1st Anniversary for Renew

Little did we know that when we moved to Carroll that we would be part of planting a church here. It is amazing how God works when and where you least expect. If you would have told us that we would be starting a church when we moved here we would have probably laughed. As always our plans are not God's plans. For his plans are greater and mightier than our own.

Renew: The name of our church is about change and making sure everyone knows about the love of God. For He will make a new creation out of us if we just call on Him.

So far this has been an exciting journey. We started off with just a few people meeting together in homes, and then we had a few preview services in the middle school, from that point we had our services at night at another church, and now we are in the process of getting the building we have completed. We are meeting each Sunday in this building as we get it completed. The location is great it is in the center of town. We would like to be the HUB of our community. Please pray for us as we continue our journey. This past Sunday our message was from 2 Kings chapter 3. The main verses were:

¹⁴ Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not pay any attention to you. ¹⁵ But now bring me a harpist.”
While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came on Elisha ¹⁶ and he said, “This is what the Lord says: I will fill this valley with pools of water. ¹⁷ For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. ¹⁸ This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord; he will also deliver Moab into your hands. ¹⁹ You will overthrow every fortified city and every major town. You will cut down every good tree, stop up all the springs, and ruin every good field with stones.”

²⁰ The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water.

The main point in the message was that the process of building a church community is that you have to dig a lot of trenches before you see a lot of rain. So we continue to dig because we want to see a lot of lives changed.

 

 

 

Our band. I love that teenagers lead our worship every Sunday. It is so neat to see them use their Gift of Music each week. They are learning early what it means to serve our Father. 

A great new book series

If you are looking for a fun Christian book to sink into this is a great one. This is the first book in the series. If you would like to read more: http://janiceathompson.com/blog/weddings-by-bella-series

Photo Drop

I took these first pictures of Charles in the adorable outfit at Swan Lake on September 16, 2012. So yes I am very behind on sharing them. I had a couple of reasons why: 1. Sickness 2. Waiting until I could mail them out to family members 3. homecoming and work.

 Charles loves to help with clothes. He will pick the items out and hand them to me to fold. While doing this I have to place folded clothes so that he can't reach them or he will help so much that he will unfold items already finished. Case in point see unfolded items behind him. I use this time as a teaching time. Each time he hands me an item I tell him what it is.

These two photos are from an adorable monster shirt I found at Target. Isn't my little monster adorable?!

 

 Fly me to the moon, take me to the stars. I'm sure that is what he was dreaming of last night as he wore these pajamas for the first time. They are really cool and glow in the dark too. Thanks Mama C and Pop for these warm and fun pajamas.

 

 This fun classic was sent to Charles to enjoy for Halloween from his Uncle Andrew, Auntie M, Truman, and Sarah Spratlin. We have already read this book at least 2 or 3 times already. I know we will read it a lot more before Halloween, and next year when he is older we will enjoy using the reusable stickers as we read. Thanks so much.