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Date - 4/29/2009 3:20:52 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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Sunday night, since Erick didn't have to preach, we went on a date. We took the kids over to a friend's house and then went to Bloomington. It took longer to get there than we thought it would--we didn't realize it was quite that far away! We went to Shake-and-Steak and I ordered a double bacon cheese steakburger and ate almost the whole thing, and almost all my fries, and shared a Butterfinger milkshake with Erick. It was so yummy! I was so overly full afterwards that I think I was starting to waddle.
Then we went to Barnes and Nobles and read a Jeff Foxworthy book at a table together about rednecks. We laughed so hard (as quietly as possible) that our stomachs hurt. Then we went to a movie theatre and watched "Monsters vs. Aliens." There wasn't much else showing that was rated less than PG-13. We had a really fun time and enjoyed the movie.
In other news, we are looking at buying a house in a nearby town where we'll be attending church for awhile. We would be buying it as an investment and then staying there as long as we are in this area, and then if we move out of the area we can rent it out. It's 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, and it's only $29,000. We do need to take out a little extra on the loan, because it needs a few walls upstairs finished and carpet put in, but it has a really huge kitchen that I just love, and a fireplace insert and a big screened in front porch. I don't think we could find a better deal on this. The yard isn't very big, but it's not bad. It's also right next door to a gas station, but we'll put in a privacy fence between them and us and it'll be fine. Plus the park is close by if the kids want to go down there to play.
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Weekend - 5/5/2009 10:12:43 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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This last weekend we went up to our home church in Delphi for a Sunday, since Erick doesn't have to preach anymore since he resigned. We drove up Saturday and came back late Sunday night. We really enjoyed ourselves. We stayed with my family, since Erick's family still isn't speaking to us. We had actually planned on having a family meeting but his dad told us he didn't want us on our property so we had to cancel that. But at least my family still gets along well, better than ever, actually, since several months ago we finally made up over some hurts that took place years and years ago. If you don't talk about things, they just stay in there and fester for years and never really heal.
On Sunday morning we went to church and we enjoyed so much just worshiping God and getting fed and not having to do anything for once. We've always loved the music and the preaching in that church. We also went to visit some of Erick's siblings (the ones that are talking to us) and saw the newest baby in the family. She is so cute. We hadn't seen their new house they had bought yet. They've fixed it up and decorated it and it looks nice.
We also got to meet with our pastor and discuss what we feel we're going to do next. We are going to be working with an church in the next town, not on staff, but just helping them with skateboard ministry at least through the summer. We are going to buy the house and if we move on after that, we'll rent it out. It'll be a nice supplementary source of income. There is another church within driving distance from where we are going to be living that needs a pastor that we might consider, but it's in pretty bad shape. They have a nice building, but they are down to four members. It might be better if that church shut down for awhile and then reopened with a new name.
So we're excited over what God is doing next--we don't really know what that might be, but as long as He is leading us we know it's good. We've learned a lot over the last year here and we won't let that education go to waste. :)
_____________________________
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Church stuff - 5/16/2009 4:26:05 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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Since Erick resigned from our church, we've been attending a church in a neighboring town and just taking time to get fed and to heal. We haven't really been looking for a church yet. We've been in the process of purchasing a house in that town, and talking with the pastor of that church about the possibilities of skateboard ministry there, and we're still waiting on that to find out what we're doing there. The kids have really enjoyed going to church with other kids again.
One of the other ministers in our ministry group pastors two churches, because one has been without a pastor for quite some time and is down to four members. It's under district supervision and has no board, and this guy is appointed by the district to oversee it. He's been talking to Erick about taking that church, and we weren't really sure about taking another church just yet. Some of the things he was telling us about it just sounded a little too similar to what we left, and we didn't want to go back into the same situation again.
A couple of days ago one of the ladies in the church actually called us asking us to come candidate. We met with the guy who is in charge there and told him we were actually hoping to wait until the fall to take another church, but we went up with him to look at the building yesterday finally and were surprised at how beautiful it is. The sanctuary is about twice as big as our old church, and even has a balcony. It's decorated in red and white with green ivy instead of the purple and yellow at the church we just left. It has a big new fellowship hall with six classrooms, including a game room, and a nice sound system, and downstairs there are more classrooms even though it needs some work down there. It was obvious from looking around that it used to be a happening church. There were props downstairs from plays they have done, and posters on the wall, and the organ was obviously a high-end piece back in the day, with a built-in cassette player.
