Birthday Party for Jesus

You are all invited to my church's "Birthday Party for Jesus" on Sunday night December 21st at 6:00. Santa will be there participating in the games and having a jolly time as we all celebrate Jesus' birthday. We will play games such as, "Pin the Star on the Manger", Star Pinata, No Room in the Inn musical chairs, Wise man dress up and more. This year Santa isn't passing out gifts that particular night, instead we are filling Santa's bag with food and gifts for the needy. Each child will get a gift bag. Bring finger foods to go with the fabulous Birthday cake. And bring your friends.

Christmas time is herrrreeee

Wow Christmas is just around the corner! Thanks to my old college friend Rachel I know that it is 16 days away. That means in 13 days I get a break from work! Yippi! There is alot to get done between now and then, not just at work but at church and at home. I guess the most immediate pressing need is to get my house cleaned up. I know that once it is done massive amounts of stress will be taken away. I need to wrap presents (the few that we are buying). Side note : I made two fantastic pillows last night! Sue helped me figure out how to use my sewing machine.........it was alot of fun!!! I know I know pillows are easy... but I had to start somewhere.

Brittany and her friend and Anthony are coming to spend the weekend. That should be loads of fun..........I know Brittany and her friend will be easy to occupy.....but Anthony.......hmmmm he never slows down!!! So basically I will get the house cleaned up and they will trash it :) fun times.

This weekend is the Christmas parade... Lisa hasn't really given any details so I don't know what we are doing with it. I know we will be decorating....I guess and the actual parade starts at 2 so we shall see.

Next weekend is the Christmas Cantata and Birthday Party for Jesus. I am still trying to work out all the details for that. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what it will actually look like. I am sure it will be fun, I just want it to be fun for everyone.

And thennnn we are done! We don't have to be here for Christmas eve which I am really excited about. We will go spend time with my family tuesday and wednesday and thursday and friday will be with marty's family. We are still trying to decide what we are going to do for New years with Jeff and Jenny. Very exciting times!!!

There's my weekly update :)

Youth Christmas

So this year most of our older, responsible (I say that loosely)kids are singing with the Choir so that kind of ties up their time, which is fine. We are having the choir's Christmas program the same night as the youth Christmas program. This program has greatly evolved in the last couple of years. The first year we were here (like a month after we got here) the older kids did this really cheesy play that was all about a poor kid giving the teacher a gift and all the kids joking on her for it, only for the teacher to explain to them that it's not the gift that matters just the thought behind it. Following the play Santa came, old Christmas songs like Santa Claus is coming to town, Rudolf the red nose reindeer ect... were joyfully sang and then Santa handed out gifts to the children whose parents remembered to bring them gifts, while if your parent didn't bring a gift you got nothing from Santa........yeah I was shocked, saddened, and just felt a little sick that no emphasis was put on the true reason for Christmas.

After that I was probably totally against the idea of Santa......I have shifted some in my thinking. Last year I suggested doing away with Santa............ohhhh noooo. I tried to compromise by saying well lets have Santa pass out only "christian gifts" you know, no guns, and crap like that.......oh nooooo we couldn't force families to do that. So thankfully some compromise was given and we sang songs like Joy to the World, and O little town of Bethlehem and someone read a poem about SANTA with each letter talking about Jesus or something to do with Faith.. then Santa passed out gifts.......again from parents who remembered. I bought 5-10 extra's so no one would be left out.

But this year.............Oh I am excited about this year. Still have to plan it out but that's where you come in. After the choir sings their hearts out, we are going to transition into a full out "Birthday Party for Jesus" Santa will push a cake on a cart with lit candles, while the children carry gifts to fill Santa's bag. The gifts will be given to several of the families that have already contacted our church this year for help. After this we will have a full out Birthday Party, with cupcakes and ice cream and other birthday party food, and birthday party games and Santa will be mingling and celebrating Jesus' birthday with the rest of us.

What do you think? What are some games and stuff that we could do during the celebration?

God is good!

What's new right :) Back in early August God opened up the door for me to go to a conference to be spiritually renewed and I was. He has also brought into my life recently some pretty amazing people to encourage me. He has also helped me work through some emotional baggage I have been hanging onto. And He continues to sort things out in my life.

