Busy Weekend

Wow! We had an amazing time this weekend at Sojourn's membership class. It was a Friday evening and all Saturday talking about their church, the Gospel, their views and what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. Very intense but extremely educational and eye opening. We know God has placed us here as we heard things God has been teaching us and showing us continuously throughout the weekend. God is an Awesome God and we are so excited that He has brought us here to be a part of His work in Louisville until He says it is time for us to go over seas.

It has been a great time for meeting more people to connect with at church as well as seeing how ripe the harvest is right now. We went to the park Sunday evening with some new friends that all have a boy around Jamey's age, well really they are stair steps in months with Jamey being the oldest, and had a wonderful time. Today we had play group with some other moms from Sojourn and it is amazing how God is putting us in contact with like minded people. How amazing! When we are striving for God's best under the cross of Jesus Christ we are unified even in our differences. This place gets better every day.

Jim had orientation for Norton yesterday and this place is going to be a wonderful place to work. It is a faith based hospital (inter denominational) and they are very much for their employees and for their patients. Love that! The schedule is still a bit crazy and it seems like it will be that way for a while, but I know God will use these crazy times to build us in the faith and make us stronger.

I am also extremely surprised at how mobile babies can be before they crawl. Miss Lillian is ALL OVER THE PLACE! Now that she can roll she rolls everywhere and can army crawl like a pro. I do not know how they learn to do this over night but she did!

Jamey's vocabulary is building like crazy, though he keeps dropping words too. We are working on him telling us what he wants instead of just saying Please. This will take some time I know. And he was so sweet with Lillian this morning. He was asking to hug and kiss her and telling her the body parts he knows. But then when he was tired of her hugs he pushed her away. They start so young!

It's been a month and a half and tomorrow is September. Crazy!

Who Knows!

I seriously wish I could just think and type a blog. There have been several times I have wanted to write an entry but just did not have the opportunity and now that I have a minute I cannot remember what all I wanted to write.

I will say this, I don't think cooking would be so bad if I had someone to plan the meals and buy the food for me. It took me a total of 3 hours to do that last weekend! Ridiculous! But I really have no idea what I am doing in this regard. Thankfully most of what I have made the past couple of weeks has been successful (tasty) according to Jim. I think I'm just overly critical of myself. We did make some super yummy cheese enchiladas a couple nights ago! And it wasn't that hard. Doing fresh pinto beans was a challenge but this time they were a success!

Tonight I start Seminary Wives Institute at Southern. I'm excited to see what there is in store for me there.

Precious Time

"People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them." Mark 10:13-16

The kingdom of heaven really does belong to children. Thursday afternoon Jamey grabbed our family Bible, took it to Jim and said please! After Jim read the Word Jamey took Jim's hand asking to pray. When Jim finished praying Jamey said "amen". It is moments like these that really show me God is real, His word is true and only in Jesus can we be saved. Though we are born sinful, children know God. I don't know how as it is an amazing and profound mystery but they know God is real and they eat up the Word of God.

We had a busy week last week meeting people, spending time with friends, hanging out as a family and getting ready for Jim to start school.

Friday was orientation. We had a chapel service and Dr. Mohler addressed the new students and hit the nail on the head. God has truly blessed him with wisdom for leading students of the Word. The Holy Spirit is so present here. After chapel there was a lunch provided by Chick-fil-A where they met people from their particular school. I missed most of this as Jamey and I played with other kids and moms in the lobby. They also had a fair with information on ministry opportunities and other school activities. They have a lot of things for women including the seminary wives institute. This is a neat program where you go once a week to learn a touch of what your husband is learning in seminary. When you have completed so many courses you actually "graduate" with a certificate. It sounds really neat. I will be taking some of these courses starting August 26th taking Cross Cultural Ministries for 6 weeks. This is quite exciting for me as I have wanted to take seminary studies but will not be able to do the full load.

It is amazing to see what God is doing here.

1 month already! How time is flying!

Job Finalized

The Lord is our great Provider! Today Jim got the final say that he does have a job at Norton Suburban and in NICU! He will start orientation August 30, which is much better than starting the same week as school (we thought that was going to be the case). The job is 3-11pm 5 days a week so this will take some getting use to but we are so thankful for the Lord's provision and how well this will work for school. It also has good benefits which is such a blessing as there are not a lot of great options here. How we will miss Kaiser. :(

We had a great community group tonight and our wonderful neighbors watched Jamey and another couples son for us. They are so wonderful with the children and really seem to adore them. They are so sweet.

