XO XO!!

Justin's Gypsy Babies in Romania whom he got the chance to share the love of God with this summer.

I got a fowarded email from a good friend of mine, Laura (I love you and miss you!) I thought I'd post it and share it with you all.

V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-E

For God so loV ed the world

that he gA ve

his onL y

bE gotten

so N

T hat whosoever

believeth I n him

should N ot perish

but have E verlasting life. John 3:16

Isn't that love in the purest form? Happy Valentine's day! I am hoping to share that on valentine's day with someone who has not expierenced the goodness and depth of God's love yet. Pray that God will send someone my way, and that I won't be to busy with the day to day and miss it.
XOXO:)

S.O.S need warm sunshine!

Okay so the snow was cute, the ice was a nice break... and now its time to warm back up. It was 18 degrees today at 3pm. That was the high. Seriously I do not go anywhere but to work and church. If I happen to get frisky and go out into the arctic air, I come back home and soak in a hot bath until my skin gets red hot and pruny! I'm sorry if I'm whinning, but I miss my warm sunshine really bad! Ya'll back home.... I don't want to hear one thing from you!

On a more spiritual note, I found out about this awesome bible study, it's called Bible Study International, or something like that. From start to finsh it is about 7 years long. It sounds like it is an inductive word by word bible study. I am very excited to attend an information meeting this week coming up. This year they are studying the book of Romans. It maybe something I can start also in our minstry. They have an international vision, with groups already started in parts of Europe, China, Africa, and Latin America.

Well, hope all is well with everyone:)

Winter Ice

The winter storm that came across the mid west last week left us out of commission for a whole week!! We lost power for about a day and a half, the kids were off school for an entire week. No cable or internet! We felt a bit out of the loop. It was a good time for bonding and good lessons were learned... like there can be one too many rounds of yahtzee, and yes we love eachother but it is good to have alone time:)

Actually we where really lucky, because we were able to use our gas fireplace for heat and our water heater was also gas so we enjoyed nice hot showers. Many people in our church and community had to go to family, friends, hotels, and shelters. Many did not get their power back until the middle of this week. The ER was a crazy and amuzing place to be during all of this. We saw a lot of carbon-monoxide poisoning. We had one family that had been heating their house with a charcoal grill... inside the house. Very sad, if EMS would not of been called when they were we might of lost them. Thanks be to God our family was safe and warm with just minor discomforts. Times like these are hard, but it always brings out the best in people.

Anybody need firewood?

Happy New Year!

It has been awhile and I apologize. I don't want to start rattling off a gizzillion excuses mainly because there aren't any... I've been lazy!! There you have it... good old couch potatoe got the best of me. I thought of you often and how I need to get back and plug in, but it was like a gym membership... a few days turned into a few weeks...into a few months and before you know it what membership? And then how embarassing after so long trying to show up with your typepad! Go home and sit on the couch! Oh not me I picked myself up from the couch and here I am! Wala. Lucky for you?

Anyways, Happy New year and hope you had a great Christmas. Any crazy stories out there? I bet I can beat a few. We were all sick except for Brady so he pretty much opened his gifts and everyone else's by himself. Thank goodness we had the rest of the week to recover. We celebrated New Years with some friends, very fun and then went to Memphis, Tn. New Years day. We have some friends we had not seen in a long while, so we visited and caught them up to speed on our new adventure. It's always nice to see old friends. This break we also met up with old college buds from Clearwater. They are married with kids same age as our kids, he is a chaplin for the Tampa Bay baseball team and had some ministry ideas for baseball in the Dominican Republic (D.R.) which is where I'm from, which is the place we are praying about for ministry. Funny how God works?

Speaking of which, all I can say is "God is Good!" Andy finished his first semester of grad school! 12 credits and all A's. I don't mean to brag, but can I get a Wup, Wup, Amen! This leads up to our testimony. At the end of the semester we still owed about $1000. We started to scrimp here and scramp there and still uh... no thousand dollars! But where God calls he provides and all I can say is we are starting another semester of school debt free! The money came in waves, a check here from a friend we hadn't heard from in awile, a huge check there from a family member we did not even know knew about what God had called us to do. This was a true witness and blessing for God's provision and love for our family.

There are christians who sit and sit and sit waiting for God to move a mountain while they sit and sit. And then there are people who don't sit or wait for a miniute, they do and do and don't let God do anything! I think I fall into the latter category, but both are extreme and are wrong. I learned I need to wait and see because God will help me do what he has called me to do! What a revelation. For those of you that lean on the Lord through out the years and are reading this thinkin' yep... that's exactly how it is... thanks for your support and encouragement, I can't say that enough. It means so much.

