, soft and gracious.

For dinner all the ladies brought their favorite salad topping

and we made yummy salads.  Notice there are not many green veggies on my salad, I hate green things!

What a sweet time of fellowship we had tonight and I thank God for another night to study His Word with other ladies!

 

Psalm 46

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;   Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.  There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.  God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.  The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.  He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.   Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

This passage flooded my mind today as my husband and I sat in the hospital waiting room with a very dear lady in our church.  This dear lady's husband had just had a heart attack and was in surgery.  The waiting room was crowded with family and many of them were crying and looking totally devastated as they waited to hear whether or not their loving father and grandfather had made it through surgery.  The look, the posture, the actions and words of this dear woman was so different than that of her family gathered around her.  While she was truly upset her husband was going through this life or death situtaion, she sat there peaceful and strong as she knew who was her strength, who was her help and who was in control of the situation.  As we sat there she asked me this question, "How can people go through times like this without the Lord."  She shared with me how she could not imagine having to bear this without the Lord holding her up through it.  She told me how she wanted God to heal her husband but if He chose to take her husband at that moment she was would be fine with it.  She truly knew that God would be her strength and help, no matter what He chose to take her through.  She also asked for me to pray with her that through this her children and grandchildren would come back to church and become strong in their relationship with Him.  We prayed and prayed while her husband was in surgery and everyone cried tears of joy when the doctors came out and told us that this man came out of surgery and was doing great.  When my husband talked to him a little later in ICU, all he could do was praise God for giving him
one more day to serve him.  Praise God!

Fire and Darkness

With the start of summer our bus kids numbers are down,

but we have several bus kids who are so faithful and never miss a week.  

Two of the our most faithful kids are Josh and Ethan.  They are the sweetest boys and are always ready and waiting on Sunday morning when the bus picks them up and always ready to give us teachers a hug when they come running off the bus.  They love S.S. and are so excited to learn about God and Jesus each week. 
Today after church, when the bus went to take them home,
they found firetrucks blocking the driveway and firefighters putting out the smoldering remains of their trailer. 



We are praising God that no one was hurt in the blaze!  The bus driver immediately called my husband and he called Josh and Ethan's mom.  She said they lost everything and are left with only the clothes on their backs.  My husband offered to help in whatever way we can.  She promised to put a list together for us tomorrow and we will start collecting all that she and the boys need.  We are praying that through this we will be able to minister further to this family and that this mom will see her need for salvation and get saved!

Last night as we were getting ready to head to bed, my husband let the dogs outside. It was such a nice night I went out and stood in the cool night with him. Standing there, I looked at the playground and noticed the back porch light of the church was on. I watched two teenage boys wander onto the playground.  I pointed them out to my husband and when my husband stepped toward them, they heard the steps in the gravel, looked up and ran.  My husband ran to the front of the church and saw two additonal boys out front keeping watch and two more boys breaking into the church.  My husband yelled and started chasing them but they ran in every direction.  By the time the police got here, all the boys were gone.  I was shocked that these teenagers would try to break into the church when all the lights in the parsonage were still on and the church was totally lit up by the securtiy lights we installed after the last break-in in March.  It breaks my heart that these teenagers are stuck in such darkness and headed down such a terrible path.  We think it is these same teens that have broken into the church and various other buildings on the church property over the last year.  We are praying that God will use all these break-ins for His glory and that these boys will be caught and we will be able to witness to them and their families!

God is So Good!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are working on beautifying our playground.  The grass is very splotchy and full of weeds and pricklies.  We tilled up a corner of the playground and were planning on sectioning off the playground section by section as we planted grass seed and waited for it to grow.  Today one of our men was following a Garden and Nursery truck and noticed that they had a trailer full of sod and they took the sod and put it in a garbage pile.  Our man stopped and asked the owner what they were doing with the sod and if we could have it.  Since the Nursery is resodding a local business, they have to take the old sod out and it throw it away.  The Nursery owner said if we picked up the sod we could have as much as we wanted! 

My husband called all the men of the church and within a few minutes we had a good group of men gathered to roll sod, and roll sod they did!

They filled up two trailers with sod!  Over eight hundred dollars worth of free sod! After they had it all loaded they took it back to the church.

Everyone worked so hard as they raked, moved and laid all the pieces in place.  Even Koalie helped out as she rolled around, loving the new grass!

The grass looks so good!  The men still have a few hours of work tomorrow as they finish laying the rest of the sod that was gathered today.  The Nursery owner said that he would let us continue to gather sod as they work on their current project and also let us know whenever they are taking sod out of other businesses.  We pray that by the end of summer we will have the whole playground and church property sodded.  Thank you God for providing us with this wonderful and amazing blessing!

 

Happy Birthday Mason!

Today Mason turned 18!  I can not believe the time went so fast but my baby is now an adult, and a wonderful, awesome, loving adult he is

and there are so many things I love about him!

I love his heart for God, how he spends hours studying his Bible and going on long prayer walks as he seeks God's will for his life.  I love that when he preaches, he preaches from his heart with love and humility.  I love that he loves people and his desire is to see them saved.  I know God has great plans for him and I am looking forward

 to see where God is going to take him!