Picnics

Yesterday we were invited by our neighbors to go on a picnic. We had such a lovely time. We went to Cox park and ate pizza and talked about moving to Louisville as we are both newer to the area. Huda and Nada had such a great time playing with Jamey and Lillian and we had a great time talking. They are so sweet. We went to Cox park by the river and watched the sun set as we ate and talked and played. It was so beautiful. Ali and Asmaa took us to Brown park after we ate to show us a good playground for Jamey and a place to feed ducks with a great walking trail as well. They have been so kind to us and we are thankful for wonderful neighbors.

This evening we had a quad party for our area of the apartments. We met many more seminary families who are new to the area as well. So many people our age with kids our age. And we all live in the same area. We are just all waiting for it to cool off so we can spend more time outside together. It was a great time to meet people but tonight it was very hot and sticky. I hope I can remember everyone's names when we see them again! And I can't wait to build even more relationships. What a friendly place we live in.

3 weeks 3 days.

Softball and Swimming

Fun week! It still kind of feels like we are on a vacation as we are enjoying some wonderful family time until Jim starts school. One of our community group people is very involved with the Special Olympics in the area and invited us to a softball game. They have a whole league of softball teams that go to the Special Olympics. It was so cool. It was also a great time of spending time with new friends and meeting new people. Again people were very nice and welcoming as we met them.

Now that we have IDs for Southern we have access to an indoor pool year round! I am so stoked about that. We have already been to the pool twice. Jamey is not so fond of it but we will just keep taking and dunking until he loves it as much as we do. :) Lillian seems to enjoy it. When we dunk her she just looks around like "that's cool". She is such a laid back baby. Hopefully she will be use to the water when she is old enough to have an opinion on it. :)

The rest of the week has been enjoyable and low key. Trying more cooking experiments. We tried a different story time. It was better than the previous one, though still not quite as good as the one in Powder Springs. There were around 20 kids there. And it was suppose to be a baby story time and there were kids as old as 7 there. Crazy!

3 weeks and 1 day. Wow!

Farmer's Market, Neighbors, Kids and Church

I so wish I could just think and the things I wanted to post on here would just appear. Several things have happened that I would like to share but I can't just stop what I'm doing and write a post at the drop of a hat. Hopefully I will remember all. If not, I will just come back and do another post.

At a church just down the street they have a big farmer's market on Saturday mornings. I was so impressed! They had all kinds of home grown and home made goods. Some Mennonites and Amish were there. I have never seen so much home done meats in one place. There were also fruits, veggies, eggs, cheese, grain, granola, bread, soaps, honey, jellies, gelato plus a couple of local business like great harvest, an organic cupcake place and a bakery with vegan cookies! So much variety there. Louisville truly has the best of both worlds. You're in a city but the country is just down the road. Love it!

Yesterday afternoon our neighbor brought us some traditional Iraqi food. Super YUM! We were also invited to go to the park with them in the evening, however between the time of the invite and the time to go the mother became ill and they were unable to go. Please pray for this relationship to develop. They are very nice and open so we are praying for opportunities to spend time with them and get to know them.

My kids never cease to amaze me. They are growing so quickly and learning so much. Lillian is about to roll over. She tries so hard. Jamey is all over the place and talking up a storm. He, of course, has his nonsensical jabber that is continuous, but his vocabulary has expanded greatly in the past week. Some new words include: block, spoon, shoe, wall, light on, light off, and today he said Bible! When you say music he does a little dance. When you turn on the music he claps and bounces. And he does ask to turn the music on (his CD). I think we have a musician in the making.

Church today was wow. God definitely spoke to me. The question today: Is your Jesus too small? I know it sounds a bit of a sacrilegious question, but think about it. How often do we take things into our own hands instead of letting God handle it? We try to plan, scheme, figure out everything on our own instead of letting God have control. The way it was put today, we will let Jesus take care of our spirituality, but we take care of our job, our finances, our relationships, our time without letting Jesus into the mix. But Jesus is Big! He created the whole universe and He holds all of the universe together. Jesus made the image of God visible to us. He has rescued us, transferred us, redeemed us and forgiven us through His sacrifice on the cross, through His blood. To listen to the sermon on this visit sojournchurch.com. The text is Colossians 1:14-23. Remember this week, Jesus is bigger than anything you are facing. Let Him be in control.