Someone there seems to have an obsession with knick-knacks, though. On the communion table there were several little glass ladies' heads and shoulders wearing hats, and some little purse figurines and even shoe figurines. They have a different fiber-optic display on the communion table for each season, including a fiber optic eagle that flaps its wings.  I thought that was very odd. I'm not big on figurines anyway, but most churches that I've seen with figurines usually stick with angels and crosses and stuff, not eagles and ladies' heads.
We're wanting to talk with some of the former pastors and find out the history here, and why they went from 250 members to about 5, give or take a few. We can't blame it on the building or the location, like at our last church. It's beautiful, inside and out, and in town in a good location. I want to know what happened and why everyone left. We aren't going to just jump into a church like we did last time. We were so excited before just to get a church, but this time we're going to be asking a lot more questions and take a lot more time to pray about it and seek God's will.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Ordination, etc. - 5/26/2009 12:01:01 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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I'm finally getting time to sit down and update my blog! I would have had time last week, but then we used up all of the megabytes on our plan and I couldn't get online for a few days. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Last week was District Counsel, and it was in Fort Wayne this year. My parents babysat the kids for us for a few days while Erick and I drove up north. There was a business session on Monday and a service Monday night, and George O. Wood preached. He is the General Superintendent in the Assemblies of God. Right before he preached, Nancy Honeytree sang "Pioneer" and George Wood said that as she was singing, the Holy Spirit began to move and impress on him that the sermon he had prepared wasn't the sermon he was supposed to preach that night. Instead he preached on enduring hardship. It was such a powerful sermon and touched both of us--we felt like it was just for us. We weren't the only ones that felt that way, either. So many people gave testimony to how that sermon touched their lives. We could feel the presence of God so strongly in that place the entire time we were there. It's such a blessing to spend time with other pastors.
Earlier that day, we also went to lunch with some of the former pastors at the church Erick had resigned and found out that the same thing had happened to them while they were there. It was such a blessing to be able to talk about it and know that it wasn't just us.
The next day the District Superintendent preached the morning service and we had communion, and then we attended a Missions banquet, and then after lunch there was another business session. In the evening was the ordination service. There were 19 or 20 candidates this year. I can't remember for sure how many. The presbyters did the laying on of hands. They had let the candidates put in their preferences for which presbyter they wanted to lay hands on them, and Erick chose the one from our ministry group who is also the pastor of the church we are now attending. He's got a real shepherd's heart and is such a good example of a pastor.
The ceremony was beautiful and George Woodl preached the message again that night, called "The Church Is In Your Hands." Each ordination candidate received a shepherd's staff. Here's a picture of Erick and me right after the ceremony. Unfortunately he blinked, but this is the best picture I was able to get. It's kind of hard to take pictures when I'm up there, too.
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In other news... - 5/26/2009 12:19:57 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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Last week, besides the ordination, the other semi-major event that happened is that I downloaded a virus on my PC. I was just going along, posting on forums here as usual, when this warning popped up saying that I had a virus and I needed to click here to quarantine it. It looked legitimate, and I clicked it, and lo and behold it downloaded a virus onto my computer.  We tried to get rid of it and still haven't been able to, so we've been moving pictures and other important documents to Erick's laptop. I got very behind in my moderating, and since we had to download programs and things to the laptop that we used on the other computer, we ended up using up all the megabytes on our plan and I wasn't able to get on at all for a few days. By the time the new cycle on our plan started over on Saturday, there wasn't much time for playing around on the computer because we were packing up to go visit Missouri for a couple of days.
Erick went in to work early on Saturday so he could get home at a decent time Saturday night. We went to bed about 10:30, and then woke up at 3:00am and went straight to in Springfield. It took us six and a half hours to drive there, but since I forgot about the time change we actually made it in time for Sunday School. It was neat being there, although it almost felt like we were in a dream. So much has changed in the three years since we've been there last. The entire staff has changed over, and they've done a lot of redecorating. It's beautiful. The senior pastor used to be our Sunday school teacher when we were there. He was Erick's homiletics professor at CBC and while we were there he went on staff as family pastor or something like that. Now he's the senior pastor.
After church we drove down to look at our old house, and the kids went to see if one of their neighbor friends still lived there. She did, but she wasn't at home. We did get her phone number from her mother, though. We also drove out to Taco Bell where I used to work. I didn't really expect anyone I knew to still be there. I thought my boss might still work there, but she never worked Sundays so I didn't think she'd be there either. I was pleasantly surprised to see her there. She's the assistant manager now instead of the store manager, as she is working towards retirement. It was so good to see her again. There were two other girls there that I worked with as well.
