Journey-Reveal Night

Tonight was the reveal of our new youth group name--Journey. If from 1 Corinthains 11:1. The redesign of the youth room was done this week by the youth leaders and pastor and intern. The room looks so great! I can't wait to see what 'journeys' our youth go on! Here are some of pics of the room:

Backwall Challenge as they leave

Worship team pratice the awesome t-shirts

After the big reveal I went back to Rainbows where we played outside for a bit. I found a bunch of hulu-hoops and shocking they loved them....granted they can't actually hulu-hoop but they sure tried and it was so cute. Here are a couple of pics of them playing:

Carson & Annette playing Brett & Jenna talking

what a weekend.....

maddie and jenn golfing mike golfing-trying to beat pbrad.

jenn, micheala, &kaylee golfing

On saturday the youth group went to cool crest-which is a putt-putt, go-cart, and arcade. This was the activitiy that the new 7th graders could attend for free. They came out by the hoards! It was great to see all of them there and we had a great time. I don't know how many times annie had to say- 'girls this is putt-putt' they were whacking the ball soo....hard.

madelyn, keegan, and pastor matt acting out the story of the good samariatian & the youth human video

On Sunday it was our 2nd synergy service. The theme was love. Our mission is this summer is: living, loving & growing-we are family! We started the service with the youth segment and they read the love chapter in 1 Corinthains and did a drama/human video. Pastor matt and todd did an offeratory. We had worship and then the KIDS took over :) which by the way was my favorite part....but i am a little partial......:) we did a praise song with motions and puppet song. we then acted out the story of the good samaritan and talked about loving others even if they don't look or act like us. Dad got us and closed the service with a short message on loving all people. It was a great service and I can't wait for the next one.

Mike is working this week on the reveal for the new youth group name and finishing the decorating of the youth room. Its going to be soo....cool. He is also working his last promotion for next wednesday. he is preaching and taking care of the entire service. He is super excited....i'm getting geared up for VBS and my last promotion which is the 16th of aug. we see the end of our internship but there is alot of work to do between now and then.

Mike is finally getting the bathroom started @ the parsonage. the tub is in and soon he will be tearing out the old shower and putting the new floor down. I have started to pack because 3 weeks from today we will be headed back down to Springfield for school. I can't believe how fast the summer has gone but its gone just the same!

My Texas Girls

on tuesday after staff meeting mom, dad, mike & i headed to springfield to see aunt shirley, uncle jim, aunt heather, uncle tommy & the girls! we haven't seen them since the wedding, i was so excited to see livie and ash. ash has grown up so much she is acting more and more like a little teenager. livie is now talking in sentences more. her voice is so stinking cute. her and ash showed me their rap and omg she is too cute. livie loves to be outside and we saw unnies.....which are bunnies....she sometimes leaves the 1st letter off of her words....we had to leave after dinner but we it was a great visit for all of us. it makes me sad we don't live closer anymore-but that's life. we must enjoy the time we have together when we have it. i can't wait to see them again!

All Leaders Cookout

playing volleyball with the leaders brett & lauren holding hands

our '2nd' base man

moirah getting ready to kick the ball.
picking teams for kickball Last night was our all leader's cookout. we were going to spend the night outside playing kickball, volleyball, and water games. But it rained so we were stuck inside instead. We cooked out hamburgers & hotdogs, everyone brought side dishes and desserts to share. we then headed to the gym to play games. we played kickball & volleyball. we just wanted to have some fun with our leaders and their families and we did!

Date Night

As a newly married couple, who lives with my parents....I really enjoy date night....most nights we have dinner and spend the evening with the parents & family or church people or church functions. But every week, at least for right now, we try to have a date night. We usually go out to dinner @ a place that I have a coupon for and go see a movie or putt-putt. This week we went to the Family Golf Park driving range cuz we had coupons for a free bucket of balls. We have a men's golf outing on Friday and mike wanted to hit a few around. he tried to get me to swing @ a few but i didn't want him to laugh @ me. :) He then wanted to go practice his putting and instead of going to the putting green, i talked him into the putt-putt course. We hadn't been to this place before so I wanted to check it out....and suprise i ended up winning :) first time ever!!!! i was super proud.

we just try and go spend some time together and spend most of the night laughing. mike laughed @ me most of the last one because i was so tired, from camp-but it was fun anyway.

