It's Snowing!!!

We're leaving tomorrow. Adam is going to a youth ministry conference in Nashville. I'm dropping him off and going on to Alabama but tonight in West Virginia, it's snowing!! It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!! :)

Fun Week!

Thank God I have a two year old to help me make friends. We've had a really good week. On Monday, we had a play group at Julie's house. It was a lot of fun and really nice for me to get to sit and talk with the other moms. On Tuesday, we went and toured Mr. Bee's Chip Factory. I was going to post some pictures from that but how interesting can pictures of potato chips be? After the tour, we went to the mall and played at the play area and then Emma and I had lunch with Julie and Anna. It's really cute because Emma and Anna really have taken a liking to each other. Anna kept calling Emma sister. When we got home Emma said to me, "Anna is my friend, but she calls me sister". We had a wonderful bible study at ladies bibles study Wed. I want to share something from that with you all but I'm going to share it with the girls at heart to heart first. My class went really well on Wed. night. We talked about prayer and then we made prayer journals. Most of the kids really seemed excited about doing it. I had twelve kids in my class. Five of them were from Powell. I think that's the largest class I've had so far. Then yesterday.. busy busy day. It started off with a sweet suprise. Sam and Anna we're feeling sorry for me because I had a bad week last week and they sent me flowers. Thank you Sam and Anna, that was so sweet. And, it did brighten my day. Last night, I had a Southern Living party which had a great turnout and then we had a lock-in with the teenagers. I left the lock in at two to come home but while I was there, the kids seemed to be having a good time and we had several visitors there too.

Emma constantly amazes me with the new things she comes out with. The other day, we came in the living room and she said, "The sun is shining. The sun is a huge star". I bought a map of the US and we've started talking about where the different people we love live. She can already point out several of the states. I guess I'm going to have to learn them with her because I don't even know where all the states are. She is so inquisitive. I hope I can just stear her so that she keeps such a strong desire to learn.

You can see by the picture of Emma in the leaves that most of them have fallen off the trees by now. Winter, here we come!!

Please pray for our ministry!!!

Love from above,

Dana

Powell

Pictures are from TAG Thursday night

Ok, here is my promised post about Powell. I have written before about how our church busses over some kids from a housing development to church. And, that Melissa Ogden, our teens, and our interns started a vacation bible school type thing with them on Thursday night. Also, we have began to have church on every fourth Sunday night at Powell. Well, some of the adults from Powell are coming to church now too. And, one got baptized the other night. Hip Hip Hooray. We had a planning session Thursday night before TAG and I’m going to go into detail about that but first, I want to tell you about TAG. Btw TAG is the thing we do with the kids on Thursday night. I have no idea what it stands for.

Joe came in and talked to them about Jesus feeding the 5000. That so happened to be one of the miracles that we discussed in my class on Wed. I had a very proud moment when many of the kids raised their hands because they knew the story. They were so excited. It was so neat. They are really learning about God!! It feels really good to get to be able to be a part of that. One little boy, Justin asked Joe if he could ask some questions. Joe thought that he wanted to ask questions about the story he was telling. Joe said, “yes” and Justin jumped up and started asking all the other kids questions about things we have been talking about in class like he was the teacher. It was really cute.

Ok, the planning session.

First of all, I will say that I think this could very well be the most important ministry for our church. When I think, If Jesus was living my life right now, what would he be doing? I think this very likely would be it. So having said that..

Here are two of our goals for Powell this year.

Get more people (especially adults) involved in this ministry.
Like I said, this is a very important ministry. God has put a mission field in our back door. We don’t need to over look this opportunity. I am praying for God to send workers!!

To start a pantry for the Powell residents. This pantry will contain essential items that can’t be bought with food stamps. Things like: toiletries, diapers, medicines, and cleaning supplies. We sent a sign up sheet around church for people to sign up to bring some of these items and had a very good response. I am really excited about this new program. I really feel like this will be a way to reach some people. If you read this and feel inclined to donate something please do!! Also, we definitely will accept money donations and do the shopping for you. Regardless, please pray for this ministry.