Then we went up and stayed at the home of our old choir director for the night. She used to direct the choir at Praise, and her husband is now writing books. (Look up Phil Farrand if you are interested in his work.) They are really neat people and we enjoyed staying at their house. Phil gave me a copy of one of his books and I can't wait to read it and put up a review on Facebook for him. He's brilliant--when he couldn't get high speed internet in his area, he actually started his own company! They are fascinating to talk to.
The next day we went to Bass Pro Shops and then drove home. Abby wasn't feeling good, and ended up throwing up on the floor of a McDonalds' on the way back.  Traffic was terrible and we got home a lot later than we had intended, but we made it.
Now I just have to catch up on everything!
_____________________________
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Crazy day - 6/4/2009 5:18:12 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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We had an interesting day today. One of the ladies in our homeschool group is moving to another state, and we had an ice cream social at the co-op building to say good-bye to her. I picked up my friend and her daughter to take them there, and we got behind this white car with handicap plates and this elderly lady was driving. She was swerving all over the place. First she'd swerve into the other lane, and then she'd go nearly off the side of the road into the ditch. There were a couple of times she nearly got hit swerving into oncoming traffic. All of us were really starting to get scared for her and for everyone else on the road, so I finally called 911 and gave them her license plate number and told them where we were and what direction she was heading. The dispatcher said he'd send someone out. We drove all the way to the city we had to pass through on the way to co-op, and she was still driving like that, no sign of the police. I called them again to tell them where she was now, and the dispatcher said he'd let them know. When we came to stoplights, she'd stop right in the middle of the intersection and the cars would have to go around her.
Finally after we drove all the way through town, she turned off towards the hospital. I don't know if maybe she had a heart attack or a stroke or something and decided to drive herself to the hospital or what, but I'm glad she made it. I'm sure that's where she was going, since that's pretty much all there is on that road. I never did see any police. I hope next time she just calls an ambulance or at least gets a friend or family member to take her into the hospital.
After the ice cream social (which my ice cream was just about melted by the time we finally got there and got in the building) I noticed that I had some missed calls on my cell phone. It was Erick, so I called him back. He told me his story, and his topped mine!
He had met with a friend of ours from church (who incidentally is going to be interim pastoring the church we just resigned) and they were meeting with the mayor and talking about skateboard equipment. The church we are attending found that to do skateboard ministry on their lot would raise their insurance rates $1500 a year, but the city has been wanting to put in a skatepark for quite some time and has money set aside to do that. The mayor is interested in working with us to get something set up there at the city park for the skateboarders, and would also let us do ministry out there. So that's definitely a possibility.
But anyway, as for the interesting part of this whole thing, after they had met and were in the office talking about it, his friend (who is a volunteer firefighter) received a page that there had been a stabbing just across the street from the house of the friend that I had taken to the ice cream social. A boy had been stabbed (I'm not sure by whom) and if I heard him correctly it went under the eye socket and behind his cheek. I think he said the boy was fifteen. They had to air lift him to another hospital--I think it was in Indy. Erick was there the whole time as the helicopter came and landed in the baseball field as you come into town. I told my friend about it, and she thinks she knows who it was.
So it was an interesting day, to say the least!
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Timothy - 6/5/2009 3:31:08 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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Tim was talking to me while I was washing dishes, and asking me a bunch of questions. (He's four years old).
"Mom, are tomatoes a fruit"?
"Yes."
"Are potatoes a fruit?"
"No."
"Are bananas a fruit?"
"Yes."
"Are there peanuts in peanut butter?"
"Yes."
"Is there some kind of food in jelly?"
"Yes--jelly is made from fruit. Like strawberries, or grapes."
"Are avocados a fruit?"
"Yes."
"Do they make jelly out of avocados?"
"No--avocados wouldn't make very good jelly. It's not very sweet--and people like to use sweet kinds of fruit to make jelly."
"Do they make jelly out of bananas?"
"No, they don't."
"But bananas are a sweet fruit!"
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Outreaches - 6/8/2009 10:41:39 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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Yesterday our band played at a Concert in the Park that several of the area churches put together. There were six churches that provided the talent, and one church was in charge of coordinating them all. Our church was the fourth church in the line-up.
