A day with Owen

Ok, ok....so his name is really Reece. Long story, but I love the name Owen. If I could have another boy, I would name him Owen. Carly sits him all the time, but today, she was helping my good friend Lorri at a photo shoot for children in our state foster program awaiting adoption. I know, right? My child is such an angel. Has such a huge heart to help people of all ages but loves to love the children. So when Lorri asked for Carly's help in making the kids smile while she took each picture, Carly was there! I love that girl!

So Cj and I offered to watch Owen, achem, I mean, Reece. He is such a good boy! We had a blast. Here are some pictures from our day.

Reece taught Winston how to crawl......We went to the park!

Reece loved the swings.....

...so much that he fell asleep!

We played outside - my flowers need attention....

...and I even had time to bake a cake - that Cj attacked before I even took the picture!

Today was a good day. Thanks RJ for blessing me with Owen for the day! He's precious!

Finally....

So, for several months now, I have been driving around with a light on in my car. It says "Low Tire Pressure". Go figure. I finally saw why.....got it fixed today. Just something else to deal with!

Video of Mexico

This is a video that I put together detailing our mission trip.Its also to thank everyone for their prayers and support. I know I've posted some pictures and you may be tired of hearing about it, but I want to share this with you all and hope that you enjoy it. It's not chronological, but you get the idea.....



duration: approx. 9 mins

Winbourne VBS

We made it. Carly and I started out with the Highland campus VBS (Vacation Bible School) singing and serving at all 9 services. Then from there, took a few days to regroup and pack for Mexico. We sang and served 3 days of VBS and 3 days (twice a day) of street ministry in Mexico and fell in love with the children and people of Acuna. Then back last Monday, to wake up Tuesday and lead and love on the children of our Baton Rouge Dream Center campus on Winbourne Avenue. What a blast! With over 200 children at that VBS, it got crazy! We sang and played and had so much fun! There is video floating around and when I get my hands on it, I'm not too proud to post it. I know I can't dance! :) But we had fun, anyway.
Now, we are in the summer home stretch. Sam returns from Italy tomorrow and we can't wait to see her and hear about her trip. Then, the kids start school August 8. Wow! We never went back that early! Such a short summer, but we got almost everything packed in. Only thing we didn't get done, was a trip to San Antonio and a trip to Georgia. Hopefully we can make SA late August and Georgia in October. We shall see...

More pictures from Mexico

Downtown Acuna - Copa Cabana - we didn't go, of course, but it reminds me of a song.... :)

During the street outreach, a gentleman came up and asked for water and prayer. He had been in a fight the night before and his jaw was severely injured. We did what we could and left the rest up to God. (notice Carly, right in the middle-brown shirt- serving it up HPC style!)
Same street ministry we gave this little boy a teddy bear. The boy was precious!
Inside the church, setting up for VBS...

After a couple of rounds of the "Lawnmower song" these girls were in love with Carly!Working out some crafts during Vacation Bible School...

One thing we never thought we would do, but we had the children playing in the street (on purpose). They had sack races and a wet sponge race. They loved it and no one got run over!After VBS, Pastor Oscar's wife and her team served up some dinner for us that was amazing. No idea what it was called and probably couldn't pronounce it anyway. I just ate it and thanked God for them!

Before leaving after VBS, we prayed with Ps. Oscar and his team. We thanked them for their hospitality and allowing us to come and serve their community with them. Far right, yellow shirt is missionary, Pastor John Novara. He was wonderful!

This is us being detained and searched at the border. Gotta love border patrol and the Department of Homeland Security. We were held for a couple of hours, but then back on our way. Not so bad, as they were just doing their jobs.....

Meeting the American bus driven by Mr. Eddie - The Amazing! Thanks for a safe trip to and from Del Rio! Glad you are "on" for next year!

Mission Accomplished!

We are home from Acuna, Mexico! What an amazing trip! Carly and I both left a part of our hearts there and plan to go back next year. The people were all so wonderful and the children just took our breath away! I couldn't have had a more perfect experience ministering to the people there. We sang, danced, laughed and yes, cried for three days straight and I wouldn't trade a minute of it. We have tons of pictures, but I am still in the process of downloading them. Here are a few to enjoy.