God, my father

Thanks for your prayers. The phone business is over and everything seemed to have ironed itself out. WOO!
I came across an inspiring story which you may have heard about, team Hoyt. It's a story about a father and son duo, Rick and Dick. Rick was born with the umbilical chord around his neck and suffered traumatic brain injury. The doctor's told his parents he would be a vegetable, that they should institutionalize him. His parents kept him and valued him as part of the family and it turned out Rick was not much of a vegetable. He is a paraplegic but his brain is far from cucumber land.
He and his dad have finished I don't even know how many marathons and triathlons. Watch this video and be inspired. http://cjcphoto.com/can/
The thing that touched me the most, was watching his father push him across the finish line. To me it was a picture of Christ as our father and us the wheelchair bound child.
I completed my first marathon this January and it was grueling. The pain and agony those last few miles is "good". Your entire body is telling you to stop, it's okay you ran 23 miles, that's enough walk the rest, it' all good. So I know the pain.
Growing up my Dad left us to fend for ourselves, so sometimes it is easier for me to understand God as a judge, waiting for me to make it on my own, to endure the test. My head knows it's not like this, but that's how I see Him sometimes. But the truth is God is the father pushing the wheelchair, doing all the work, enduring all the pain, and we are nothing but a cripple boy unable to even push the wheels. All the while He is doing all this just like Dick Hoyt, to see his child smile. God is so good to us, and this video to me was a picture of our relationship to Christ. How far He will to take us if we just keep Him pushing.

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God not of works lest any man should boast.

Lost phone lesson

Jr High Drama!! Justin lost his cell phone two weeks ago, as this has happened before with him and we have found it in some obscure place (under the bed, in some old jeans etc.) Andy and I were not too excited, we figured it would turn up at some point. Well... we totally got schooled this week. Justin did loose his phone, he lost it at school. Some kid found it and decided to own it for a few weeks. We initially were monitoring the minutes, and as there were no big changes we figured... we'll find it.
To our surprise the minutes never changed because... they weren't using it for phone calls, they were using it to text. They texted over 3000 messages @ ten cents a pop. You can imagine the shock when our bill was more than quadrupuled (Over $500). We reported the phone stolen and called a few of the numbers to try to catch the little perp. As you can imagine his friends gave him up rather quickly once I mentioned that the police were involved. (We live in a small town and you can still scare kids with a police threat). So this boy is now in major trouble, and hopefully will learn his lesson.
What was really disturbing, was that the kids were texting starting @ 3 AM and every 15 minutes after that, non stop until 9PM. All thru school, breakfast, lunch, dinner and potty breaks. All the while parents and teachers were clueless.
Thankfully we are getting reimbursed by him and his parents for charges and a phone replacement.
Justin seems to be handling it o.k. We are a bit concerned over retaliation, which the principle of the school assured us will not be tolerated, but you never know. Keep him in your prayers as these next few days maybe rocky.

How do you see your glass?

I'd like to start by thanking anyone out there who has been praying for us, specifically our family in Fairfield Glade. I know you all have been praying as the spirit has led you.
I guess it really does takes a few months for reality to set. Things were going pretty good, we were riding high on cloud nine. And then out of the blue one morning I started to feel a little lost and out of place. Oh, Satan knew what he was doing, but it took me awhile to catch on.

It started as a headache on a sunday morning. I had just finished my shift, for those who do not know, I am an ER nurse in a busy trauma center. I work the night shift. I got home that morning with a splitting headache. Andy and the kids got up, got dressed and were off to church all happy and unassuming. And there it was, the new job, the sleepless nights, add the hormones, throw all that in a pot and start stirring and you've got a recipe for a sour and slimmy spirit. There I was in a terrilble "funk". I didn't want to be. The harder I tried to climb out the deeper I fell in. I'm sure you have been there. Anything anyone says or suggest... "well that won't work....that's not right". Every glass is "half empty". You know you are being the way you don't like other people to be. Half empty, half full, who cares I wanted to smash the glass. ( I can get so violent). So.... what now? Well that week my mother in law called and was telling us about how Ms. Cloe had me on her mind and had been praying for me over the weekend. Ms. Cloe is this sweet, little, saint who just lost her husband, who bearly knows me!! Wow! She was praying for me? What in the world? While I was trying to climb out of my hole, by myself... (I wasn't about to let anyone know about my hole)....the Spirit had stirred up Ms. Cloe's heart to pray for me. What a testimony to the love and care Jesus has for each one of us. He knew what I was going through and wanted to help.

We get so caught up... is the glass half empty or is it half full. As christians our glass is completely FULL. The part of the glass that seems empty, that we do not see, is the part were the spirit lives and operates. That's the part we have to tap into. I am happy to report I am officially out of my "funk", but it behooves me to prepare for the next "funk" that I will eventually fall into again. I hope you find this encouraging. The Lord is the lifter of my head!

But You, O Lord, are a shield about me,

My glory, and the One who lifts my head,

I was crying to the Lord with my voice,

And He answered me from His Holy mountain.

I lay down and slept;

I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.

Psalm 3:3-5