The last time we played out (at a church a week ago) we played cold without a sound check, and I couldn't hear myself sing. We had wanted to make sure to get there early to set up this time and hopefully get things adjusted the way we like them. We had been told that one of the churches was bringing their equipment and that it would be good if everyone else could just use their equipment, but after the last experience with that we asked our pastor if we could just bring our own equipment. He didn't seem to think there was a problem with that, so we showed up an hour early with all of our own stuff to set up. The church that was in charge was already there setting up the sound system, and they said that there was no way that all the bands were going to be able to come set up their own equipment. Sure enough, all the other bands showed up with their own stuff. There were four drum sets, four keyboards, etc and everyone wanted to use their own stuff. We ended up using our own instruments but their mics and sound system. We still didn't get a sound check, but they managed to get the volume up on the vocals this time and we sounded really good this time. We also have a new member of our band--we brought in another lady who sings and playes guitar. So we're up to six members.
Next Saturday we play at another outreach. We aren't sure yet if we're going to bring our skateboard equipment or not. The church that we attend ended up deciding not to do skateboard ministry because they found doing it on their property would raise their insurance rates $1500 a year. The mayor is interested in building something at the park. We asked around to find out who would be liable if we brought the equipment to the outreach, and it seems the guy planning it would be the one liable. So we need to ask him if he still wants us to bring it.
I'm excited about Saturday, though--an old friend of mine is bringing his band, too. I used to go to church with him growing up--actually, he was my first boyfriend when I was eight years old. He also dated my sister for a couple of years. Erick and I got to be friends with him after we got married, but it's been years since we've seen him and I've never met his wife.
But in the meantime, we're not going anywhere this week. Abby, Rachel, and Timothy all have chicken pox. I noticed this morning that they all have rashes. According to the medical dictionary, you're contagious 2-3 days before the rash appears until about a week after. They said they noticed them yesterday. So they've probably already exposed half the town to them, since they spent all afternoon yesterday playing with kids at the Concert in the Park, and they were at church yesterday morning, and Friday and Saturday the girls went to a Missionettes camp-out. I'd always wondered if Abby would be immune to chicken pox or not since I had them when I was pregnant with her, but I guess she wasn't.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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RE: Outreaches - 6/15/2009 10:13:52 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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Saturday our band played at the Street Fest. The weather channel was calling for thunderstorms that afternoon, but we all kept praying and trusting God to take care of it. After all, He is in charge of the weather, and this is His outreach, so there wasn't any reason to worry. 
Our band was scheduled to play at 4:00. We were told we had 45 minutes to play, and so we picked ten songs and we worked really hard on them and had them all memorized and everything. They all went well, and when we were done they asked if we could play again at 5:00 because one of the other bands scheduled had cancelled. I had brought my big book of songs, so we picked out several more that we thought we could play cold and played again. It went fairly well, although not as well as the first round since a lot of them I didn't have memorized. We had brought one music stand and had positioned it so all the band members could see it if they needed it, but since we'd worked on memorizing them it was really there "just in case." When we played the second set of songs, we were a lot more dependent on it!
My friend's band also did well. It was neat to see him again and meet his wife and kids.
The main group, Altared, is really, really good. They could really go somewhere.
There were a lot of testimonies and our pastor preached, and he said that 12-15 people responded to the invitation at the end.
Throughout the evening, we watched the storm clouds come in. Behind the band they had a TV set to the weather channel, and it showed a storm cell moving in right on top of our town. We didn't have any sort of tent or awning over our equipment, but we all just believed it wasn't going to rain. The storm came, turned, and went right around our town. A half mile from us it stormed and put down about a half an inch, but we watched it go right by. We never even got a drop of rain until it was all over and everyone went home. God is so good!
At the outreach, a friend of ours (the one who is interim pastoring the church we resigned) let Erick and I ride on his motorcycle. It was fun, but kind of scary since Erick has very little experience. He nearly hit a cop.  But we survived the experience, and it's something I could definitely get used to.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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I'm back! - 6/23/2009 11:14:26 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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I've been offline for about a week. Maybe longer. I think this is a record for me. We ran out of megabytes on our plan again. We get five gigs a month on this plan, and it's actually the biggest plan they had. When we move, we're going to switch to DSL. I'm tired of running out of megabytes early. It'll also be a lot cheaper, even adding in the cancellation fee for our broadband service.
We close on our house next Monday, and we'll be moving a week from tomorrow. I'm so excited!
