Mission Trip News

I've been waiting to post about the mission trip until I had some "official" numbers for you. Kevin has not been in the office much this week due to a root canal on Tuesday, so I'm just going to go ahead and tell you what I know for now. I didn't ever get a count of how many kids attended the Rainbow Express Bible Clubs, but we had 4 teams who went to two apartment complexes each day. 44 kids prayed to receive Christ as their Saviour!!!!!!!!!!! That's more than one salvation per youth that went on the trip! In the slide show below, watch for Estaban. Alyssa had the honor of praying with him for his salvation! (That makes me a very proud mama!) Pray for the workers in the apartment churches as they continue to teach all of these new believers and that the good news will spread through each of these children's families.

Somehow neither one of our kids managed to take a camera. The pictures below are courtesy of one of Alyssa's friends which explains why you won't see any pictures of Zachary. He was there also and in charge of games for his group. Alyssa was the song leader for her team.

Our church also has groups in Cambodia, Venezuela, and Dominican Republic this week. Kevin will be gone July 20--28 to Sonora Mexico with our 9th and 10th grade team.

Happy Birthday Zachary!

Zachary celebrated year 12 on Tuesday. Since he had tennis camp for most of the day, he opened his gifts quickly Tuesday morning before heading out the door. He acquired 3 new Wii games, computer speakers, Cd's, and a new hat plus $60 that he hasn't decided how to spend yet.

Zac has lots of big changes coming soon. He's already promoted to the youth group this month. (Do you realize in one more year, I'll have three-fourths of my children in youth? I don't think I'm ready for that!) He has also requested to go to public school. Most of you know that none of our kids have ever been in public school so this is HUGE for us. After much prayer and discussion, we will be enrolling him in middle school next week. Am I 100% sure this is the right thing to do? No, but in attempting to respect his desires and knowing there are some benefits to his particular situation in going to public school, we are willing to give it a try. If it doesn't work, then I can always withdraw him and teach him at home again. School begins here the 2nd week of August. Be praying for Zac as he makes this transition and for him to find strong Christian friends at his new school.

The "Nate Special"

Nathan often requests the "Nate Special" for breakfast: 1 or 2 chocolate chip Eggos (depending on how hungry he is) with 3 slices of bacon and a cup of milk.

Texas Praises

We returned late last night from Texas and checking on our houses there. Huge Praise and answer to prayer--our renters got a new job with better health insurance and asked if they could continue renting until January when they would like to purchase the house. Hip Hip Hooray!! Why is it so hard for us to learn that God will take care of us with plans to prosper us, not to harm us? In praying about what seemed to be a devastating financial situation, I had some premeditated ideas about how God was going to work all of this out; but somehow the thought that He would bless this family in order to bless ours never even entered my finite mind. I've been through this "lesson" so many times, yet I can't seem to grasp that He doesn't need my help or suggestions to solve my dilemmas. One of my favorite movie quotes would apply here: "The concept is grasped, it's the execution that is elusive." Hopefully, I'll do better next time. Thankfully, I'm a work in progress and He won't give up on me.



Back to our trip, we stayed in our other house since it's still fully furnished. Everything was in good shape except for an overgrown yard. Daily rainstorms have made it almost impossible to mow. Kevin and I worked for a couple of hours pulling weeds from all the flower beds. They look tons better, but unfortunately the backs of my legs are still complaining about the workout. We're still having lots of showings--one while we were there and two more today. I just keep trusting that God has the timing and details of the house sale already worked out for my benefit.



Wednesday night, we went to the Ranger game. Oddly enough, in the 11 years we lived in Texas, we have never been to a game on the fourth of July. It was a picture perfect night-- a cool breeze, the sun set shortly after we got there, the Rangers won, the game was short (only 2 1/2 hours!), and a spectacular fireworks show after the game. The only down side was the traffic afterwards. You would think Arlington would have a few more policemen on hand to direct traffic when the Rangers finish playing at the same time Six Flags closes. It took us an hour and a half to drive back to our house--a distance that would have taken 15 min. under normal circumstances. Thankfully, Katie and Nathan were snoozing in the back seat.



Friday we went to Six Flags. The forecast of 80% chance of rain must have intimidated most people into not going which meant short lines for us. It turned out to be a gorgeous day, cloudy with a cool breeze and in the upper 70's until late afternoon--How often does that happen in north Texas in July? We saw lots of kids from our youth group there; a fun day for them after working so hard at Mission Arlington all week. I'll post a report from their trip soon after I get some actual numbers. I know of least 7 salvations from just Alyssa's team and there were 4 teams total! The kids are still trying to regain their lost sleep so I'm sure I'll get more information as they recover.

A note about "Comments": Several of you mentioned you wanted to leave a comment, but didn't want to register. I've changed the settings to allow you to comment without having to sign on to make it easier for you, so comment all you want! I'd love to know who can guess what movie the quote is from!

More Pictures!

In case you're wondering why these are being posted after I've already blogged about the event, I discovered the usb cord to my camera was left in Texas. Thankfully, on our return trip this week, I was able to gather up quite a few things we accidentally left behind. From now on, I should be able to integrate the pix with the news!

Nathan on the carousel at the zoo. Yes, that's duct tape holding it together which I didn't notice until after I had already taken the picture.
Nathan on the zoo train--before the storm!
In the butterfly garden

Nathan was holding out his fingers to attempt to get a butterfly to land on them, but everytime one would come near him, he would jump back and be scared of it. He almost wouldn't let me take this picture because there were butterflies all over the flowers behind him.

Pictures!!

Here goes an experiment in loading pictures...

Katie still doesn't like to have her picture taken; something I hope she will outgrow soon! I caught her before she boarded the bus for camp though. It just doesn't seem like it should be so much work to get pictures of your own child!

Texas Bound

We finally got some sunshine on Friday. Yea! It only lasted about 5 hours, but we seized the moment and went to the city pool which is close to our neighborhood and has 4 water slides. Katie ran into a friend from church while we were there.

Nathan has met a friend in our neighborhood, also named Nathan. They've ridden scooters between rain showers (and sometimes during) and played a lot of video games over the last few days. It's been such a blessing for Nate to have something to do besides sit in front of the television! His new friend's family also went to the pool with us.

We'll be traveling to Texas on Wednesday. We'll be meeting with our renters on Thurs. to hopefully come up with a reasonable solution for all of us. Pray for us to make wise decisions and to be sensitive to what God desires for us to do.

Alyssa and Zac along with 35 other youth and 11 adults are now at Mission Arlington. They left yesterday after church. For the next 4 days they will be conducting morning and afternoon Bible schools at apartment complexes in the lower economic areas of the city. MA already has apt. churches in these complexes so they will be able to follow up with all of the kids who attend. Last year, through the apartment church ministry, 8000 people came to know Christ! Pray for their safety and for them to be effective in impacting the kids for Christ. This is a young group of kids, ages 12 to 14, and for most of them it's their first experience in sharing their faith. Pray for them to be unashamed of the gospel and for their own faith to grow because of this experience.