month o’ pictures

Life has been a little crazy so these pictures are mostly un-edited, but I wanted to get them online before I leave or who knows how long it would have taken.  These are pictures from several events over the last month or so.  Wish I had more time to post about them, but this will have to do.  Enjoy!

Silas’ Birthday

My Birthday

Girls Night

Amanda’s Birthday

Gingerbread Event

Puppets and Fireworks

The New Year’s Eve party this year was slightly different than most. Matt, who can always be counted on to come up with some crazy idea, had everyone split into groups and make puppets and put on a puppet show.  Needless to say it was all very entertaining.

Reformation Bonfire/Potluck

Last weekend we had a “Reformation” party out at the Ruhl’s place with a good old fashioned potluck (haven’t been to one of those in years) and a massive bonfire.  With live blue grass, hot chocolate and good friends…what more could you ask for.  I also needed an excuse to try out my new camera, so there is a more than ample supply of pictures to documen the event.  I was tickled pink to see how amazing the pictures came out by light of a camp fire and at 1600 ISO…look closely…almost no grain.  Yeah for advanced techonology!  Sorry for the tech babble for those of you who could care less, but it really made my day.

Click here to see ALL the Reformation Bonfire/Potluck pictures.

Rancho 3M – see what the Lord has done

Well, for those of you who don’t know…I just got back from our church’s annual service trip to the Rancho 3M orphanage in Guadlupe, Mexico. It is impossible to relate all that God did while we were there, but hopefully I can share a little of my experience and let the coming pictures and video projects relate some of the rest.

We, my family and I, arrived several days before the team and were greeted by a small army of children clamoring for attention. But for me…the moment each year I can never forget is the first few little voices ringing out from the crowd calling my name “Mississippi, Mississippi” and in that moment…I feel at home.

Our team this year was smaller than previous years, but the to do list never seems to get any smaller. My friend Kristin and I were given the job of tiling. Neither of us had a clue how to tile and our first and only lesson consisted of “here’s the thin set, there’s the tile”. It was a learning experience and I will be the first to admit that our initial efforts were…well, after a ruined bag of thin set and getting drenched with the wet saw…we started getting into the swing of things and by God’s grace finished the assigned rooms and are still walking and have all our fingers.

The other big project was remodeling a bathroom for one of the staff families. I won’t go into the details, but it was a small nightmere and again…it was only by the grace of God it was completed by the time we left. As you can see from the pictures…they riped out the walls, floor and celing and put it all back beautifully.

We also had a game time with the kids in the afternoons and then more time to hang out with them after dinner each evening. We were all so blessed by their eager and persisstant desire to play with us. Everything from having your eyes dug out by little Marco who wanted to play guess who, to the little girls who learned how to say “push please” and would beg us to push them on the swing, to the older kids who loved basket ball, to the slightly varied version of Duck, Duck, Goose (pato, pato, gonzo) we would play with the little boys, not all of whom even got the game in the first place and would simply run around in circles and laugh.

A highlight of each year is the group’s devotional times. For the five weeks prior to our trip we all participated in prayer, fasting and bible study for our trip. This year we were going through the book “Whiter than Snow” by Paul Tripp which is a study on Psalms 51. I was so blessed through the book, the bible study we did along with it and the group discussion times we had each morning after our personal devotions. It was such a blessing to start the day in God’s word confronted with our salvation from sin and ending each day remember Christ’s work on the cross and rejoicing in the testimonies of his specific work in our hearts that day.

Each year has it’s unique joys and struggles, but for me personally this year was overflowing with peace and a nearness of the Lord.  God answered my prayers for this trip in ways over and beyond what I could have even asked for. Not just in a general way, but He very specifically answered my prayers, in a way that I know it was not by my hand, but by His work alone. I have gone back and forth writing this trying to find a way to really express the waterfall of grace that the Lord not only gave me on the trip, but continues to give me each day, but I can’t seem to find the balance in what to share, so I will just leave you with this.  Our God is great and to Him be all the glory!

There were three main photographers on this trip. You can view our pictures at the links below.

Missy’s Pictures
Caitlin’s Pictures
Christi’s Pictures

Home Group Wars

At our end of the year party all the “adults” broke out into an impromptu beanie baby fight. Everyone keeps trying to blame me for starting it, but truth be told Gary Michels did, I just assumed it was my dad and well…you just have to see for yourself. Enjoy!

So, now you know what we do at our home group get togethers…

Weekend Adventures

I don’t know if taking my camera (the little one) on a canoe trip was stupid or ingenious, but not charging the battery before I left definantly falls under the first category. At least I got a bunch of pics before it died and Jermaine let me appropriate his camera for the rest of these pictures.

This past weekend I went on a canoe trip with some friends from church. We spend the morning and early afternoon on (or in my case “in”) the river, stopped for lunch on a pile of rocks, and just had a generally great time. I was in a boat with Robbie who decided to make enemies with Steve who tried to push Robbie overboard and ended up tipping our whole boat. Luckily I made provisions for my camera and buried in three layers of plastic bags the poor little thing survived. (Yeah!) I then ended up in a boat with Bethany and we had a grand time as we hit and got stuck on just about every rock in the river ending our time together by broadsiding a rapid spot and getting dumped over several rocks….this part was my favorite part of the whole day. We haven’t had that much fun together in a long time. I ended the trip with Dan and we enjoyed a peaceful and uneventful rest of the trip

After they loaded all the boats we went to Raven Rock for a picnic dinner and a (longer than we thought) hike to see Raven Rock.  All in all it was a great day and a nice little adventure to end the summer.

I don’t remember taking this many pictures, but I guess I did. You can click the link below to see the whole gallery.

Canoe Trip ‘08 Pics

Bread of Life…and Chili Dogs

Saturday morning a small group of singles from our church went downtown to feed the homeless/poor. We are one of eight teams that works with Bread of Life ministries. This ministry has been serving lunches every Saturday afternoon for the past 20 years. Needless to say, they have a pretty well established reputation and we arrived Saturday afternoon to over a hundred people already waiting in line for chili dogs. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but simply offered chips and fruit cups along with a smile and “God bless you.” I was encouraged and humbled by the sincere “thank yous” we received throughout the day and could only pray that they were being blessed by more than simply the food we had to offer. Several of our team was talking with and praying for the men and women in line as they waited for their food and there was also a man who just showed up and started preaching up a little storm. After a while he started singing some old hymns and one of my friends Anne Elizabeth started singing with him. It was such a beautiful sight to behold as these two raised their hands in worship to the Lord right in the middle of the parking lot.

I pray that the Lord was glorified through our service and that as he is working in the hearts and lives of those men and women that I get more opportunities to be a small part of his greater plan.

I don’t have any pictures of the actual event, but here are a few fun ones of the prep time.