Oh, btw, I hear that some of my old friends at Shiloh are following my blog. Welcome! I hope you enjoy reading it! :)
In the past week while I've been away from the computer we've stayed busy with 4-H projects. Joy and Sarah are taking Home Environment. I never got to take that as a kid, so I hope they're doing this right. We talked to one of the 4-H ladies who goes to our church about it, and she gave us a lot of hints so hopefully they'll do a good job. They can make a hanging item or a storage item for their room using color. They share a room, so they're making their projects match. We went to some yard sales and Joy found a hanging wooden lantern and Sarah found a spice rack, the kind that turns around and has the spice bottles in holes in the sides, four to a side. They are painting them yellow and they are going to stencil pink flowers on the sides. Joy is going to put a fake ivy plant in the lantern (she removed the glass and the electric candle in the middle). Sarah dumped out all the spices from the bottles and glued pink fabric and ribbon trim on the lids, and she's going to label the bottles with things like bobby pins and lip gloss and safety pins and other little items.
Jay went frog gigging with some of the boys and men from church last Friday. I'd never heard of frog gigging before, but I guess it's a big deal. You shine a flashlight in the frogs' eyes and then stab them with this pointy spear-like fork. Sounds gross to me, but he was the best frog gigger of the bunch. Jay caught 15 frogs--more than any other of the men and boys who went. He even skinned them himself, something some of the other boys didn't want to do, and then he came home and fried them himself. I did try a little. I think it tasted okay, but it was difficult to get past the fact that it was a frog.
In other news, one of Erick's sisters and her husband and two kids came down to visit Saturday and also one of his brothers, and we took them to Merom Bluff and went down the cliff. We had a lot of fun with them. We also grilled hamburgers over an open fire and had s'mores and set off fireworks. My niece is such a pretty baby. I had so much fun holding her and rocking her. She has the prettiest blue eyes.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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New house - 7/4/2009 5:30:18 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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We moved into our new house this week. We moved most of our "need to live with" stuff over on Wednesday and I unpacked that Thursday and Friday, and also went back to box up the rest of the stuff we didn't get. Today we moved almost everything else. There are a few things still we didn't get, but we'll have to get them later. We had several friends, mostly from our church, come out and help us load up in their trucks. Since we're only moving about fifteen minutes away we didn't have to worry about getting a moving truck this time.
We loaded most of the boxes up on the enclosed front porch and it'll take me some time to go through them all. First we need to get carpet installed in the upstairs, though. I just hope I can find the kids' green 4-H record books. The 4-H fair is next Saturday. I really didn't realize we were moving this close to the fair. I thought it was closer to the end of the month. So we've been trying to finish up 4-H projects and move into a new house at the same time. It's been absolutely crazy.
Tonight we're hopefully going to go see fireworks if it stops raining. We also have band practice in about 45 minutes and we're going to be playing for our church Sunday morning. So the day isn't over yet.
Here are a few pictures of the house we bought. This is the outside:
This is the kitchen. It's so big! I'm hoping to buy a bigger table soon (one with matching chairs!) that will seat eight. This table really is only supposed to seat six, although we crammed in a couple of extra chairs. The kitchen in the parsonage was kind of small and we couldn't fit a bigger table in it.
I love this range--it has an electric grill built into it. We grilled hot dogs for supper tonight. It might be a rainy 4th of July, but we can still grill!
The house has two living areas. One of them has a fireplace with an woodburning insert. This will be nice in the winter.
Here is a picture of the first living room, after we put in the furniture. I'm going to have to do something about those blinds--they are really ugly.
Here's the second living room--the one with the fireplace, although it doesn't show in this picture.
This is the downstairs bedroom, but we're going to turn it into an office/library. Right now we're using it as our bedroom because the upstairs needs work.
There are four bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom. Right now one of the bedrooms and the bathroom are full of junk. The other three bedrooms need carpet, but they are livable, so the kids have their mattresses on the floor up there for now. After we get them carpeted we'll move up the rest of their furniture. This is apicture of Joy and Sarah's room, which is pretty typical of the upstairs bedrooms.
So that's our house! We really like it, and I love this new town. It's still small, but it's big enough to have things like an IGA and a small library and a park. It's probably the biggest small town we've lived in.