Playing ball in the street with a few local children (Carly far right, green shirt)

Carly sharing a hug with a child at one of the orphanages.

Carly with a child that she played with at the clinic. This child was so taken by Carly's love and spirit, she gave Carly her bracelet that she was wearing. Carly hasn't taken it off...

While in Acuna, we went out into the streets and invited children and families to come to our location for food and games. That really took me out of my comfort zone. I'm not a real "door to door" kind of person, but everyone was so nice. They would laugh at my southern accent trying to speak their beautiful language and hug me just for trying. The children would start talking and trying to tell me about their world, and I would just smile as I tried to understand, hopefully offering hope. We visited a medical clinic where our amazing medical team, headed up by Dr. Cheri, witnessed a miracle right in front of their eyes. An older lady who had shut her hand in a window had severed the tendon on her middle finger. She was in extreme pain and couldn't bend that finger or her wrist. Because no medication would help, Dr. Cheri offered to pray with her. As they were praying, Dr. Cheri was holding her injured hand and it started to open and close with no pain at all. Truly God working in her life. We visited two orphanages. Both of which we gave out toys to the children and stayed a few minutes and played. They mostly enjoyed our digital cameras. We would take their pictures and then show them. They loved that! A highlight of our trip was being able to go inside a prison and give medical attention to the inmates. Because our team was kind of large, the medical team attended to over 60 inmates in the two hours we were allowed in and the rest of us prayed for each inmate individually as they left. What an amazing time! Before we left, the missionary asked if we would sing with them. So I led the team in Amazing Grace and Hallelujah as some of the inmates and most of us wept. It was incredible. To thank us for visiting them and helping they blessed us with a song. We clapped along while they sang an old familiar hymn in Spanish. The language was different but the heart was the same. It was awesome! Yeah, I cried. As we left, an inmate gave Carly a drawing that he had done in his cell. It was really nice and she was thankful for the opportunity to see what not many people get to see, but what God sees everyday. After a wonderful church service with the missionary where Pastor Mike served it up, we went back to the street to the "Cardboard Village". This is an area of Acuna where the people have nothing. We set up our Cooking for Christ tents and fired up the hot dog cooker! These children started coming out of the woodwork! The mission team in Acuna set up speakers and started playing music and they rushed the streets to see the Americans. We danced in the streets with them, sang songs, performed a skit showing them the love of Christ and had a puppet show for the children. The smiles on their faces are etched in my heart! They went home fed, with a glimmer of hope and knowing the lawnmower song! I don't care who you are. That's fun!
We thank everyone for their prayers and contributions! We couldn't have done it without you and your support! I believe we made an amazing impact on the people of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, and I know they made an amazing impact on me! God is good.

We are on our way....

Sort of. We leave really early in the morning for Acuna, Mexico. What an amazing honor it is to just be going, but to be able to go with an awesome team and my daughter. I'm really humbled and really excited. The devil has tried to bust up our joy and like Ms. Judi says, "Don't let him steal it!" So, we are prayed up. Last minute errands have been run and we have some last minute things to take care of in the sound booth, but other than that, we are ready. Pray we have a safe trip getting there and back but also that our ministry reaches the children and people of Ciudad Acuna. God is good......

Nail Salon Video - Anjelah Johnson

So this video is being viewed on YouTube and Cara showed it to Carly, then Beck showed it to me. Carly has it posted on her blog, so click her blog link on the side bar and take a few minutes to have a good laugh out loud. This girl is just like "Tracey" at my nail salon!
* you have to stop Carly's music player to hear the video....

VBS Week

So sorry to my 4 readers! It has been an awesome week, and way too busy to post. We just finished up 5 full days of Vacation Bible School at our church! It was so much fun, and so exhausting. Getting to the church around 8am, loving, laughing and playing with about 1200 children and volunteers, until around 1pm. Grab some lunch and set up to do it all again from 6pm until around 9pm each night. WOW! We had a blast and I pray that lives were changed! I know mine was! :)

As always, a few pictures from the week......

