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

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!)
For those of you keeping up, the poop walk continues!

Denae had opened a present from Will and told him to come give her a hug!

Cousins. I love these people!

Jeff and Will

Hospital Group

Will leading the way

Me, Olivia and Lance getting ready.

One of the patients gave Will a balloon

Chris noticed this tile that some children had made. It really touched us all. I believe God wants to use us to help the world! Happy New year!!!

A Christmas Story you will love!

I love Christmas stories! I have books and books of them. Well I have one that I want to share with you that happened with Parker. Parker is not even 2 yet and he is the son of Gordan and Ruth who were teenagers in our youth church and now are fantastic leaders in our church. Well here it is...
Ruth took Parker to a store this week and it was really windy and cold. She was hurrying in to get him in a basket and Parker started pulling on her hand. She turned to see a 3 year old boy and his old grandmother sitting on the bench. The boy had on a very thin hat and was quite cold. Parker had removed his hat and put his new hot wheels car in it and was handing it to the little boy. The little boy asked if he could give Parker a hug and of course Ruth said "yes". Then the grandma told Ruth that she had been sitting there praying that some how her little grandson would get a Christmas present. She then asked Ruth if she could give her a hug. It really brings tears to my eyes as I write this because memories are coming back to me of Gordan and Ruth going to Hollywood with us to minister on the streets and also going on late night outreach right here in Lubbock on Friday nights. Now as adults they are ministering to youth and kids. Can you imagine what kind of man of God Parker is going to be? This is really what Christmas is about! God is with us and He is with the world through us. I am so proud of you Gordan, Ruth and Parker!
Here they are.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I love Christmas! Having Will has made it so much better this year! I wanted to share some our fun with him so far. Last week I took him to the mall with my niece Staci and thought I would get a picture of him with Santa. Will's other grandma, Cindy collects pictures of her kids with Santa so I thought she would enjoy one too. We got in line and he loved Santa's house but when it came to Santa he freaked out! We were 3 feet away from Santa when it happened. There would be no photo with Santa. He was so traumatized that when we got out to where Staci was he was reaching for her to rescue him from Santa and the mean Lolli who took him to Santa. We always took our kids to see Santa but he never brought them stuff because my parents always bought their big presents and I wanted them to be grateful. One year when Denae was about 4 we were shopping the day after Christmas and a lady in a store asked Denae what Santa had brought her for Christmas. She said "nothing". The lady persisted "Oh, sure he did". Denae got pretty frustrated that the lady didn't believe her and she reiterated that Santa did NOT bring her anything. This lady gave me a look that could kill. I mean you would have thought I was a child abuser! What is Christmas about anyway??? I think Will already understands the true meaning. He doesn't like Santa but he got in the car with me the other day and saw that I had bought a Fisher Price Nativity, he started screaming excitedly for me to get it out. Here is some video of him playing with it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

I have the best husband in the world!!!

I have had some sort of crazy bug for nearly the last 3 weeks. Honestly I can pinpoint 4 different things. You don't want to know the details but the bottom line is that I have been chastised by my doctor for wearing myself out. My friends have confronted me on the issue that I have, it is hard for me to delegate and not do everything myself (I mean I just want everything done right HA). Basically I have been told that I need to slow it down and listen to God. (My mother gave me that one, I can't do anything without finding out if God wants me to do it). I am so compelled by my passion that sometimes I get myself into doing things that I have no business doing. So I am trying to listen. What God is saying to me is "Be still and know that I am God". That is so hard for me! Now to my husband who is the greatest. To help me get started on this better lifestyle he came home with an escape package to Oceans Spa. I LOVE OCEANS! My favorite location is the one on South Quaker. It is so relaxing just to go in there. I just would be happy sitting in the living room and not even having a service. I have even redecorated my guest bedroom and bath after the Oceans theme. Here are some pics of my redecoration:





Honey, I love you and appreciate all you do for me to make my life great!!!

Ed and Will last Christmas. (Hopefully we will have new Christmas pics soon, our photographer is really busy!)

Happy Holidays?????

Once again I am confronted with this saying that really gets under my skin. It just seems to me that Christmas (THE BIRTH OF JESUS) has been degraded to a holiday the equivilant of a British vacation. The birth of Jesus was the best day ever only to be followed by the best death ever! I will get off of my soap box now. Actually this all came up again because I was looking for a new Christmas layout. I have found one that truly describes Jesus and that is joy. For those of you who may have missed out on my Happy Holidays story from last year, it is worth repeating. I sent Ed to Sams to get a birthday cake for Jesus for our kid's party at church. I didn't look at the cake until Sunday morning right before the party when to my dismay, our cake said "Happy Holidays Jesus". I asked Ed what in the world he was thinking and he said he just saw "Happy" and missed "Holidays" on the cake. His experience at Sams was starting to make sense to him though because he said that when he took his cake to the bakery lady and asked her to add Jesus to the cake she said ok and then took his cake to another lady, discussed it with her and then they preceeded to laugh. He didn't think much of it until I pointed out the error. I mean really how many people actually associate Happy Holidays with Jesus? This just brings the point home further. Let's try to include Jesus in all of our holidays, hey how about all of our DAYS!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS JESUS!!!

Lance & Olivia's Wedding- What a Day!

Lance and Olivia got married last Saturday and it was an amazing day! The service was absolutly beautiful. Olivia was driven up to the wedding in a horse carriage, she was coming across a bridge to wonderful sax music being played. It was one of the most romantic, breath taking scences I ever seen. They had 3 ministers as seen in the picture above. Ed has really enjoyed getting to be part of all of our kid's weddings. He loves weddings! We have been so blessed with amazing kids of our own but God has brought the most wonderful spouses to them all. We have had a consistent prayer for our kid's spouses since they were born and God has answered that prayer in the most perfect way! Chris, Lacey and Olivia are such a blessing to us. Our family would not be complete without them! Olivia and Lance are a wonderful compliment to each other. She has a huge heart for God and people as does Lance. I know that God has great plans for them together. Here are some more pics of the big day.
Me and Denae before the wedding

Lance and his men (he had 8!)

Lance and Olivia took Communion together and washed each other's feet.
It was really special!



Will pooped out during the reception.

The mother-son dance. This was really special because Ed consistantly has asked over the years "Has anyone told you that they love you today?, I do" to all of our family and friends. Denae chose the song "Have I told you lately that I love you?" for her's and Ed's dance at her wedding and Lance chose it for our dance. I feel like one of the most blessed women in the world. I have an amazing husband who has raised three fantastic kids with me and now we get to see what wonderful things that God has in store for their families! Don't ever quit praying for your kids, because it works!