Who said summer was supposed to be relaxing?

Every year about May 15th, I have visions of grandeur of a relaxing summer where I have nothing to do but take kids to the pool and work on my tan. And every year about July 1st, I'm thinking 'I can't wait till school starts so my life will calm down to a normal schedule.' You would think I would learn, but year after year somewhere inside me there is a small glimmer of hope that this year's summer will be different. And if you could see my white legs you would know that this year isn't my year. (sigh)

School starts again in less than 3 weeks which means it's time to buy school clothes, schedule yearly check ups, and for the first time ever....buy college textbooks for Alyssa's dual credit classes. She's enrolled for Spanish I and College Algebra at the local community college and she'll receive high school and college credit for the classes. By the time she graduates high school, she'll have at least 24 hours college credit plus credits from CLEP tests hopefully saving us a year's worth of tuition. (Her tuition at the CC is covered by a scholarship. We just have to pay class fees and books...about $200 per class.)

So back to my summer drama...this week Alyssa, Zac and Katie are all participating in a mission camp with their youth group. They are going out in teams in our area and doing VBS, soccer camp, and basketball camps. Our youth pastor shared with us that Katie led someone to Christ all by herself today and there is just no greater feeling of pride (the good kind)for your child than knowing they are growing in their faith and sharing it with others. My shy child is very bold in her walk with Christ and shares with her friends at school constantly. Who knows, maybe that's why God led us to enroll her in public school!

The 'big 3' get home Saturday around 8 and Sunday morning at 9, the girls and I leave for our semi-annual must-go-to-a-real-mall-and-eat-at-La-Madeleine Dallas trip. That's 11 hours to do a whole lot of laundry and squeeze in a little sleep!Katie and I will return home on Wed. after seeing lots of old friends and fighting lots of temptation not to shop too much. Alyssa will fly back on Monday, Alone, which I'm not at all nervous about this year. I guess after letting my child spend 10 days in a South American country, a 45 minute flight from Dallas doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Flashback #1: Go Celebration

Flashing back to the first weekend in March, we had our GO (Global Outreach) celebration. We invited lots of workers from all over the world to come educate our church family about where they live and what they do. Each worker and their family stayed with a host family and had a host Sunday school class that took care of feeding them and providing a gift of some sort. It was a great weekend and I was very glad to get to meet a lot of the people that Kevin travels to see all over the world. Since I'm the one who stays at home base all the time, it was cool that they got to come to my territory instead.

This is Alyssa and her friend Carolyn, dancing in our opening ceremony on Thursday night. It's really not a great picture since I wasn't using a flash or a tripod but I'm proud of her for using her talent for God's glory.

The ladies in my Sunday school class call this guy the church version of guitar hero. He does an awesome job playing for us every Sunday and really gets into it.

I think this picture captures my favorite memory of the whole weekend. When Kevin goes to Asia he works with this little boy's family. Nathan prays for them every single night. It was so fun to see them finally meet and get to play together. Amazingly, this little guy speaks his native language and English perfectly!

Get ready for GO

GO stands for Global Outreach. Every year we hold a conference to encourage the ministries we support and to educate our church about ways they can get involved. Last year focused solely on local and state ministries. This year is our international celebration. We have 40 workers, some with their families, coming to spend Thurs. through Sunday with us.

I'm really excited about this years' conference for several selfish reasons. 1)Brian and Natalie get to attend and stay in our home for 5 days. We haven't seen them in 3 years so we're really looking forward to spending some time with them. 2)Our India contact will be here along with his family. His wife and 2 kids have never been to America before and I haven't gotten to meet them yet. I love being around B and hearing his passion for his people to come to know Christ. 3) Alyssa will be going to Venezuela for 10 days in June. The pastor of the church we support/work with there will be here. It will be awesome to get to meet him on my own turf since I won't be going on the trip.

So....please pray this week for all the volunteers who make this possible, that everything will fall into place. This includes Alyssa, as she is choreographing and dancing at the kick-off on Thursday night and all 3 worship services on Sunday morning. Pray for all of our worker families to have safe travel and to be encouraged and refreshed after their weekend with us.

It's a small blog world

On Saturday, I got an email from a friend telling me about a friend of hers who had just had a baby who was in critical condition and being transferred to St. Francis hospital here in my town. She asked if someone from our church could go visit the parents. She gave me a link to Kelly's blog so I could read all about Harper.

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Later I was checking my friend Cassie's blog and read about how Cassie had found out about Harper through Kelly's blog and had already gone to the hospital to see them. Cassie's husband is the youth pastor at our church.

Today Cassie and I went to the hospital to see Kelly and Scott (Harper's parents). It was truly a blessing to meet them. We talked with them for a little while and the "small world" connections were almost endless..the people we both knew, schools we had both attended, etc.. We even discovered that our sr. pastor used to be Kelly's parents' pastor when they were young marrieds. I guess when you're all from Arkansas, the family trees and stories all bound to intersect!

Check Kelly's blog for updates and pray for their family. This is their first baby and they are 2 hours from their home. Pray for us to know how to minister to them in the days to come.