In most recent news

I got a raise above and beyond yearly stuff at work!
I got a much needed weekend away with one of my favorite friends!
I have had some hard but heart to heart conversations with my family!
I have prayed for direction in ministry and gotten answers!
I have seen my husband encouraged!
I have been blessed!
I am extremely thankful!

As far as ministry is concerned I have been worried often about what to do with the teen program. We only have 2 teens that consistently come to the Sunday night program and yet I worry myself weekly with trying to come up with new and improved ways of ministering to them. I know that the ministering really happens by getting into their lives but I just felt this obligation to keep up with this schedule that they have always had. Finally after the advice from several I called a "planning" meeting and even though this is what I wanted I let it come from them. We are going to have a monthly event that includes the whole family on Sunday night. This will be the 3rd Sunday. Several are going to help plan it so I will not have to. We will go to the Path the last Sunday of every month. That's it! throw in some events like CCYC or SNL or things like that and we are done! This makes my heart happy!!!

Great Weekend...........Over

Avrial and I had such a great weekend at the Women of Faith conference. Next year, now that I have been once, I will try to get more people to go. It was really great. Basically it's a weekend full of women sharing their stories. I laughed, I cried, I was convicted, I was uplifted... so many emotions and i just plain relaxed with by buddy. We stayed at a really cute hotel (the Hyatt) try it sometime. We watched movies ate great Thai food, enjoyed each others company.... it was like we were back in college :) Good times. It was funny how many people I saw that I knew... lets see... well obviously we ran into Christ's Church people, but also Towne South peps.... one girl from there even won the grand prize 4 WoF tickets and 2 hotel rooms for next year. Also Ruby from back home, and Jenny Gross....Carson's grandma.......I am sure there are others I just don't remember.

Not being around for Halloween this year has really thrown me off. I didn't see any costumes, pass out any candy, or even carve a pumpkin..........the last part is kind of depressing. We have 3 pumpkins and one especially would have been fantastic for carving! oh well

No I have to get back to normal. I have been looking forward to last weekend for several month.. I think mid August is when I decided to go. So now I have the holidays to look forward to. Man time is flying by.

I need to go be productive at work now. Have a great day bloggy friends.

Copied this from Laura Saufley’s blog and thought it would be fun to play along . . .

8 Things I am passionate about:
1- Jesus
2- my husband
3- my family
4- my church
5- spending time with my friends
6- hanging out with my dog
7- quiet alone time
8- getting in better physical shape

8 words/phrases I often say:
1- i love you
2- whatever
3- oh my goodness
4- shut up (not in a mean way but like no way shut up)
5- that is awesome
6- Gabe go do the business
7- We are so going to be late
8- I am so tired

8 Things I want to do before I die-
1- have children
2- spend more time with my grandpa
3- Travel around the world
4- see the Grand Canyon
5- Run a 5K
6- impact as many people as I can in a positive way
7- Move back to my favorite town
8-retire!

8 Things I currently want or need:
1- Some clothes
2- A new coffee table
3-A new dining room table
4-to learn to be content
5-to be a better wife
6- discipline in my life
7-people at church to step up
8-to let go of some things

8 favorite T.V. shows:
1-Super Nanny
2-American Idol
3-House
4-Biggest Loser
5-America's Next Top Model
6-Amazing Race
7-Survivor
8-Jon and Kate plus 8

8 favorite restaurants:
1- Thai Kitchen
2-La Fiesta Mexican
3-Olive Garden
4-Chicos
5-Anywhere with friends
6-Korean in Newport News
7-Anderson's Home and Garden Showplace cafe
8-Anywhere with family

8 things that happened today:
1-The day is young
2-drove to work
3-talked to my mom
4-found out Avrial is going to Women of Faith with me
5-Saw pictures of Teri's new baby girl... so cute
6-ate grapes for breakfast
7-froze to death walking to work
8-blogged