_____________________________
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Storm - 7/25/2009 10:22:48 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
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Last night it stormed. The heavy rain all of a sudden woke me up, and it woke up several of the kids, too. Right now our bedroom is downstairs and the stairway runs through our room until we get the upstairs finished, and so I worried that several kids running down the stairs past their sleeping father would wake him up, but amazingly he slept though it. They were worried about the storm, so I told them they could check the weather. They fired up the laptop in the other room and turned on the light in there, and I was surprised they didn't wake Erick up since the light was shining into our room. I told them to be quiet and I went in there to look and see if there were any warnings. It said there was a severe thunderstorm warning, but since there wasn't any tornado warnings or anything I didn't think I needed to worry too much. I went back to bed, and eventually the girls did, too. Jay was the only one who didn't go back upstairs--he slept on the couch. Erick slept through everything and he didn't even know it stormed until the next day.
When the kids went to take the dog out in the morning, they noticed our porch swing was upside down, and the cushions were gone. They finally found them all. One was in our yard, one was across the street, and the other was a block away at the library. We hadn't realized it was that windy outside.
Later on, we heard from some of our friends that there had been a small tornado that came through our town. We walked over to where the storm damage was, which was only about two blocks away from us, and saw trees down everywhere, just snapped in half, and a tree lying on top of a trailer. The lady who lived there was injured when it fell on her house, but she is okay. Her arm is hurt, and her house is destroyed, but no one was killed. No one has confirmed that it was a tornado, but everyone is pretty sure that's what happened since it left a path of damage and everywhere else in town there was no damage. If it were only straight line winds both sides of the highway would have looked about the same, not broken trees here and nothing over there.
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Various - 8/5/2009 10:38:17 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
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Last week we got our carpet installed upstairs. We put a deep emerald green carpet in the bedrooms and a gray berber in the hallway and on the stairway. It's been so good to move everything upstairs and spread out a little.
Sarah's birthday party was last Saturday. She's ten now. We had two of her friends over for cake and ice cream, and took them them swimming. I took Tim and Rachel down the waterslide several times and they really enjoyed that.
Our laptop's hard drive went out last week, too. The bad thing was that all of our pictures were on it, so except for the ones I have on Facebook, I have lost all of my pictures. The hard drive was still under warranty, so at least it didn't cost too much to get it fixed, but it's disappointing to lose all those pictures. Now that we have DSL I can put a lot more pictures online and hopefully I won't lose them again.
Last Sunday we went to St. Louis with our friends for a Rock the River tour with Franklin Graham. We saw Skillet and several other bands play. They were really good. We had wanted to go to New York this week but Erick couldn't afford to take off work, so we figured St. Louis would be something we could do instead.
I got my hair cut today. I had won a free haircut at the street fest we had played at back in June, and had lost the coupon. I finally found it a couple days ago when I was unpacking boxes. It's not as short this time--I had her cut it longer layers so I could still pull it back and get it out of my face when I want to.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Recording - 8/10/2009 9:29:52 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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I got to do something fun today that I've never done before--I recorded a song. Our friend in our band has a buddy who has a recording studio in his home, and he's done recording for about twenty years. He said he'd record an album for us for $250, and our friend's mom gave him the money for it.
It was a really interesting experience. He's going to record us all individually and then put us all together, and I got to go first. He started by getting me an electronic beat off my keyboard that I could hear in my headphones. It won't be on the final CD once he gets our drummer on there. Then I played keyboard and he recorded that directly into his system. I sang along, but he wasn't recording my voice at that time. And then I went again and sang along to the music I had recorded. I sang it twice and I was happy with the second take. The first one I felt I went sharp on a couple of notes, and I had him turn down the volume of the music so I could hear myself better. I did get one word wrong, but I'm not going to worry about it. I sang "but" instead of "'cause" once. I don't think it'll make much of a difference. He said that with his equipment he could go back and we could fix just that one word, but he doesn't really know how. He's got a lot of equipment that does a lot of different things, but he doesn't know how to do everything on it.
Next Erick has to go in and record the bass, and we have to add the guitar and drums. I don't know yet if I'm going to do the background vocals myself or if my friend is going to do it. She's going to try it first and see what she thinks.
We just worked on that one song today. We did a song my brother wrote called "Laid It All Down." That's the one song he got professionally recorded. He gave us permission to record it, too. We're going to do another song he wrote, and a couple that I wrote, and some songs that my friend wrote, and then probably fill the rest of the CD with hymns. We're thinking probably about ten songs altogether would be good. We figure we should keep to songs that are originals or public domain so we don't infringe on copyright laws.
