Retirement, a funeral & Dr. Pepper

Busy day traveling I-81. My mother has decided to retire. My daughter Macey & I attended her retirement luncheon in Greenville, TN. We ate The general Morgan, a beautiful restaurant inside an old inn. I was honored to be a part if this special day with my mother. She is a blessing to so many people. It was a great celebration.

Afterward, I met up with Ann Dunkin & Sandy Miller to travel to Rural Retreat,Va. That turned out to be an adventure. We have a good friend who serves in the children's ministry with us and her father had passed away. We were traveling for the funeral. It was a great visit with Dawn Shinault, Tammy Coates and the entire family. There were not lots of tears. Her dad had been ill for a while and the family was truly celebration his life on earth and rejoicing that he was in heaven now.
After the funeral we were beginning to be hungry so we decided I be adventurous and eat in Rural Retreat. The place we found was called Joey's Country Kitchen. We walked in the door and the entire restaurant turned to see of the knew us. It was obvious we were not from there. The tiny restaurant was absolutely packed and it was desperately understaffed. We waited for people to finish eating and leave; then we claimed our table. We stood by the table for a moment thinking some one would clear the table for us and then we would sit down. No so. I cleared the table and asked a lady to wipe it for us. She took our drink orders and we waited. We waited for 30 mins or more for our food but we had great conversation. We, Sandy & I, rarely get to sit and chat with other people on staff with us. It was a great time o fellowship with Ms. Ann. We did not even know it had been 30 mins that we waited until "Joey's Sister" came out to apologize for our wait. We figure since the grilled cheese sandwich was only $1.75 it was ok.
On the way out of the restaurant we found out the Dr.Charles Pepper lived in Rural Retreat for many years and ran a pharmacy there. He developed the drink "Dr.Pepper" in that pharmacy. There is a town in Texas that claims that they are the home town of Dr. Pepper but actually, he moved there after he retired to be with his daughter and grandchildren. Lol. Just a bit of fun trivia for you today :) You just never know what new things you will discover until you are willing to step off the beaten path :)

Lice lice baby

Oh the joys of ministry:). We are huggers, we love on lots of children from a variety I backgrounds everyday. Vbs,we rolled on the floor with them. Camp placid, we did everything... We swam, ate, slept, counseled and baptized them. We love to love on children. Somewhere in the process we have gotten lice. The past three weeks have been spent combing through hair. Treating everyone in our house, and washing everything washable in our home on the sanitize wash cycle. I have tea tree oiled every surface in my home. So to make light of the situation our new favorite song is a new version of an old 90's song. We sing "lice,lice baby". I am happy to report that we are finally lice free. So.. No more lice, lice baby.

Summer craziness

Vbs is over :) had great fun with all the kiddos learning about missions! It was lots of fun skyping Beth Guckenberger! Her curricula "tales of the not forgotten" was easily adapted into a vbs covering a variety of missions topics and learning some geography along the way.

Camp placid: Akua Makana, was 10 days with around 250 children. We had so much fun learning how to meet up with Jesus,follow Him and tell the world about him. I could not list all the special people who have made these events a success... But thank you! The volunteers who take off work & put life on hold to minister to the children in our community are such a blessing to the children and to me.

As the countless moments flood my mind I am sure to share them with you.

Getting ready for xalt :)

So excited to be apart of reception preparation. Lots of twigs and flowers and woodland items. As we prepared last night Retha Greene pulled twine from her fathers twine roll that was housed on his farm. I pulled out my collection of mason jars passed down from my great aunt. It was like they were a part of the event. They would have been proud :).
It reminded me of our heavenly Father and how proud he is when we include him in all the events of our lives. The prayers we send up driving in the car, the praise we give him in the beauty I His creation and the ultimate gift of love he poured out on us through the gift of His Son, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins. If we treasure the items our earthly relatives have left us, how much more should we treasure the gifts of our heavenly Father.

X-Alt dress rehearsal

Wow! After a great morning at church even more blessings came as I watched the x-alt dancers in dress rehearsal. Thank you so much to Leah Winegar, Lynda Hammes and all the teachers who put countless hours of work into making X-alt a unique worship experience. I can not wait to help back stage and watch lives being touched by this type of worship. Thank you Jesus for allowing us to have a dance ministry dedicated to worshiping you.

Nemo & Jude

Thank you Ms. Sandy for teaching this weekend on the book of Jude in X-treme kids. Who knew Jude and Nemo had so much in common. In the movie when all the fish are caught in the net and Nemo tells them to swim down, he knew what the right thing to do was. Just like we should be studying the Bible and praying so we will know the right things to do and can be a positive influence on the people around us.
A bit of sadness though... Our 6th graders have already began there transition into "ignite" our middle school youth group. It is so sad. I will miss seeing them each week in children's ministry:(. Like Nemo they are venturing out into the big blue ocean of youth. LOL

Small group

I love our small group from church. Cinco de Mayo celebration tonight :). The kids talked the waiters into singing "Happy Birthday" to Russ Mantooth. He is such a good sport! Let's see... Was this a lesson in humility?