8 things to look forward to:
1-Women of Faith this weekend
2-Girl time this weekend
3-the election to be OVER
4-Marty's birthday
5-Thanksgiving with Marty's dad and mom
6-Painting the house
7- Marty's mom coming to visit next weekend
8-spending some quality time with my husband. I think he is feeling neglected :)

Anyone else out there wanna play? How about Lindsey? Emilie? Becky? Amanda? Anyone???!!!

quick week

I can always tell when I over extend myself :0 some weeks are pretty set I have things going on Sundays all day, tuesday night and wednesday night. This in general is not too much. Most of the time I save Monday nights as my one free at home night and Thursdays is our "get together with friends night", Friday is another night we can get together with folks but we are bad at planning in advance so most people already have things going on so we don't do much with others on friday nights. If we planned a little further in advance we could so that's why we usually hang out on Thursdays. Saturday is the typical............housework, church work, or special activity. We used to try to visit on saturdays with family but we have been very bad at planning that lately! This week we had an extra full (but good) day sunday, then monday spent a few hours with Emilie (one day I will figure out how to spell her name) Tuesday was typicall (though I did play hooky from work to get some much needed yard work done. I couldn't have Marty's dad seeing our yard in shambles. To me that is disrespectful since he gave us all the stuff to make it beautiful and we just have to maintain it. So since they were coming into town tuesday evening I felt a great burden for getting cleaned up out there. Probably felt like the yard was more important than the house :) I know I am crazy but that's what I thought. So anyway they came into town Tuesday night stayed over, left their two dogs with us so they could go to a furniture show and should be back tonight to stay and leave tomorrow am for Florida. wish I could hide in their back seat and go to the sunny keys too. I can't complain I have had some delightful vacation time this year with special people. Last night I watch a couple from our church's kids while they went to the crisis pregnancy banquet. Got home about 9:45 and HAD to watch Survivor :) but that put me in bed way past my bedtime. Marty and I went to bed at the same time.......I was asleep before he even finished taking his contacts out :)

Lesson from this week: Leave yourself one evening! It's necissary for sanity :) I don't think we have any major plans this weekend so I should be able to catch up on massive loads of laundry.....I am waaaay behind on laundry.

Marty is speaking at The Path in Washington sunday night so I don't have to plan anything for youth group :) I hope we have a good crowd that goes.

All in all this week has been a good one just need to look at the whole week as I plan :) I even double booked thursday and had to cancel one thing b/c I forgot about the other :)

Anyway........

This weekend was Pastor appreciation Sunday at our church and it was lovely. I think it's fair to say that we really haven't felt very appreciated lately and so it was very nice of the group to make a little bit of fuss over Marty and me for that matter :)

He got the gadget he has always wanted........It's a Pearl gray Pro 600 Kitchen Aid Mixer.........he's been asking for one for christmas for 6 years but it was too expensive......it was definately a wish list item that stayed a wish list item. (it won't let me post a picture).


They gave me a gift card and gave us a gift card for dinner at the University Chophouse. Def. a place we wouldn't be able to afford. :) All it all very thoughtful gifts.

Then we had a scavenger hunt last night for Youth Group 15 showed up :) It was great. We need to rename it from Youth Group to something else because it has college kids, young adults alike.

Lots going on that has blessed my heart lately, including time getting to know Brent and Emiley.

Thanks you Lord, for provision and placing special people in our path.

Overwhelmed

I just feel like I don't have alot of good ideas lately.

This is a great place to post some brainstorming

Tuesday night: Need to come up with our next study. Due after Thanksgiving (probably around the new year actually if I am fair. I should get Kim to look into a few things for me when things slow down a little for her. I just asked Kim to be thinking about it.

Wednesday: Nothing new really here just pitch in where I can.

Sunday morning: keep working with the Bible Bucks they seem to work well and the kids like them............. print out several weeks ahead of time and make copies then I won't have to worry about it on saturday night........duuhhh

Sunday morning 3 year old class: definitely need to work out the logistics on this. hmmmmmmm.... DVD? maybe use Standard curriculum probably best yeah probably.

Need to get the account set up for the light bookstore.... ugggg (went ahead and emailed marty to look for the sheet and scan it to Jenny, hopefully he can find it).

Start thinking now about Youth Christmas program.