Love from above,

Dana


PS: Emma and I tourned Mr. Bee's chip factory with our Mom's Club today. Check back soon for pictures from that

So much on my mind, so few words

Wow, there are so many things that I'm thinking about and I'm having a hard time sorting them out. I'll give it a shot:

It's that time of the year. The weather is getting cold and people are getting down. I remember Lori (our old minister's wife) telling me that November is the worse time of the year. Lori, I miss Lori. I LOVE it here but I feel as I’m having a hard time actually developing close relationships and I’m really missing that spiritual mentor that Lori was for me. I know that it will come in time and that relationships like that don’t come over night but I’ll be glad to get past that point. I’m also missing my girlfriends. The other night, I just mentioned Pam’s name and started crying. I miss her. I hate that I haven’t seen her new baby yet. I hate that Melissa is going through all she is and I can’t be there. If you are here in WV reading this please don’t take this to mean that I don’t want to be here. I do. I’m so thankful that God led us here. I just have a hard time with the whole starting over stuff. Anyway.. Bad time of the year.. The statistics are something like: 50% more suicides occur in November and December than any other time of the year. I can see that others are down and I'm trying hard to fight it myself. However, Adam and I spent a whole lot of time the other night praying and I’m fully expecting things to perk up. Ok, now that I’ve got that off my chest, enough whining, there are lost souls out there!!

Emma… Thank God for her!! For her innocence, for the way she helps me appreciate the important things. We went to the playground yesterday to meet Julie and Anna and I was so proud Emma when she wanted to take one of the rings that Denise had put in her Halloween package to give to Anna. She decided that Anna would have the pink one and she would have the purple one. Anna reciprocated by letting Emma wear her necklace. When we left, they gave each other big hugs. It was so sweet and I’m so glad that she’s already learning to love her friends.

The other day, I was reading a bible story to her and there was a picture of Jesus and another man. “She said, That’s Jesus. Is that Peter? Maybe it’s Matthew”. It was very proud moment for me, realizing that she was really soaking up God’s word. I feel as though these days are flying by and I can’t soak enough of it up. She’s growing so fast. She’s going to be a teenager before I know it and that scares me to death. I know that I only have a limited time where I’m the biggest influence in her life and so I’m trying to pack in enough love and values to last a lifetime. I feel so inadequate for that job. God, please give me wisdom.

Last night, we went to Powell. I’m so excited about that ministry. God has put a mission field in our back yard. I’ve got some pictures from last night that I want to post and do a whole post about our planning session at powell but, I’ve got a big day today I need to get started on. The Cox’s are coming for dinner so lots to do. So be looking for the Powell post in the next couple of days.

Prayers for our ministry are appreciated!!
Love from Above,

Dana

Fall In West Virginia

This is a view from the hay ride up on the hill at Sweet Apple Farms. Aren't the trees beautiful?


I've got a lot of catching up to do so the two posts below are from today.

Mom and Dad's visit

We've been extremely busy. My parents we're here for almost a week and we had a wonderful time. I'm bummed that they had to go back home but am extremely thankful that we had so long to spend with them.

They got here on Monday. They road their motorcycle. Yes, they are crazy but, they have fun. There friends Danny and Kathy road up here with them. They stayed at the Layfette hotel Monday night. We went over their and went to the Becky Thatcher for dinner. If you were thinking of going to the Becky Thatcher (it's a river boat on the Ohio River) Let me save you some money and tell you that it was horrible.

Tuesday, Danny and Kathy went back and mom and dad came here for the rest of the week.
Emma had a tea party like every five minutes. My mom spoiled her rotten playing with her. Mom would go in there every morning and the first thing Emma would say was, "You wanna have a tea party Nonna?" She had a blast. Wednesday. We went to "Sweet Apple Farm". It's a really neat place. And the trees were beautiful. The leaves are changing and it's so pretty!! They had goats, lambs, cows, chickens, and rabbits. We went on a hay ride and froze our rear ends off. We had a really great time though. On Thursday, we went to Amish Country. I thought it was a little over rated but then I found out that we didn't go to the right places. We still had a good time. And, we got a pumpkin for Emma which dad helped her carve while we were at the retreat.

Friday, dad and I road around looking at some houses. We're thinking about buying one to have as a rental. Then we got ready and left for the retreat. Details from the retreat are below. Emma of course had lots of fun with my parents while we were gone and then we took her trick-or-treating when we got back home (Our town did it Saturday night).

Then, Sunday morning mom and dad left to begin their long journey back home :(. We'll get to see them again in three weeks so that isn't too bad. Then Adam's parents are coming for Thanksgiving so that should be fun too.

Well, I've spent alot of time writing this so I guess I better get some other stuff done.

I'm looking forward to your comments hint hint.

Love from above,

Dana

PS, the post below is a post about our retreat.

