The Adventures of Connie: January 2009

Monday, January 12, 2009

I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

We have had a wonderfully amazing few weeks! God has been so good to us! Most of you know that we pioneered a church 2 years ago. It has been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. There is nothing quite like having to set up and tear down your church every Sunday. We also have been officing out of our house and that has gotten old. There are 2 of us trying to share one office. (To be honest, I took over the office a long time ago and Ed goes to Hastings with his laptop to work and study). Our church has grown to the point that something had to be done. Our leadership agreed that we could rent an office. Ed was out with a realtor looking at space and asked the realtor to check into us leasing the Bergman Building. Here it is:

Now go back 6 months...every time we drove by that building for the last 6 months Ed would say "I think our church should be in there". I would respond every time "Honey, we can't afford that building". Well Ed got a hair brained idea to go forward even with the discouragement I had given him. To make a long story short, we will be having our first service there on February 1st. Everything has come together so fast that I still can't believe it! It is a wonderful building at one of the most visible locations in our city. The owner, Gerald has been so kind to us and shown us so much favor! There have been so many miracles that it would take 2 pages to write them all down. Let's just say that God has been faithful to us and we are living our dream! I am getting to decorate my office and that has been a blast. As soon as I get it done I will post some pics! My thought to leave you with... DON'T GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS! Joseph was tested by the promise God had given him by all of the junk he went through to get there. THE PROMISE IS WORTH THE TEST!
Ps 105:17-19
17 He sent a man before them —
Joseph — who was sold as a slave.
18 They hurt his feet with fetters,
He was laid in irons.
19 Until the time that his word came to pass,
The word of the LORD tested him.
NKJV

Monday, January 5, 2009

Christmas Reflections

I had the best Christmas this year! We did a few things differently and they made Christmas a lot more special to me. First, my dad who has everything he could ever want told the whole family not to buy him anything this year. We decided to go together and give money to a youth ministry that he supports in his city. It was really neat because it came up to a pretty good sum of money with all of us pitching in! Secondly we usually do a gift card exchange with my sister, Carrie's family and all of our neices and nephews. This year we gave of ourselves instead. We gave a service or something that we made and played our gift exchange game with those. It was great! I got a beautiful scarf that Drionne made and Ed got an unbelievable car wash from my niece Staci. I am going to get to give myself to cleaning Jeff and Lacey's house. (she hasn't cashed in yet) It was really fun to see the creativity that everyone had. My new daughter-in-law, Olivia leaned to crochet from the internet and made 2 really pretty scarves. On the card she said one was for them and one was to give away. Way to go Olivia! She took it up to another level! After we did that gift exchange we headed to UMC to give away gifts to children and to nurses.
What a bummer to be in the hospital on Christmas. The hospital visit was fun. I think the people enjoyed us coming but the best part to me was experiencing it with all my family. I am so proud of my kids!!! Our kids have always gotten on board with crazy ministry ideas that we have and now they are leading us. As you will see in the pictures, Will was leading the way in his Christmas pj's. (A side note, I cut back on my giving to Ed this year and told him to do the same. When I opened my gift from him, it was travel bags. One of them had a hotel reservation to Dallas in it. I was so excited! What a great idea, a gift we will enjoy together. My man is the best! He spoils me rotten!)