Not to mention sunday night youth program.............just writing that stressed me out :) committee : Marty, Exie, Ted, Lisa, Carson, Steven..... I don't know should you have a ton of people on a committee or just a few........I just don't know.

ok nouph for now!

De-motivators

I have been extremely unmotivated at work here lately. Actually to be honest its been going on for a few months. I have basically been only doing what I need to in order to get by. This is not a good place to be. I am not sure how to get out of this funk! I am really looking forward to the last weekend of this month...........girls weekend! I am looking forward to spending time with my dear friend Jenny! I know I would in general feel better if I would catch or even get ahead on a few things ................ ugggg but that is different than actually doing it! Like I said I am not real sure whats going on.

I am happy with the way things are working out at church right now. I really look forward to tuesday nights. wednesdays are nice and sundays are good now. I am trying to strike a happy balance.

Been doing a little project with my co-worker. we wrote down about 50 things we can do to tell our spouse that we love them and each day before we leave work we "pick" a card. so far it's been cool fun watching her do it too. She tends to be very negative and lately seems to be more positive about her husband. I wish they would go see Fireproof. AWESOME movie.......pretty ok acting but great message. You should see it too.

well I am going to shut my door, pump up my music, and really bust some work out of here today.

Later!

Friends in ministry

I realized Friday after talking with a co-worker that it isn't normal to have people stay at your house. This came as a surprise to me since I have been on the receiving end many times to others hospitality. I realized that this must be a "christian" thing. I would have thought maybe it is a southern thing but I was discussing this with southern folks. So alas a lesson learned.

However I used this unusual situation to share about some of the amazing people I have met in my relatively short lift time because I shared my home with them or they shared their home with me. This weekend was no exception. Keith and Nicole Woods with their beautiful family stayed at our house. Nicole is AMAZING!!! wow I was blessed so much by her :)

I want people to feel comfortable in my home. I want people to look back over their life and think about the hospitality that we offered to them. I can remember many homes that I have stayed in......some were...........interesting.........most were comfortable.........some were extremely awkward.........and a few were simply amazing. I remember how awkward it was to stay with this one family that had like 6 grown children and they were married and a few had kids and they all lived in this 4 bedroom house with a basement and we stayed downstairs in the basement with one of the couples and their newborn.......and there were no doors :) :) that was awkward. On the flip side I remember staying at this one house where they treated us like royalty........were talking chocolate on the pillows and everything :) . Marty's stepmom always puts fresh flowers in the guest rooms, love that. I was able to put fresh flowers in the guest room this weekend b/c my rose bush has been blooming like crazy!

So I guess what I am trying to say is............if you are in or around Greenville, NC and you need a place to stay. Hit us up........I'd love to meet you friend :)

Looooonnnngggg Time

I guess it's a good thing I haven't been on here much b/c it means that i have wasted less time .... but I have lost the encouragement from the blogs I was reading. shame on me.

Things have been rocky but we are back on the right track.........man I haven't updated since May! Alot has happened since May. I don't even have enough time to catch it up right now. I will make time later :)

Amazing Sunday

We really did have an amazing Sunday this week. ahhh if they could all be so wonderful. It wasn't that all was perfect but at least it felt right. We had several visitors and I really hope they come back. I pray that people can see our church as a place they want to get plugged in. There is so much ministry to do and so little time to make it happen. I was challenged by Renee Swope over at Proverbs 31 ministries during a conference that she spoke at this past weekend. She said alot of great things. I was convicted of my lack of relying on God. I love to be in control and I need to let God be the one in control. I also was convicted of my lack of starting my day with His ways. I think if I did that it would make a real difference in the God moments throughout the day. There were so many other things.. and I am so glad Nichole came with me. I have experienced nothing but joy watching this woman after God's own heart. She is having such an amazing journey. I only hope she knows the example and encouragement she is to me and many others. So all in all during a time in my life where I have felt very discouraged I am so thankful to my Lord for providing the necessary outlets.

organizationally Challenged

The main areas that I have the most problem with are my kitchen counters because they collect everything we bring inside but the bigger problem is the office because that is where everything goes when I am cleaning off the kitchen counters. I look forward to hearing people's ideas about organizing day to day papers, mail, magazines, and books. I also look forward to seeing suggestions for other areas.