I love his smile and how he is so funny and can make me roll on the floor with hysterical laughter no matter what kind of mood I'm in.  I seriously think he should be a comedian but alas, he says God is not leading him in that direction.  (The world is missing out!)

I love that he is so sweet and kind to others.  I love that he gives everyone that he sees on the side of the road a ride. (Dangerous I know, but he says God tells him too!)  I love that that he sees others with needs and goes and buys their need or physically works to fix their need.

I love that he says he hates little kids but rides the church bus every week to bring kids to church.  He is the one the kids gravitate to because they know he'll play with them and give them attention.

I love that he is a total gentleman and opens the door for me and any other lady he sees.  He loves manners and thinks we need to bring chivarly back.  He is willing to defend a ladies honor at all costs!

I love that he loves to read and can spend all day buried with a book. 

(So takes after his mom!)

I love that he loves his brother and they laugh and play and get along so well and never fight.  (Okay, Okay, they fight a little!)

I thank you God for Mason and the wonderful time you have given us to raise him for you.  I ask that you be with him in the days, months and years ahead and help him as he continues to follow you.  Please keep him in your way and help him to always listen to your leading and guiding.  Help him to always be humble before you and be loving and compassionate to all the people around him.  I pray that you continue to build him into the man you want him to be and help him to be a vessel for your use.  I give him to you once again and know that you have a future for him better than I could ever imagine. I thank you once again for this special gift you have blessed us with.   Thank you God.

Stolen and Returned

In March our church was broken into, the safe stolen and taken into a field and destroyed, the money taken out and whoever did it stole Mason's bike to use as their getaway vehicle.  (We are still laughing at the thought of the thieves pedaling away on the bike!)  This same bike was stolen a few years ago while we were in Idaho and was found it in the police bike lock up a year later and returned to Mason.  Mason was so glad to get it back and could not believe it was stolen again!



Last week my husband took our cooler out of our shed so we could

use it on our trip to Oregon.  Today as he went to put it back in the shed, he noticed all our stuff moved and piled on the left hand of the shed.  He looked closer and found Mason's bike sitting under the pile of our stuff.  Someone had returned his bike and hid it in the shed!  So totally weird!  The police officer in charge of our robbery case thought it was rather strange too and said someone must be feeling guilty. 

When they broke into the shed they damaged the shed beyond repair so we will be emptying the shed and having a yard sale to get rid of some of the junk we have collected over the years.  Since Mason has not ridden the bike in many years I asked him if he wanted to sell it too, but he says he wants to keep it as it is not often that you have your bike stolen twice and then returned twice!  It is definitely strange that the thieves did this, but Mason is happy to once again have his bike returned again!

Mismatched Shoes?

Today started way to early as we were awoken by several phone calls and text messages before the sun arose.  As my sweet husband went to minister to those in need, I also started my day.  I spent time tidying the house and then went to the church office and did the Sunday bulletins and various paperwork.  At noon we went to celebrate the 70th birthday of one of our members.  We had a wonderful time but it has been such a long week and we have been so busy that we came home tonight bone tired and ready to drop!  As I went to take off my shoes I noticed with horror that I had been wearing mismatched shoes all day!

I am embarrassed to think of how many people noticed and thought what a 'special' person I am.  I think I will be going to go to bed early tonight and hopefully I will be able to dress properly for church tomorrow! 



New Friends and Barbequed Green Beans

Yesterday, we were thrilled to have the chance to meet the Langley family.  Kevin and his family are from back East and are using their vacation time to bring a trailer load of doors and windows to several small churches here in the West.  They are such a wonderful family and we really enjoyed their fellowship.  Beth is such a sweet lady
 and I loved getting to spend some time talking with her about God and His goodness. 

One of the things I love about missionaries and people coming to visit is the chance I have to feed them.  There is no better place than sitting around the table eating and laughing and fellowshipping!  Truthfully I hate to cook but I love to Crockpot.  Throw a couple of items in the crockpot and come back hours later and everything is ready to eat!  A few of the crockpot dishes I love to make when we have people pass through is meatballs, potatoes and barbequed green beans.  It is such a yummy dinner and so filling!  Everyone cringes when I say barbequed green beans, but after they try them they want the recipe!
 Try them, I bet you too will love them.

Meatballs

  2 pkgs frozen meatballs

1 bottle barbeque sauce

1 jar apricot pineapple jam

Mix together and put in crockpot for 5 to 6 hours on low

Crockpot Potatoes

Potatoes

2 sticks butter

season salt, garlic salt, pepper

Cut potatoes in bite sized chunks, cut butter into pieces
and sprinkle over top, add seasonings to taste.
 Put in crockpot and cook 5 to 6 hours on low.

Barbequed Green Beans

1 lb. bacon

3/4 c. ketchup

1/2 c. brown sugar

3 tsp. Worchester sauce

3/4 tsp. salt

4 c. green beans

Crisp bacon and crumble, add all other ingrediaents and mix well.
  Put in crockpot and cook 5 to 6 hours on low.