We have a student that left on a mission trip overseas today. We are so proud of her! Sometimes ministry is hard because we feel like we pour our lives into it and see no big results. We want our church to catch fire and spread, but most of the time we just see little flickers. This is a flicker for us and I hold it dear. I love this student very much & pray that God does amazing things in and through her these next few days!!

Two Years...

We have been at our current church for two years now. What to say about it? It's been crazy. We came here under a pastor (& his wife) that we knew we'd work well with. A few weeks into our ministry here he resigned. We knew it was coming. Actually, when we came to interview here my husband and I both had the feeling that he would be leaving soon. We asked him if he was planning to leave and he said he wasn't. We had been here almost exactly 2 months & he resigned. We felt abandoned because we didn't know what kind of lead pastor we'd get. Our committee looked for about 7 months until they found a new pastor. The current pastor is nothing like the one we came in under (I could go on and on about that, but I won't). So, here we are trying to faithfully serve under a pastor that we don't agree with on much of anything. We are praying about the direction God is leading us. We love our students here & that makes it incredibly hard to even think about leaving. Since we've been here we've seen students saved & lives changed. We've had two classes of seniors graduate and we miss them very much. We have a history here. We have memories here...When we came here we so longed for a place we could plant ourselves. We wanted to be in a place where we could establish roots and raise our family. My husband and I agreed that we wouldn't make any decisions about what to do (about staying or leaving) until our current pastor had been here a year. Well, it's been a little over a year-so, for now we are just praying...

True character...

This week our best friends in our church lost their house to a fire. They are old enough to be our parents, but we don't care. We love them with everything we have. They have been eating here & their middle child is staying with us. It's really nice to be able to help them out. I know they have a long road ahead of them, but everyday is better.

While we were getting a meal from a lady in the church (which was so great b/c we were busy salvaging what we could from the house) she said "It's not until a time like this you realize how good of a church we have." Well, it is true that people have offered to help in many ways: giving money, cooking meals, offering their homes, helping dig through the debris, etc. BUT my response was (when my husband told me she said this) "Isn't that sad?" I mean we should be loving and living like love all the time, not just when horrible things happen. Everyone in the community has offered money, food, love, prayers-not just people in the church...It's not that the church has come together, it's just that people are giving to this family because they love this family. I just think if we truly loved each other like Christ called us to we would be totally generous to one another all the time and we'd be less likely to belittle each other because our hearts would be where they need to be. John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. " Lay down his LIFE? I mean some people wouldn't even give away his car for his friend....I just think somewhere along the line church has become this political circus full of people performing the proper shows.....I think if our love were TRUE we would live in a generous manner all the time...I certainly am as guilty of this as anyone. I just hope the in the future I can see the body through Christ's eyes and love them like I should. I get so wrapped up in who said what to/about me and who did what that I forget we are all sinners and I need to love everyone regardless.