back from the beach
we had a wonderful time on vacation last week!
highlights:
1) Daniel started walking in earnest. He went from only taking a couple steps at a time at the beginning of the week to walking pretty much anywhere he wants to by the end. Hooray!
2) good times with the family. Including, but not limited to: yummy food, watching Daniel at the aquarium, and playing games (Seth won a lot of them... just thought you should know...)
3) the ocean. Jessica's brother actually found $20 in the ocean the first time he walked in. As if being at the ocean wasn't good enough... now he gets paid for it??
So there you go. We've got some pictures posted, too!
Labels: family, travel
at the beach
We are very much enjoying our time at Myrtle Beach with Jessica's folks. We've had beautiful weather so far and Daniel is loving the beach! The only thing he doesn't like is the elevator. When we get him down to the water, though, he is delighted! Daniel is also gaining confidence with walking. Now he is willing to walk short distances between things... it won't be long until he's walking everywhere, I guess. We're so excited!
Oh, we've posted a couple of new videos recently if you haven't seen them yet. They're on the movies page.
Labels: family, travel
We're Controversial
The recent article about us in the Fincastle Herald (see post from July 9th) has stirred a bit of local controversy. This weeks edition of the paper included two somewhat heated responses in the letters to the editor (one from the pastor of a local Presbyterian church). Unfortunately, the letters to the editor are not posted online, or I would show them to you. We have also received some interesting responses via email.
Evidently, we are going to Ireland to spread "self-righteous bigotry" by imposing our own "interpretation of Jesus' teachings" on people who are "already Christians".
We are thankful, though, for the opportunity to explain ourselves, our mission and the gospel of God's grace to those who emailed. We are also thankful for the opportunity to receive criticism for the sake of the gospel. It's good training for the misunderstandings I'm sure we'll receive in Ireland.
If you are reading this and don't know what we mean by the "gospel of God's grace" or have questions about why we consider Ireland to be spiritually needy, than I urge you to
contact us and give us the opportunity to explain ourselves.
Labels: our ministry
Daleville VBS
This week, God opened the door for us to help with another Vacation Bible School! This time it's at our Virginia home church, Daleville Baptist. Like we did at Southwood in Alabama, we get to present the missions project and this time the kids are raising money to help a church in Killarney, Ireland. We'll be paying for the printing of 5,000 cards that look like this:
and a team from another church in the States will be in Killarney soon to distribute them to the city of Killarney.
Labels: Ireland, our ministry
We're in the news!
Our family is featured in today's Fincastle Herald (our local newspaper)!! To see the article online,
click here!Labels: our ministry
Birthday, etc.
Daniel turned one on Saturday, July 5
th! We had an exciting day celebrating with friends and family (there are some pictures up on our picture page). It's pretty hard to believe that it's been a whole year since Daniel came into our family! He is more fun every day and we have to admit that this is probably the best year we've ever had :)
Daniel now has eight words ("mama", "
dada", "up", "more", etc) plus three animal sounds (mostly "quack") and could probably walk just fine on his own if he could just get the courage up. As it is, he loves walking all over as long as he has a hand to hold.
In other news, the past couple of days have been an adventure on another level - our computer started dying on Saturday and finished the job last night, so I'm using a new one to type this now. It's a big process to get everything set up on the new one, but we are very thankful that we did end up having time to get all of our important information off of the old computer while it took it's time dying. God is good! And we've learned our lesson: Now we have a much more
efficient back up system, so even if the new computer were to die quickly, we'd still have everything we need.
Labels: family
busy week in Ireland
This week is a busy one for our teammates in Ireland! There is a Sr. High camp going on that involves a lot of CrossWorld missionaries, backyard Bible clubs for kids, distribution of evangelistic magazines (called "4you", and also available
on the internet), as well as various other ministries. I'm sure they would appreciate your prayers as they seek to spread the good news in Ireland!
Labels: Ireland, our ministry
188 countries represented in Ireland
Ireland is becoming more multi-cultural, and that fact is certainly effecting the churches we'll be working with. For the full story from the Irish Times,
click here. We'd love to hear your thoughts on how churches in Ireland can respond to this trend!
Labels: Ireland