Wear Your Helmet

On Friday March 28th at 4:30pm the Lord revealed to me just how much he loves me, my family and especially my niece. Brittany was in a 4 wheeling accident. She was racing with a friend through a field and hit a small 8-12 inch ditch. She was thrown 80 feet landing on her front side. Brittany was airlifted unconscious to the children's trauma center in Greenville. Her parents or any other family for that matter were not allowed to ride with her, instead had to drive the 1.5 hours to the hospital. I am so thankful I live in Greenville, I was able to meet the Helicopter.

Brittany is going to be ok. She does have a broken wrist, a concussion, bruised lungs, lots of scratches and scrapes... I will take all of this because she is going to be ok. I thought I would loose her. She and I have been so close her whole life. She tells me things that no one else knows. We have the best time just hanging out together... and to see her like this was so hard.

None of this even comes close to her broken spirit. Brittany is such an independent, healthy and active little 11 year old girl. It is so hard for her to be patient with her parents, the nurses and the doctors. She wants nothing more than to go home. But she won't until the doctors believe she is strong enough. She is so sad. I weep with her when she needs to weep. I smile with her the few times she has smiled. Today was one of those days. Her teacher called and put the whole class on speaker phone. She was glowing, it really was amazing.

Please pray that we have more glowing moments. I am so thankful that the Lord had his protective hands around Brittany. I know He has many amazing things planned for this child.

and for goodness sakes... make your children wear helmets all the time. no matter how uncool. This 11 year old would be dead!

Thanks for the support my blogging friends.

Grace

I am really struggling right now with the fact that people in general disappoint me. I am trying to remind myself that there is only one who will never disappoint and that is my Lord! I am so discouraged by peoples choices... even when it seems so obvious. How can one be so entangled with sin and not care... or at least avoid anyone who might call them on it. Isn't it our job as the church to bare one another's burdens... those burdens are sin.. how can we do that if people don't acknowledge... I don't understand at all.

Ministry is so hard, you care about these people and you want them to Love the Lord and make the right decisions, but really there is nothing you can do to make them. This must be what some parents feel like.

Taxes

I have to say that CPA's earn every dime they charge to do peoples taxes. I give them mad props just for understanding the language. This is the first year my husband and I will file with him being in fulltime ministry and let me tell you there is no easy "checklist". I have spent the better part of good friday and saturday working on a spreadsheet to be able to turnover to our CPA and I just know I have forgotten a ton of stuff. Next year will be so much better, because I will have had this first year under my belt.

I just hope we don't have to pay anymore than we already have.

What kind of experiences have you had with your taxes? Do you know of an easy go to "ministry" tax website?

Organizing

Less really is more people. I have found that unless there is room for everything to have it's own place you will never be able to get ahead of the game. The truth is most people can't organize because they simply have too much stuff. Clean sweep taught me alot and I have been able to live by their philosophy.

Take one room at a time, even if you only have an hour. Grab one bag for trash, one back for giveaway and one basket for keep.

Now spend time in that pile and sort it into one of the three options. I think the key is for you to "finish" by throwing the trash away, loading the giveaway stuff in the car, and putting away the keep items. Unless you complete the task you won't feel like you have done anything.

Also in my house my husband has the luxury of one drawer for dark t-shirts, one for white t-shirts, one for socks, one for underwear and one for shorts.... everything else is hung up. Since we are able to sort things like this it is easy to see when it is necessary for things to be weeded out. For example... when I can't fit anymore t-shirts in his drawer I pull out out 10 old maybe ugly ones that I don't like and lay them on the bed for him to choose 5 to keep :) never in a million years would i get away with just throwing his out or get him to sort through his drawer but if I do the leg work i usually don't have any trouble getting him to go through them and "rescuing" a few poor shirts that were headed to the dust rag pile. :)

I am definately one of those organize junkies so I could say alot but I will leave room for everyone else to part with their knowledge on Lysa's blog.

go to http://lysaterkeurst.blogspot.com/ for more tips.