My Poor Neglected Blog

Johnny told me the other day that my blog has been neglected.  Poor little thing!  Needless to say, it has been quite a busy summer!  Johnny and I are headed out-of-town this weekend for a couple of days with some friends but other than that, all the excitement and traveling of the summer is pretty much over.  Jessica and Jacob are both working this morning and it's quiet around the house.  Oh yeah, and I'm working, even though it looks like I'm blogging...I'm just taking a short break!

I wanted to add a few pictures from our recent mission trip to Laredo.  Wow, what a week!  We had a group building a playground... (BTW, the are soaking wet because they worked the last day in the pouring down rain.  But, we praised the Lord for the rain because it made for cooler temperatures!)

We had a group working at a soccer camp in the mornings...

(That's my Jacob with a group of kids at camp)

We had two groups doing morning VBS at two different locations.  We then took the VBS to the park for 2 nights and had sports, crafts, & a Bible story.  Tons of families came out to the park in the evenings!

It really was a great week.  My boys played (Josh - bass & Jacob on the drums) at a church on Wednesday night as well as at a block party on the last night we were there.  The block party was the same night as flooding rain hit Laredo.  The border between the US and Mexico expanded a bit while we were there.  My Jessica told the story at VBS one day with an interpreter.  It was her first time to speak with an interpreter but she did great.  She said it was a little hard to remember to pause & let the interpreter go, a fact that I know all too well.  It was such a privilege for me to be on mission with my kids and to see them in action.  In fact, not just the kids that I birthed but all the students we took down there did a fabulously wonderful job.  For real, there was no complaining, no fussing, NO DRAMA, and, believe me, we asked a lot of those kids and adults.  We got a lot of hard work and the joy of seeing people saved and, hopefully, lives changed. 

I've got some other big news from our family but I can't stick it here at the end of this blog so I'll be back (hopefully) real soon to write all about what God is doing in our family!

Until then, stay cool - man, we are having some hot days here in North Texas!

Serving the King,

Jeanette
 

Gifted by the Spirit

I love that the church has arms and legs and eyes and ears and we're not all a bunch of hands just stuck together and hanging on Jesus Christ, the Head of the church.  I am particularly thankful for that today and I think my friend Pam is awesome.  She is a pro at teaching kids and loving kids and giving of herself to others.  She was a tremendous help to me yesterday as we did our final collection of materials for our mission trip.  Actually, she helped me by telling me what to do - I love that!  We've been in Bible study together and our kids are similar ages so I know her heart but I rarely get over to the children's building so I think yesterday was the first time I've seen her in action.  Amazing, really!  (And, I'm typing this because she doesn't read my blog so she won't know...)

The main reason I'm here this morning is because I'm amazed at how God puts people together.  He really did knit us together in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13) and made us individually unique.  We were given talents and the ability to do all sorts of things.  We were given different personalities - some are shy, like me, and some are more outgoing, like my husband and daughter.  But, when we become believers and followers of Jesus, we are given gifts by the Holy Spirit.  Those gifts, as well as our talents, are to be used for the benefit of the body, the church. 

How that works in practice is so beautifully displayed every week as we gather at the property we call our "church" knowing full well that the church is the people, not the buildings.  It is also really cool to see how that works when we are on mission.  When we step away from that property and from those buildings that are like home to us and reach out to others.  I have a chance to do that in just a few days.  I'm excited and a tiny bit apprehensive.  I'm believing, however, that God goes before us and all that we do is to His glory and not our own.

If you think about it over the next week, will you pray for our mission group as we head back down to Laredo?  We covet your prayers on our behalf as well as on the behalf of those we will serve!

Serving the King,

Jeanette