Kids playing a game of "red light/green light" while they wait for everyone to get there...

Started and ended each service with worship - blurry pic, but kudos to Carly for wo-manning the camera!

Carly still has the camera - a couple of her bff's Cara and Emma

Cj with a couple of mice that were used as props. We "mice-sat" them each night until they went to their adoptive home with Ms. Donna. There are two - the brown one Cj named Tiny, "but you can call him Rocco". And the black one is Mickey, "and you can just call him Mickey - or whatever you want".

Me with Ms. Donna - an amazing woman in our church that serves in the Clown Ministry and loves kids. Thanks Ms. Donna for taking such good care of Tiny (aka Rocco) and Mickey (aka Mickey)

Kids at games - with it only about 100deg outside, water games were a great idea!

Carly still has the camera! Love her!

Cj waiting on snacks - having fun!

and.....crafts. Oh my - tons of kids everywhere! What a blast! I believe the children are why God rested on the 7th day!

Now Carly and I are gearing up for Mexico! We leave on Thursday so you guys pray for Mike! He and Cj will be living the Man-Life for a week! Also pray for our mission trip to Acuna. We are so excited to take the power of VBS to the children there!

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4th of July to everyone! We had a great one! We had the Smith's over to help us celebrate. We grilled burgers and hot dogs while the kids played, but the high light (other than the fireworks) was Trent challenging Carly to a round of Guitar Hero. So funny, because we all know how good Carly is....I've blogged about it. I have yet to even finish a song, but Carly is the like Guitar Hero, hero! So, not saying a word, we let him challenge her. He played and did well. Then it was Carly's turn. All I can say is, her score was higher than his when she was about half way through the song. He threw his hands up and quit. Pretty good stuff. Then we went to the club and watched their fireworks. (a few pics to share)

Trent is all smiles until Carly takes the guitar......

Carly, Gabby and Gracie - waiting for fireworks Paula and Trent

We had a great day with the Smiths! We love them!

Gr8 date and Carly's Home!

First things first...Carly's home. Praise God! Her flight landed today at 1pm and Paula and I got her picked up. Whew!

Back to date night....Mike had some of his co-workers come in from Little Rock and to keep them entertained, we all stayed in NewOrleans Monday night and showed them around the city. We visited hot spots and basically walked the streets and made a big circle back to our hotel. One of the men had never been to NOLA, so he wanted to walk down Bourbon Street just to say he did. It was hopping, as always and he saw more than he ever thought (as did I!). We had a great time and Mike and I got to make a mini getaway out of the trip. Thanks to my bff Paula for helping me find the perfect pair of shoes for my date. See, Paula loves to shop and me, well, not so much! I'm really frugal and really picky, so after several hours of looking for shoes we had decided to leave the mall and try somewhere else. The kids had to go to the bathroom and so Paula took them while I went into one last shoe store. When Paula came back, she found me asking to try on the perfect pair of shoes. She was so surprised (as was I). When I finally made my purchase, she took a picture of me with the sales lady (with her permission, of course) to document the occasion! Thanks to Paula too for watching the C-jonator for us and shout out to Chad for the hook up at the Sheraton! We really had a good time. Here (as always) are pics from the day.

First stop, the perfect pair of shoes - "Thanks really nice shoe lady!"

Doesn't she look like Apryl?

Me and Gracie just after finding the perfect shoes - Gracie is glad!

On our way to find something for lunch - this one's for Melissa!

First stop in NOLA - Felix's Oyster House - "2 doz raw oysters, please!" They were good, but the sign cracked me up - it says "old oysters on the half shell" Sounds yummy!

Me and Mike in front of the gasoline fountain thing at Pat O's. It's behind us, but it's kinda hard to see. And, I was not scared, I just look scared.

It wouldn't be a night in Nola unless you go to Cafe' Du Monde for cafe au lait and beniets.

Um, good!