It was a lot of fun. I loved that cool microphone--it was so sensitive I could hear myself breathe! I can't wait to hear what it sounds like when it's all done. I'll have to get some of them up on MySpace or somewhere so you can all hear them.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Praising God - 8/20/2009 4:31:09 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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Today was, as our pastor would say, a "God" day. It was one of those days when you have things all planned out, and nothing goes like you thought it would, but God's plans for the day were better than our plans.
We had planned on going up to see the District Superintendent about the church we are probably going to be taking. We had an appointment at 11:00am, and we had arranged to have our friends watch the kids while we were gone. Then, right about the time were getting ready to leave, we found that we had a message on our voice mail--he was not able to meet with us today after all. We were pretty disappointed at first--we had been looking forward to going and meeting with him.
Since we already had babysitters lined up, we decided to go get some materials we needed for the house, and we made a date of it. I had a gift card to Twist & Shake that a lady at church had given me as a thank-you for subbing for her and teaching her Sunday School class, and the weather was just perfect. A cold front had moved through leaving it feeling like fall today. It was just beautiful outside and we had a really nice date. I love my husband so much.
Anyway, while we were out and about doing this and that and running hither and thither, his cell phone rang. It was a friend of ours who has a construction company telling Erick that he was ready to put him to work. Erick had inteviewed with him last Tuesday and we've been praying that he would get the job. It has better pay, better hours, and he doesn't have to drive so far. The best part is that it's a day job and he won't have to work nights anymore, so we can start doing Bible studies and things in the evenings when he gets that church.
And speaking of that church, the guy who is in charge of it now called today also, and he's going to meet with Erick tomorrow and start putting him in charge of the schedule and helping him get started taking over the responsibilties there. So even though we didn't get to meet with the District Superintendent about it, we're already working towards taking that church.
It's been a really "God" day.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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RE: Praising God - 9/2/2009 8:02:36 AM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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I've been really bad about blogging lately. I've been pretty busy since starting my online classes at Ivy Tech. (That's my official excuse!) Actually, I have this little quirk in my personalitly that causes me to get really excited about anything new that I start to the point where I find it difficult to find any enthusiasm for anything else I do. It won't last forever, but right now I don't want to get on Facebook or read fiction or clean the house or anything else I enjoy doing (Okay, cleaning house probably doesn't belong on the list of things I enjoy doing!), I just want to read my schoolbooks. I'm a week and a half into school and it's all I want to do. I am loving it! I know this initial excitement will die down soon and I'll be able to again find balance in my life. This week I am already almost finished with all of my assignments and it's only Wednesday morning. I have an essay to finish, and two short lessons in some other classes, and that's it.
In other news, Erick starts his new job tomorrow, and he's already unofficially taken his new church. The kids and I are going to join him on the 13th of September. We're a little nervous, but we're trusting God.
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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Funny things my kids said - 9/6/2009 9:05:43 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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Joy was chatting with her best friend on Gmail chat, and she was typing nonsense words. I tried to encourage her to chat about something else, with more substance. I tried giving her a few ideas ("you could talk about Obama or something") and Rachel started giving her some of her own ideas on what to type. Rachel said, "I know! Type, "Obama is a Mexican." Beforeo I could correct her and tell her Obama isn't a Mexican, Abby chimed in to correct her sister. "Rachel", she said, "Obama is a Democrat."
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Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
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RE: Funny things my kids said - 9/14/2009 10:02:32 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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We were watching America's Got Talent tonight, and Timothy said, "I want to be on America's Got Talent. If I get to sing on America's Got Talent, I would either sing "Three Blind Mice" or else I would sing "Hunky Dunky."
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My new table - 9/23/2009 3:33:12 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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I finally got my refund from school yesterday--the difference between the Pell Grants and the amount that I actually needed for tuition. I've known exactly what I was going to do with it for months now, and as soon as I had the money we went to a furniture store and bought a new table. I've had my eye on this table for a few years now--it's square--5 feet by 5 feet, and sits two chairs on each side. I have always wanted a table that has matching chairs that will seat the whole family. I'm so excited! It fits so nicely in our huge kitchen, too. None of our other houses were big enough for a table like this, anyway. I feel so blessed.
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Generation Joshua - 10/5/2009 12:40:37 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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I've just finished signing up my two oldest children to volunteer with a Student Action Team for Generation Joshua. They are recruiting three to four hundred homeschoolers ages 11-19 who will go and campaign for pro-family candidates right before the elections. My kids will be going with my mom and three of my siblings to Virginia to distribute literature and make phone calls in the last five days before election. All of their expenses are provided for--I only needed to pay the $25 per child to register them with Generation Joshua.