Wild West Camp 09

Cowboy hats.15 girls….oh…wait….16 I mean 16. MORIAH. 30 secs. MACKENZIE. flooding toilets. KAYLEE. Rockwall. MICKENZIE. one word sermons. MARISSA. 3 hr. bus rides. MADELYN. 100+ degrees. ISABELLE. 30 seconds. BRITT. 32+ girls in a room. MAKAYLA. ‘whoa dude’ –hannah banana. SARAH. storms. JEANA. dr. dodge ball. NEKM. western theme. RUTH. mark steinbach. NAOMI. blobbing. MADISON ‘hello’ -mr. narrator. loud snoring. night terrors. ‘if its yellow-leave it mellow, if its brown flush it down.’ Pastor angela. ‘uncompetitive ‘ sports. GREAT FOOD.
This week was somo kids camp. Scratch that-it was just girls camp for us! (we only brought girls) It was blast! Pastor angela and I were a little nervous since we were in charge and had never been there before—but it was a lot of fun for us. We also had 2 moms go as staff-so they were around to help us with the girls. It started with 3 hrs. on a bus in the Ozark mountains-which means super curvy roads. We got our girls registered and got our room assignment and realized we were in a large…large room that we had to share with other girls and counselors from other churches. We brought 15 girls from our church and there were @ least 32 in our room. The first two nights that we were there they informed us that we had a 30 sec. rule when flushing the toilets. This meant that the toilets would overflow if the girls didn’t wait 30 sec. between flushing-this brought on a lot of mopping through out the week.
Our services were really good. Mark Steinbach was our evangelist-I was super excited because I had never heard of them before. Him and his family wrote a script for the week with the wild wild west theme-the kids loved it. They had 6 characters that were so great! Hannah banana, the crazy surfer girl/ Mae- Hannah Banana’s best friend/ Mr. Narrator-the geek (he was all the kids favorite)/ the peach cobbler gang (3)/ skeeter- puppet. The whole family did the worship- that is always my favorite part-to see that the evangelists are doing-they did all new songs to me and my girls so that was exciting. We are now franticly looking for the song- ‘up up baby.’ Pastor Mark preached what I liked to call- one word sermons-he would take one world out of the memory verse and use that to make his points. I really liked that concept- its probably a really old concept but I like it! The girls really remembered the points later in the week. Most of our girls rededicated their life and 2 got filled with the Holy Spirit! About 5 others girls are still seeking.
The games @ somo camp were great! They have developed an ‘uncompetitive’ style of games- they have a 6 station rotation and they play games that they can add points without all the teams actually being there. They also had indoor games where we played ‘5 ball kickball,’ ‘zone basketball,’ & ‘dr. dodge ball.’ They would add up all the baskets/runs we got and then compare it to the other teams scores to see who ‘won’ the sport of the day. It was so much fun to not have to worry about the girls getting upset or not about we were going to win or if it was fair or not.
Overall, we had a great time at camp this year- it was definitely a growing experience with me. I have only gone to iowa & tennessee camps, so it was good to see how others camps do things and compare them. The one thing from iowa camp that I missed was the ‘feet off the floor” time. (which I left on my comment card J) They also had the best food that I had ever had @ a camp ground! It was well balance for kids but also extremely good tasting. Their snack shop was also extremely well priced. I got everything I wanted all week and only spent $5.00. Sadly this may have been the only time I get to go to SOMO camp but it was totally worth it!!!!

Hey Hey Hey

hey there blog world....i'm prepping for CAMP!!!! anyone who knows me: knows that I'm all for camp, i live, breathe and drink camp. CAMP is for the campers!!! This is something that I was taught by an old kids pastor of mine and I have taken it to heart. We have 15 girls going (yes only girls) with 3 counselors and 3 other staff workers. We are going to have a BLAST!!!!! Its a western theme & we already have cowgirl hats and jenn & i are going to shop for more western items for them. Please remember us in prayer this week- we all want to come back totally changed for God.

tonight we had a youth event @ melissa's house for bbq and movies. they watched prince caspian & bedtime stories. some of girls stayed upstairs and talked and talked. Some of the boys played pool and wii during it as well. it was a good time of fellowship & hanging out.

also this week i got my card from the AG stating that i'm a card-carrying minister. it was way cool getting this card. why you may ask? through this process the people that interviewed me kept saying that they do not 'call' people they just recognize the 'call' God has placed in a person's life. when i saw that card all i could keep thinking was- wow someone else sees it too- and not just someone who knows me. it was a renewing moment for my call. i have such a heavy burden for kids- for them to find Jesus and to have a new life in him. kids are so easy to reach we just have to take the time to do it sometime.

we had a plumbing problem in the parsonage this week. he started fixing the 'problem' on tuesday and didn't fix it totally till today. he had to jackhammer the basement floor to unbury the pipe so that he could figure out where the leak was. its still not totally back to normal cuz the cement has to dry. the carpet has to be put back & everything has to be dusted. But the problem is fixed and we now have a kitchen sink again!!! its so good to have a hubby that can get things fixed!!!

I'm not sure ill be on again before camp, but please be praying for us!

A Night @ the Park

Mom teaches Rainbows on Wednesday Nights @ church. During July they are used to just having fun nights- so we decided to take them to a park that is about 5 min from our church. We loaded them back into the 15-passenger van-well i did with mom's surgery she can't life anything over 15 pounds. So i loaded them into the van, buckled them in, unbuckled them, handed them to the mom that went. All i have to say is that my back & arms still hurt. It reminded me of John & Kate Plus 8 the early years! When we got to the park they had so much fun. They just kept running and playing and swinging. They had so much fun. it was a little warm so it was good that we only had a 30 min @ the park. I think that next week we are doing a big water day. Not sure though. I love these kids so much! They are so much fun to play with.

Annette, Carson, & Nkem goinging down the slide.

johnathon, carson, lauren, & annette enjoying their snack @ the park.

kids day out-putt-putt

Today we took the kids to paradise park-for kids day out. We had tons of fun putt-putting. it was kinda of warm day and the preschoolers were worn out pretty quick. Then everyone came inside and played arcade games for a while. The kids had alot of fun. We are looking forward to KDO in Aug. for Wacky Water Day.

After the kids activity we were able to be apart of a 'brainstorming' session with the pastors. as interns it was exteremly helpful to mike & i to see what a church staff goes through while developing a church a ministries. we learned alot of what seasoned pastors go through while brainstorming. we also got alot of new to-do jobs to do...that's always the downfall of 'brainstorming'.....or upside...you can choose.

Freedom Celebration

On Sunday we had a Freedom Celebration to thank all the veterans for our freedom. We had all of our veterans stand and were recongnized. We then had a MIA recongnition. Our choir ministered to us with a musical along with the Children's Choir and then Dad preached on the 'scar-spangled banner' it was exteremly moving. the people of 1st were extremely touched-they have never had a service like this. It was great to be apart of.

On Sunday night we had a prayer service for our nation. We recongized all our soldiers that are fighting right now. It was really touching it see how many families were being effected by the war. but the faith that they had. I wouldn't even know how to go on if I didn't have faith in God.