Couple's Retreat

We had such a nice time at the camp this weekend. We went for our church's couple's retreat. Of course, we brought our kids along, so, for us, it was a sort-of family/couple's retreat.

The weather was magical, the food was great (steak on Friday night!), the Gilliams were super-as usual, and the preaching was just what I needed. Dr. David Carr from Midwestern was our speaker.

We actually did get to spend a lot of time together as a couple, due to the fact that our kids and the Gilliam's kids are pretty much inseperable when they are together. They played, and we hung out-it was ideal!

One of our "assignments" was to see how many different types of leaves we could collect, so we went for a little walk in the woods. Leave it to Jason to be the only one who can go for a walk on a 100+ acre campsite, and end up on someone elses' land! He was never lost, mind you, and we were only 15 minutes late for lunch! After all of that walking, we lost the leaf project: Pastor and Mrs. Debbie had all of their leaves labelled. Pretty impressive. And-Jim and Glenda had stuff like lettuce and decorator plastic fall leaves from off of the tables in their collection.

After lunch, we rode in the Geo. Jason drove-blindfolded. I told him where to go. For some reason, I kept pointing. "Go THIS way!!" Ha! I'm an idiot! We drove through an obstacle course-it was so funny. Jason couldn't even tell if he was moving or not-weird, huh?

On the way home, we went to Rockford. Every fall, Rockford has their outdoor farm market. We got blackberries the size of cherries-oh. my. word. Yummy is all I can say. We ate at Arnie's-the converted old mill, and it was delicious. After that we got an icecream, which Eric promptly decided to wear. Rockford is such a charming town-if you ever get the chance, go spend a weekend there.

We are back home, back to school, back to regular old real life: Meatloaf for dinner, and long division. Regular old real life is really not so bad. Even my meatloaf is pretty good!

Quotes...

One of the things I love doing as a youth pastor's wife is the classroom bulletin board. For this month, Jason asked me to do something "back-to-school-ish", so I did a board that looks like a classroom, with a bulletin board. I pinned some thought-provoking quotes I found on the "pretend" board that I thought some of you might enjoy:

From Hudson Taylor, English missionary to China:
"It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home."
That statement was so convicting to me...I think we look at being called of God all wrong. The Lord called us all-we just need to ascertain where we are to be fullfilling His Great Commission.

Here's another, from the great preacher Charles Spurgeon:
"We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives."
Well, duh. Sometimes the most powerful statements are the obvious ones.

From my favorite old preacher, Billy Sunday:
"The reason you don't like the Bible, you old sinner, is because it knows all about you."
I love this one, but old Billy rips too hard even from the grave to be posted on the teen class bulletin board. Man, we need more preachers compassionate enough to tell us what we desperately need to hear.

"The only way to learn strong faith is to endure great trials."-George Mueller, the English and evangelist.
It is said that Mueller prayed in over $7,000,000.00 for his orphanages and ministries over the sixty years of his ministry. Often, he'd sit the children in front of a bare table, pray and thank God for the food they would recieve, and sure enough, God would provide.

From D. L. Moody:
"I prayed for Faith, and thought that some day Faith would come down and strike me like lightning. But Faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the tenth chapter of Romans, 'Now Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.' I had closed my Bible, and prayed for Faith. I now opened my Bible, and began to study, and Faith has been growing ever since."
Moody is a giant of the faith, and this simple truth will cause actual revival in our churches if folks actually applied it to their lives. Faith comes directly from the Word of God.

Then, I found this anonymous quote:
"Sin would not be so attractive if its wages were paid immediately."
'Nuff said there.

By just looking for something witty or interesting to put up on the board, I found myself convicted and encouraged. I think we can all benefit from these men of God from the past. The names Taylor, Moody, Sunday, and Mueller should be household names. Even now, we can benefit from their close walk with the Lord.

And we're back...

We enjoyed our time up at the camp so much. There is something so relaxing about being someplace where you can see stars, I mean really see them. That phrase in the creation account, "and He made the stars also", is astonishing when you can see millions upon millions of stunning lights in the night sky.

Have y'all (still Suthun, cain't hep it) seen that shirt that says, "Eat. Sleep. Fish."? Well, that was our va-ca schedule. It was fabulous to have no place to go, no one to call, and nothing to do but relax and hang out with the kids. Jason got to spend time with the kids individually-a rare treat for him. He took the two older ones out on the boat-Kenton caught himself a nice 10" bass!-and they had a wonderful time. We cooked fish, grilled steaks, hung out with Jimmy and Marie and their kids, and Chris-who is doing very well.

On the way home, Jason took us through the area he used to live in, and we ate at the Pixie in Mt. Pleasant-yum!! We had a wonderful time. Jason said he needed about "10 more days just like this".

Va-ca Update

Well, plans get made, and then they get broken. Such is life. Our van, which was truly a Gift From God (no lie) needs four new tires in order for us to make the cross-country trek to H-Town. That pretty much put the ki-bosh (if any of y'all reading this are spelling geniuses, feel free to correct that word!) on our trip. You should have seen it when we told the kids. Jason hated to have to tell them at all-they have been looking forward to this trip for awhile. He tells them, and they were very cool about it-no fits, no "whhhhyyyyyyyy????" Instead, they said stuff like, "Well, maybe we can go another time?" Sometimes (no, all the time) our kids are such a blessing. And, yes, we did take them out for ice cream that night.

We will instead go up to Fort Faith Camp on Thursday. We'll do some fishing, hiking, and outdoorsy type stuff. We'll try and get lost in the woods, set stuff on fire, get dirty, hunt for snakes, drink camp coffee, and it will be wonderful. God is good, and He knows what sort of break we need. I wonder if maybe He had Jason notice that tire situation so He could give him a quiet vaca in the woods, instead of an every-minute-we-must-be-running-to-visit-someone-we-have-not-seen-in-ten-forevers vacation that would be great, but not very restful.

It will be hard (real hard!) to wait until God provides the time and resources for us to visit our family and friends down South, but we will. I am getting to where these types of obstacles are almost fun, I find myself thinking, "Well, Lord, it's gonna be fun watching You work out this one!" And so, we will pray, work, and watch the Lord provide for our every need, as He has always, always done.

Further Proof

...that Jesus loves me:

I rode around in one of these today! Can you even believe it? It's a '68 Chevy Malibu, praise God, owned by a wonderful lady at our church, who, quite fearlessly, let my husband drive it. Man, he was like a little kid! It was wonderful. He said, "I am smiling like when we got married!"

We were at the church Labor Day picnic today, and it was a wonderful time. The spirit of the people was so warm, the food was unbelievable, and the weather was perfect. I think God left the bugs just so we'd know we weren't in heaven just yet.

That God would a) give people the ability to build such a marvelous machine, and b) place me in the general vicinity of someone who owns one, and c) have said vehicle be owned by someone who is so gracious and willing to share the joy of it, is just amazing. It's the little blessings that really get me sometimes, you know.

I sat in the back seat with Kenton and his friend Jonah for one of our little spins. Their absolute glee was so great to be around. Boys and their toys...lol!

Look for little blessings this week. They are all around you.