Softball champs

Our church has had a softball league for the last 3 or 4 spring and fall seasons. This year they WON the championship in our division! It was so much fun going to games and cheering them on! I cant wait until March whe they start playing again!

Dash Game

We took the kids from church to the Winston-Salem Dash game on Wednesday night. We had awesome seats and the kids had a great time in spite of the high 90 degree heat!

With Bolt the mascot
Abby and her "twin" dash girl
Nate, Josh and Reid
Our awesome seats right behind the dugout

Trunk or Treat

We had Trunk or Treat a chicken stew and hayrides at church last Wednesday night. It was sooo much fun!

Pioneer Club Campout

Our Pioneer Club had an overnight campout last Friday night. The kids had so much cooking over an open fire and fixing smores. Then they played some games, had a little sing a long and told spooky stories. Not everyone stayed overnight, but the few that did had fun and everyone wants to do it again!

11 years ago this week...

11 years ago this week we began our life in full time ministry. Looking back, I know that God had us hemmed in on all sides with His protection. I was about 4 months pregnant and Greg was graduating from Piedmont and we had no idea where we were suppose to be heading.

Practicality told us that it would be a wise move to get a job as an associate or youth minister and gain some experience before Greg became a senior pastor. We had interviews in Richmond, Dublin and Pembroke,Virginia but never felt a peace or leading to these positions.

The churches were still in the hiring process when Greg was at graduation practice and the president of Piedmont, Dr. Howard Wilburn mentioned to Greg he would like for him to hang around after practice, he needed to talk to him about a church in WV in need of a pastor.

After talking to Dr. Wilburn about the church and sending a resume. We called the other churches, told them no thank you and waited to see if Daniels Missionary Baptist would hire a 23 year old kid.

Going up to visit felt like home and we clicked so much with this congregation that they voted 100% to call us. God knew Greg needed that confidence as he approached the task of shepherding a flock of about 100.

I feel like there, with that sweet family, is where I did most of my growing into the person I am today. We had three children while we were there and we were graciously given the opportunity to build a house. I discovered I loved longaberger baskets and antiques while living in those mountains and I learned how to make a pie crust and homemade salsa and to appreciate simple things.

As Greg preached to and loved on the members, the church itself grew to almost triple what it was when we came and I was so thankful to see God bring many more friends into the family.

Leaving Daniels was truly one of the hardest things I have ever done and I have spent many a homesick days pining after that simpler time of raising babies and trusting the Lord to supply our needs....and He did, every time.

There isn't another life I would ever want to lead than that of a preacher's family.I love my life. I love where He has placed us now. We are blessed beyond blessed to answer this call and Daniels is one of the many reasons why.

Being Prepared..not really my strong point

So we have had a crazy July. People staying with us, us travelling every weekend plus church things and kid activities. I have a list of chores and "to do's" every day, but the one that I have been putting off is cleaning my shower and it is nasty.  It is in the master bedroom in the far corner of the house and nobody goes in there much, so each weekend when we are packing up to go somewhere I think," Oh, I'll just do that Monday."

Well, this weekend we went to western NC to visit Greg's parents and then we brought his grandmother, Mammy, back with us for a few days. Before we left, I made sure the guest bedroom and the main bathroom were pristine ( well, as clean as you can get with three kids and two dogs). My bathroom, same story. I decided to put that at the top of my list for this coming week.

We get home tonight and Mammy gets to see our house and mentioned to Greg that she would really like to take a shower, but doesn't see how she can climb over the bathtub in the bathroom , does the master bathroom have a walk in shower? Why, yes it does! It just happens to look like the before picture on a Tylex commercial!

So, I beg Greg for 20 min to stall and I run to the bathroom with the puny little cleaner that I have on hand. ( Another reason for my procrastination is I was out of the heavy duty scum cleaner) As I try my best to clean this bathroom, I  realize that getting it clean enough in 20 minutes with this wimpy dollar store cleaner is about as possible as me baking a 12 layer cake in that amount of time....Impossible.

Mammy would more than likely not say anything about the bathroom, but I know how clean she likes things and how the bathrooms in her house look. Not to mention, I wouldn't even let my own mother look in the shower stall for fear she would ground me for a week for my negligence.  As I scrubbed my little heart out, the Lord reminded me of how often I unfortunately go about His work with the same attitude and preparation.

Soooo, this is a busy month for us, but 2 reasons it's so busy is we are taking our church youth to teen camp and also we have VBS coming up. Two important events that I should be diligently praying for and asking God to work in young people's lives through. If I go into these weeks with very little prayer time and thought, I am going to feel a lot like I did tonight when someone I loved wanted to use my shower.  Ill prepared, off guard and scurrying to make it better.

I very much want camp and VBS to be a time that no matter what the enemy throws at us, we can walk right through it. I want to be mentally prepared to face difficulty, answer hard questions, impact young lives for eternity and have the patience needed for two long weeks. 

The Lord reminded me tonight with my crazy cleaning fit that I have 8 days until camp and now is the time to stock up on the heavy cleaner of His Word and put a little elbow grease into my prayer life. Just being on my to do list isn't enough...I have to actually do it!

That way maybe I won't get caught on my hands and knees at dark trying to do something that could have easily been taken care of earlier if I would have only given it some priority.

Bike Rodeo

We had a bike Rodeo at church Saturday. It ended with a barbecue dinner and an all church softball game. We had so much fun and had a really good crowd. Here are some pictures of the day.

Mother Daughter Banquet

Here are some pictures from the Mother Daughter Banquet we had a church last weekend. The theme was generations and so we had 10 tables all representing a different decade decorated and then we had a fashion show with models from each era. It was soooo much fun!

Kernersville Christmas Parade

Trunk or Treat