My God Sighting

We've been incredibly busy the last couple of weeks, prepping for Vacation Bible School. We spent most nights last week at the chuch decorating, and starting Sunday, Mike began his "playing in the band" part of VBS. He's been gone every night since Sunday helping with the worship for the kiddos. Our VBS is in the evening at 6:30, and quite honestly starts to encroach a bit on our bedtime routine, but we've made it out 2 different nights now to see the opening.

To be honest, I've been cranky about this whole VBS thing. I'm tired, we've been so busy with everything, and I just am waiting for it to be over with. Being 6 months pregnant is not helping my attitude. I'm just beat. I miss my husband, Levi misses his Papa, and we're just ready to be back to normalcy around here.

Always the set up for God to whisper to your heart, right?

So, last night, after Mike left and Levi literally melted down over him leaving, I decided we'd go ahead and go see Papa play his guitar. I listened to the opening as the leader reviewed each God Point the kids have learned this week. As each God Point is declared, and the kids respond (or rather scream) in response with motion.. "Thank You, God"

These are the points for each night

God made You.
God listens to You.
God watches over You.
God loves You, no matter what.
God gives us good gifts.

As I watched and listened, my heart swelled at the thought of these kids learning deep biblical truths at a young age. That God made us, listens to us, watches us, LOVES us, and provides for us. What a blessing. A blessing we ALL needed to be reminded of. It's so easy to get caught up in the more "grown-up side" of biblical theology, but we all need to be reminded of the simple but profound truth that God made us... He made the 24 week old baby girl that is growing inside of me. He made HER... for HIS glory!!

What blessed my heart even more?
As the kids shouted for the unnteenth time "Thank You God" I realized that our precious 2 1\2 yr old son was now in on the action and motions, stating that very thing..

Thank you God


And all my heart could do is respond in the same way..

Thank You God.

why we do what we do...

last week we spent 4 nights at the church, roughly 4-5 hours each night, decorating for our church's "High Seas Expedition" VBS. It was a long process, one that, at times, gets tiring, overwhelming, and perhaps feels a bit thankless...... but we are reminded so much of why we do what we do when we get emails like this...

"I hope you are having a rockin VBS week. We are off to a great start! Our opening night this year was 40 kids more than ever before!! One family said that they were coming this year for the first time because they heard that the stage was so awesome! Many of the contractors from the addition have been popping their heads in and admiring what is going on... our electrician is sending 3 of his own kids even (that's an assumption based on last name!) God is going to be doing some great things this week in the lives of these kids! "

wow!

Praise the Lord for his ability to work through things like cardboard, carpet tubes, and miles of paper... and just to give you a feel of perspective, this pic was taken from the balcony, and that center mast of the ship stood at 27 ft high.

and here are "after" photos. i took these from our church's facebook site.

it's amazing what lights can do!

this crazy life we lead....

we've been busy.

extremely busy.


since monday night we have been at our church every night decorating for our vacation bible school. it's a huge undertaking, but it's exciting to watch it come together. this year, the theme is "high seas expedition." we've built a ship, 3 huge masts with sails (the middle one is 27 ft tall) waves, and captains quarters, and lots of cargo. we spent mon-thurs from 6-10:30ish at the church, and wefinished around 11 last night.

tonight, we're packing like crazies.

tomorrow we move.

did i mention we're exhausted?

we're exhausted, and very ready to be done with this insane week, but excited to start this next chapter in our lives.

and.. if you want our new address, let me know, and i'll get it to you. :)

crocodile dock

Wow, have we been busy.
Vacation Bible School set up, the garden is in full swing meaning i am canning, chopping, freezing, dehydrating every moment I have, we're having a Garage Sale tomorrow, and the list goes on.

We went to bible school the first and last nights to see how it went, and the last night to tear down. here are some pictures. that's the stage in full-use, lights and all. pictures do not do it justice. those trees you see are 22ft tall.



This next picture was probably my favorite part of the decorations. It was our dock. It was carpet squares that we painstakingly hot glued to cardboard. It took a very long time, but it was totally worth it. I loved it!



This is the shack that we built. It's 9 ft tall by 12 ft wide. We made it out of styrofoam. It was lots of fun, and looked awesome!




On the highest night there were 309 kids there. What a blessing, and what an incredible ministry. 309 kids heard the gospel this week, and we had a hand in helping to keep the kids attention in the swampy old lousiana bayou.
The kids brought in pop cans boys vs. girls to raise money for children's schools supplies in Burundi, Africa. They raised just over $1500. That's enough supplies for over 700 kids.

Praise God for His work!