Orbit: Revolve Around the Son-- Fall Retreat

The Retreat was great! The Theme was Orbit: Revolve Around the Son. Adam did three great, thought prevoking lessons. Everyone got along great (as always). This group does a great job of loving each other. The hotel had a really neat set up with an indoor pool and a hot tub. It looked like a jungle when you walked in. We enjoyed that tremendously. I learned a new game.. Animal Ball. This game is played in the pool and can get quite violent. We were having a great game of very involved Animal ball, when other people, not with our group got in the pool. The teens did not even hesitate when I told them we needed to quit since there were other people in there. They did a good job putting in to practice the things that Adam talked about in his lessons about not thinking the world revolved around us. Like I've said so many times before.. They are a great group and I'm very proud of them.

Lindsey and I found an awesome deal on blue jeans at the mall. They were marked down from $75.00 90% off and then an additional 15% off that. They ended up being like $6.00. We were extremely excited about our awesome fashion deals.

We ended the trip with a trip to a place with indoor go carts and laser tag. We had a girls against guys game of laser tag and the guys beat the mess out of us. I think that Scallywag Tag in Cincinnati spoiled us because no one was that impressed with their laser tag facilities. The go carts however, were a different story. We had a lot of fun racing each other. And, though we tried very hard, we had a little contact where we wasn't suppose to.

Almost everyone in the youth group went. It was a great turn out and tons of fun. Thank you Angie Knost for being a chaperone and thank you Ryan and Jessie Ice for all your hard work!! We love you guys so much!!

Now, let me describe the pictures.

1) This is a picture of most of the people that went. Sorry if you aren't in it. I forgot to get an "official" group picture. I snapped this one while Adam was buying tickets.

2) Picture of some of the girls in the jungle pool room.

3) Jenna and Kylee signing warm fuzzies on our galaxy beach balls.

Real post coming soon

HI,

My parents are here and we're having a wonderful time. I have some great pictures to share with you but I'm missing the cord that connects my camera to the computer. We also have a retreat this weekend that I'm so looking forward to so check back for pictures and a real update.

Until then, please pray blessings on our retreat this weekend.

Love from Above
Dana

A Day Late

Hi,

I realize that I’m a day late updating. There are two reasons for this:
1)I didn’t have anything real amazing to report to you
2)I’m going cold turkey off caffeine and I’m really tired and have a headache.
Anyway, I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m hoping that getting rid of the caffeine habit will help and so far, it has.

Anyway, we had a pretty normal week. MOPS, playdates, church… the usual. We have been working on the alphabet a lot this week and Emma is catching on really well. She has known her ABC’s for a while but we’ve been working on activities where she picks the letter out. I guess if I wanted to stretch the truth a little bit, I could say that she can read because she can pick out the letters I an A and those are words. She has the pledge right now and no longer says Justice frog L. That’s kind of sad because it was cute.

We had the guys night/ girls sleepover on Friday. Both events had a great turn out (probably another reason why I’m tired). We had lots of fun and very little sleep. The rest of the week with the youth group was our usual events. Small groups on Sunday and Heart to Heart on Tuesday. Heart to Heart didn’t go quite as well as I was hoping. Emma kept getting behind me doing “Where is thumb kin”. That was pretty distracting. Anyway, we talked about the passage that says, “His strength is shown in my weakness”. I guess maybe I needed that lesson more than anyone. That page gets a lot of wear in my Bible.

My parents are coming up here. They will be here Monday. I’m very excited about that.

I do have some funny things that Emma did to report:
The three of us were in Toys R Us and Emma announced that Adam pooted. He’s gonna love me for telling you that one.

I told her that we needed to go to the store. She said that she just wanted to stay home. I told her that we could probably go to McDonalds for lunch while we were out. She said, "Can I take a break at McDonalds".

Also, the batteries in my camera are dead and I can’t find the charger so I will put a picture up later.

Love from Above,

Dana

Crazy Week

Picture: Emma and Anna at our play date

Have you ever had one of those days? Well, I've had one of those weeks.

Before I start into my week, I will say that we went to the Zoe Conference with Brian and Angie Knost and had a great time. My mom drove to Nashville and got Emma (I have wonderful parents) and then my mom and dad brought her back to me Sunday.

