1 Year Later

Yesterday Lily turned 1. It was a very exciting day, a little bitter sweet, but very fun. It is really hard to believe that she is a year old already. Time has gone by so fast. This last year was so much fun. Watching Lily grow and develop in so many new ways makes me so excited for the years to come. Though I really miss her being a tiny baby, I love having a baby who walks and talks...even if I have no idea what she is saying. Here are some stats on Miss Lily- she is 18 lbs and 28 inches long. She enjoys feeding Mercy our dog all the food off of her high chair tray. She loves drinking from my water bottle and she loves goldfish crackers. Her favorite toy is her ball popper and my cell phone, her favorite show is the Backyardagains. Her new favorite word is "Hi" along with "Dadda, Momma, and Baby" She is an amazing little girl and I can't imagine living my life without her.

Our Summer of Service

This summer Bob and I (and Lily for one) served on 2 mission trips. The first trip was to Chattanooga TN with our Jr. High students. They spend that week loving the elderly and playing with a ton of kids at different HeadStart programs throughout the city. It was an incredible week for them to see just how much they can serve and love others like Christ has loved them. They worked so hard and really began to look at what it really means to love and to serve like Jesus. This trip was a great way for them to start to dig deeper into their faith. Plus Chattanooga is GREAT city with a ton of fun things to do and see. Lily and I traveled down for most of the week to be with the team. We didn't do much work but it was fun to be with everyone.




Beautiful Chattanooga!!





Clearly we were hard at work


The second trip was to Logan WV and we just got home last night. Lily stayed home with family and friends for the week and had herself a great little vacation. Bob, myself and 4 other leaders took 20 high school students to a small, very poor town in West Virgina. Logan is not known for very much and nearly 4 weeks ago suffered a flood , but the damage was still evident when we got there. Our week was spent serving the local kids at Kids Club, as well as many work projects at homes; doing things like painting, cleaning and flood clean up. Kids Club was an intense week for our students (most of the guys), the kids there were rude and crazy. At the beginning of the week our students spent time just trying to get them to respect them and to not fight! But by the last day our guys were in tears as they said goodbye to the boys they worked with all week. It was an amazing thing to watch these high school guys melt when talking about the boys they were with. The girls spent the week in the incredible heat ( high 90's or 100) painting houses, picking up trash and working at the Appalachian Dream Center ( a local ministry that serves lunch daily and is working with FEMA and the Red Cross to hand out clean up supplies for the flood). This week was such an great experience for me and for our students. It was a week filled with Christ invading the hearts our our students. To hear them speak every night of what they saw and how He touched their lives, makes me so excited to see how they will continue to seek Christ everyday and always be willing to serve those who the world forgets. And trust me, the world has forgotten about Logan WV. I have never had students ask me to return to the same site before this week. I don't think I can fully describe how AMAZING this week was, God is truly moving in our students lives in a way that I have never seen. Bob and I were so encouraged by this week. We are so lucky to have this job!!!

Sean and Chris at Kids Club




Evan cleaning gutters

Audra In Africa

I have been so lucky that over the past 10 years to be a mentor and friend to Audra. She is one of those students that at the end of your days in ministry, you can look at her life and say "She got it, I'm so proud of her." You can be in ministry and spend time with literally hundreds of kids and maybe only have a few actually get what you have taught them. Well she is one of those students for me. I have watched her grow from a short annoying ( and she knows it!!!) 6th grader who would steal Bobby's hat, to now a beautiful and mature women of God who is a senior at Grove City College and is spending her summer in Sierra Leone Africa teaching. She has far surpassed any dream that I had for her. She has been an amazing servant of God even when it meant doing somethings she didn't want to do. She is a dear friend to me and my family and I cannot imagine my life without her in it.
I tell you all of this so that you can be praying for her while she is in Sierra Leone. Audra has a great opportunity to teach with a program called World Hope International as well as Transformation Education. She will be teaching Biology as well as some personal hygiene classes. She will be there from June 1- July 22. If you are interested in following her blog, Audge Blog, please visit. The internet if very slow there and her time for extra activities is limited.

Lessons From Lily

So I have realized that on numerous occasions Lily teaches me something very important. She teaches me things like when she wants me to hold her she typically has a poopy diaper or if you give her something to eat that she doesn't want she will give it to the dog. Also one of my least favorite things she taught me is that when I sit down to eat she will cry so that I stop eating to feed her...even if she has already eaten. But the most recent lesson she has taught me is that when she eats a bitter biscuit, she MUST be sitting in the high chair so that the bitter biscuit does not end up all over the couch or carpet.

Mother's Day

On Sunday I got to celebrate my very first Mother's Day. It was an amazing day. It started off early and fun. Bobby woke me up with Lily and a card. That's when I noticed that Lily had a purple hand...weird. Then I opened my card and realizes that Bobby had put her hand print in the card. It was so sweet. He also had my favorite picture of Lily and I framed. Then as I was holding Lily I noticed that she was pulling at her pajamas because there was something inside them. I opened her pajamas up and there was a small little box, inside of it I found a beautiful pearl ring. It was such a surprise and so thoughtful of Bobby. When I had Lily, Bobby gave me a beautiful pearl necklace. It was so neat that he thought to continue the theme. We spent the rest of the day at church and brunch with my family and dinner with Bobby's family. It was an amazing day. I think that I understand a whole different level of Mother's Day now. I used to think that mom's really desired the appreciation of their family, but for me at least, I spend my day thinking about how blessed I am to have such a sweet baby girl. She is the most perfect gift I have ever been given. And to think that I was entrusted with her is an honor. God has amazing plans for her and Bob and I get to play a part in that. I could not ask for a better day.

Trip to the Zoo

Yesterday Lily and I went to the zoo with one of my high school girls, Jen. We had such a great time and had several "zoo moments" to speak of. We enjoyed watching and hearing the lion roar, watching the baby elephant play with the big ones, and not only getting to see the sharks swimming but also getting to watch the polar bears swim too!!! It was so fun...Lily's favorite part was the aquarium.

Good Games Gone Bad

We have had an incredible year with our jr. high youth group. It is growing and we are having all kinds of fun at our Wednesday night youth group. We have been playing games based on the TV show Minute to Win it...it has been so fun. Here are a few pictures from "On the Nose" and then one with M& M's.






Then last week we thought it would be fun to play a version of broom ball...but using mops and brooms we bought from the dollar store. Well here is a picture of how dollar store brooms and mops hold up when you use them to play hockey with. Now imagine 30 jr high students swinging broken brooms and mops around at a ball and each other...chaos. But SO fun at the same time. No one was seriously hurt, just a few scratches.