This Week's Scripture
"Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it." Deuteronomy 7:26
This Week's Prayer!
We invite Your Holy Spirit to dwell in these rooms, which belongs to Henry, Anthony, Zoë, Asa, Rose, Grace, and Elijah, and in Heidi, Angel, and Angela's room. You are Lord over heaven and earth, and we proclaim that You are Lord over their rooms as well. Flood it with Your light and life. We pray that You, Lord, will make their rooms a holy place, sanctified for Your glory. And may You also dwell in our room and in each one of our extended family and friend's rooms.
We are blessed to be able to have a booth at HPC's next Live the Dream Women's conference which is this Thursday-Saturday! Awesome Awesome! You can read more about what we are doing
here.
After this week I should be able to update this blog more regularly! Children are great! We are all loving this cool weather. We even had our first hot dog and marshmallow roast Friday night!! Fun Fun!!
HPC VBS!
They had so much fun!!
Anthony even got a reward gift for being a great Junior Counselor! Yay, Anthony!!
Rock the River doing sound check
The people were coming. Overall, there were about 10,000 people that showed up!
Busy Busy Summer!!!!!..... but it has been all good! We just finished up Vacation Bible School at
HealingPlaceChurch. I volunteered in the CRAZY and LOUD snack tent while all our little ones enjoyed water games, singing, dancing, crafts, and learning about Jesus! Yay!
Yesterday was Rock the River. I volunteered in a hot dog vendor while Tommy took the little ones to visit Grandma and Grampa. Me and Henry and Anthony got to hear some great music while doing that! Henry and Anthony went their own way and had some fun with some friends. It was super hot but wow to see all the people come together and rock for Jesus was awesome. Governor Bobby Jindal gave a great talk, Mayor Kip Holden was great and then Franklin Graham was amazing. Just like his Dad the message is simply you need Jesus! What a great event in our city!!
Oh, and I had to add the picture of Elijah's sweet time on the chair playing in the sink water. I looked over from being at our island and saw those cute little legs and instantly thought about how fast they grow!
Get real time
live updates about all the churches participating in Servolution!! Ours is tomorrow: OCS Foster Care Fun Day!!!!! We are so excited to see what God is going to do for the 21 foster children that will be there!!
Here are some catch up pictures and a video of Elijah repeating his abc's. He sounds so cute!! As you will see, the wall behind us has been touched by the toddlers. This is the real us..... torn wall and all!! The pictures above are of Anthony giving Grace, Rose, and Elijah a turn on this bike. I don't know what it is called but the children love this bike!!
We have been busy. We were blessed to set up the Heart Gallery at the 10th Annual Adoption Celebration at the Governor's mansion last week. They celebrated many foster children adoptions. My Mom and I went and it was such a blessing! The pictures are below. Today we had our quarterly Adoption Workshop which is always awesome. I am walking down a new path with SewSensible. I have designed and created my sewing patterns on cd to sell to vendors at wholesale. I say vendors but I actually just got my first vendor. This is very exciting and I see I will be busy in 2009 with this new path..... a good kind of busy. Oh, the vendor is AllBrands. This is a favorite store for me and Mom! Go check it out!! How exciting!!
All the children are playing and growing and testing their boundaries!! LOL They are a blessing and Tommy and I are so blessed! Tommy has been busy with just.... well, just going to work and providing for our family! He is awesome! The 40SAP fast ends today!! During this fast I was and am believing for a move of God in some specific areas in our life. I will blog about them as they come about! The purpose of the 40SAP fast was to lead right into miracle offering at church. Tomorrow should be a pretty amazing day and 2009 should be even better!
This week I hope to actually visit all the cooking blogs I posted on my sidebar. I just could not do it the last 40 days..... it would have been way too tempting and painful!! LOL I will have to post some of the recipes I hope to try from those blogs! Can't wait!
My Mom and I enjoyed HPC's Live the Dream Conference this weekend. Thanks to Tommy who watched the children the whole time, I was able to have quality time with my Mom and with God! This was the second LTD conference and it was awesome! It was a great time for me to be fed spiritually by some great speakers:
April Simmons,
Chris Caine,
Pastor Dino Rizzo, and
Delynn! I love them so much I have already signed up for next year! There is just something about having God-ordained women speak life in you and encourage you in your God given dreams. This was the first time I have heard April speak and she was awesome. I love funny stories that make me really laugh to the point of tears and April told one about a garbage can that definitely made me laugh to the point of tears. Chris is a regular at our church but her messages are always a fresh new word about basically being sold out to Him! I always leave challenged after listening to her message. Of course, Pastor drives it home with a great message that stirs the soul but what excites me the most is that Delynn is walking on a new path that God has called her to in the past year which is taking her post at raising up and empowering Godly women! I feel tremendously blessed to be part of a church that sees this as a priority.
Tommy and I love an adventure! Tomorrow, we will join with our church on a forty day Spiritual Adventure Pursuit fast! I am very excited and am going in with great expectation of what God is going to say and do! I turned 39 this year and honestly it has not been an exciting number for me. Age has never bothered me but for some reason just the thought of leaving my thirties bothered me. I love my thirties. So I prayed about this and God laid three word on my heart for my forties: Plan of Purpose! He also laid on my heart to fast 10 days: one day for each year in my forties. And then pastor talked about this fast and I just knew I was supposed to be a part of this. I love to dream big and I still have some big dreams inside of me that I know God wants to see come forth. And Tommy also believes this is an important time to seek His face and surrender more to Him. We have also talked to Henry and Anthony about this. So we will join as a family and go on a Spiritual Adventure Pursuit!!
If you are reading this and are interested in seeing some breakthroughs in some prayers you have been praying or you need some Holy Spirit guidance then click
here and join us!
Here's what we have been looking at for the past couple of days. Gustav is expected to come through Monday night Tuesday morning. We are prepared and ready. We had no electricity for about three days from Hurricane Katrina so we may experience the same. It seems to be moving more west which is good for us but not good for them.
Pastor gave a right now word straight from Psalm 23. We are protected in His presence. Healing Place Church is ready to help when needed. You can click the link above to get updates regularly for help or volunteer work.
Psa 23:1 A psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need.
Psa 23:2 He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.
Psa 23:3 He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.
Psa 23:4 Even when I walk through the dark valley of death,
[fn1] I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.
Psa 23:5 You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You welcome me as a guest, anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.
Psa 23:6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
Rock the River doing sound check
The people were coming. Overall, there were about 10,000 people that showed up!