Ok, now for the craziness....
Matt Wilson had flown to Nashville and road back to WV with us. If you know Matt, you know that he is 6ft7. This becomes important, I promise. Well, we stopped at Chuck E' Cheeses so Emma could have a break. (Thanks to Matt for being such a good sport). It was very crowded. There were like six birthday parties going on. Anyway, Adam and Matt were talking and I took Emma to play in the climbing tubes thing. I stood at the slide because that was the only way down. Well, she was up in the tubes for a while without me being able to see her so I began to get a little worried. I started to walk around trying to see in the windows and couldn't see her. I began to get very worried. I got Adam's attention and he came to the slide. I decided that the only thing for me to do was to climb up into the tubes. I got up in the tubes and couldn't find her. At this point, I organized about ten three and four year olds into a search party. We were all crawling through this maze of tubes looking for a little girl in pink and orange and yelling Emma. This picture seems somewhat amusing now but seriously, this was the most frightening moment of my life. By this time, I was in a full on panic. I was in a full panic and was in a maze. Not good... Since everyone had heard me yelling for my daughter, everyone began to look. I slid down the slide and began to look around. The first thing I thought was to check the bathrooms. So I ran screaming into the bathroom. Then the manager came out and began to very calmly and slowly ask me what Emma looked like. I wanted to hit the guy. I seriously was in the middle of a nervous break down and he was talking like a gay guy. Anyway, about that time Adam came around with Emma in his arms. Matt had spotted her climbing unto a skee ball machine. Thank you God for making Matt tall enough to see over everything in Chuck E Cheeses. Emma will not be getting in another one of those things until she’s twelve. I spent the rest of the trip trying to think of things to tell Matt to prove to him that I was in fact a good mother. But, I’m pretty sure that he’ll always see me as the crazy woman crawling through the tubes at Chuck E Cheeses screaming her head off.

Monday:
We tore down wallpaper at the youth house. We discovered at least five different wallpapers in the many many layers. Maybe more. It's still not finished.

Yesterday:
I left my cell phone on my car and drove off with it on there. Adam went to get it replaced for me only to find out that I had opted not to get insurance.

Today:
Well first, this is the second time I’ve written this post because my computer did something funky and I lost the whole thing.

Emma and I had a play date with my friend Julie and Emma’s friend Anna. Anna is about six months older than Emma. We had a wonderful time. Emma doesn’t usually have girls to play with. But, in the two hour period we were there, Emma pooped four times. And we’re potty training so it wasn’t a pretty picture. I know you may not want to hear about my child’s poop but when you become a mom, poop talk is a normal part of every day life.

Then church…
Our church works with a government subsidized apartment complex. I’m so proud to be apart of a church that does this sort of thing. The kids from this complex are bussed to church. What an awesome opportunity!! I will take a moment to brag on our teens here. Our teens are great. They along with Ryan and Jesse Ice (our interns) go to the Powell Apartment complex every Thursday night and sing songs and do crafts and stuff with these kids. If it weren’t for their hard work, these kids wouldn’t be at church.. Our teens are great!! But, these kids don’t exactly know how to act in church and I had eight of them. It was a crazy night. But, when we were leaving, this kid, Tyrell asked me “Do you want me to come back?” I said, “Well of course I do Tyrell”. He said, “Will you be my teacher?” And so I’m thanking God for giving me the honor of being one of the people that get to show this kid Jesus. And so I’ll pray, somewhat reluctantly, that next week, God will bring me twice as many.

After church:
Emma was taking a bath and the door bell rang. I ran to answer the door. It was a woman from church dropping something off. Then I heard Emma screaming in the bathroom. I ran in there to find that she had poured a bottle of shampoo on her head. I wet a washcloth and handed it to her. She stopped crying and I went back to the door. Emma started crying again. Becky kindly told me she’d let me tend to my child and I went back to the bathroom. Shampoo had gotten into her eyes. I got her out and washed her eyes the best I could. She stopped crying but flatly refused to get back into the bathtub so I could wash the shampoo out of her hair. I then cleared everything off the kitchen counter and told her we were going to do it like Nonna does it at her beauty shop and rinsed her hair in the sink.

But really, after losing her on Sunday, this all seems so small. I really doubt that anyone reads this novel but writing it was definitely therapeutic and certainly cheaper than a shrink.

Before I go, I do have to share with you a couple of…..

Funny things Emma did:

On the way to Nashville, Angie road with me and Adam road with Brian. Emma was sitting quietly in the back seat while Angie and I talked ninety to nothing. Emma piped up and said, “Excuse me”. It may have been one of those things where you had to be there but we lost it.

And, she can say the pledge but instead of justice for all, she has justice frog.

See you next Wed.

Love from Above,

Dana

PS: I spent two hours writing this twice. You could at least leave a short comment