I think this is going to be a great opportunity for my kids to get involved in politics and learn the importance of voting in pro-family candidates. In our country, we have such a great responsibility to elect our own leaders, and the next generation needs to understand their role in it. Too many Christians have minimized this responsibility and either don't vote, or are compromising by voting for candidates that stand for ungodly principles. Some even teach that Christians shouldn't get involved in politics. It's not only good for Christians to get involved, it's our duty! We live in an unique culture and we govern ourselves. If we vote for ungodly politicians or neglect to vote at all, we are not governing our own country like we should. We are failing our children and our grandchildren. It's time to take that responsibility seriously and get involved.
If anyone else is interested in Generation Joshua, go to GenerationJoshua.org.
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My English paper - 10/8/2009 6:02:45 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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This is an assignment that I turned in this week for English Composition. I was really happy with my paper and my grade, too (I got 100% on this) and wanted to share it. My instructor said that maybe I should be a writer.
Welfare—A Complicated Issue
Poverty is an issue in the United States that has many people concerned. In the richest nation in the world, most believe that it is unacceptable that anyone should lack the basic necessities of life. Although most agree that it a problem, there are many disagreements about what can or should be done about it. The government supports a large number of families, especially women and children, with tax dollars collected from citizens. Not surprisingly, there is much controversy surrounding the spending of public funds on people who are not working to support themselves. In her essay titled, “Welfare Is Still Necessary for Women and Children in the U.S.”, Chrystal Sabatke endeavors to point out flaws in some of the arguments posed by opponents of government funded welfare programs. She believes that it is “necessary for the government to maintain a supportive welfare system for the women and children of our country” until systems are set in place that provide for an adequate education, quality childcare, and a livable minimum wage. (Sabatke, pg. 588)
Those who oppose welfare often claim that the main cause of poverty is laziness, citing shocking stories of women purposely having babies out of wedlock in order to qualify for more benefits. Sabatke disagrees with this assessment. She asserts that the main cause of poverty, especially among women, is lack of education. She gives us examples of girls from troubled homes dropping out of high school with low grades, often pregnant, who start out life on a path of poverty. She claims that the public school system in America only meets the needs of the successful student and believes that they need to provide also “for the students that are not doing well.” (Sabatke, pg 588) She also believes that they should be educated in the use of birth control and on the economic disadvantages of having children at an early age.
Although Sabatke is partially correct, her theory concerning the cause of poverty is oversimplified. The government has already spent billions of dollars on educating children. Every child in this country has equal access to a free, taxpayer funded education, but students aren’t taking advantage of the opportunities that are available. Some children come from bad situations, and some will make destructive choices that the schools can do little about. There are many teachers who really do care about the children they teach and do what they can to help troubled students, but there is only so much they can reasonably do. Public schools are not designed to be able to counter the effects of a bad family life. Even free college is available to the poor, through Pell Grants and other assistance. Sabatke’s claims that the government isn’t doing enough to provide education to the poor are simply untrue.
As for birth control, teaching students the use of birth control does not lower the teenage birth rate. The teen pregnancy rate has risen in the past couple of years after a fourteen year decline. Some have wrongly attributed this decline to teaching kids about birth control in school. However, a study comparing the teen pregnancy rate between 1991 and 1996, when the teen pregnancy dropped to the lowest rate since the 70’s, shows us a different picture. Karl Zinzmeister and Eli Lehrer report the following in The American Enterprise. “A new study in the Journal of Adolescent and Family Health, however, shows that relatively little in the reduction of the pregnancy rate of unmarried teens can be attributed to contraception among the sexually active. Instead, fully two-thirds of the drop was caused by higher levels of teenage sexual abstinence.”(Zinzmeister, Lehrer) It goes on to say that “birth rates among unwed teenagers…actually increased among the sexually active.”(Zinzmeister, Lehrer)
The causes of poverty are very complex and can’t be narrowed down to one or even two or three causes. Some people, admittedly, are poor because they are lazy. Some of the horror stories are true, and unfortunately, many abuses of the system exist. Destructive choices exacerbated by the breakdown of families and the destruction of the moral fiber in our country cause many to end up in poverty. But not everyone who is poor is necessarily lacking in character or motivation. Many people are poor because they were raised in a poor family themselves. Although people “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and work their way out of poverty all the time, it can be a difficult and long process. It is especially difficult among those who do not understand what it takes to get out of poverty and lack a good role model to show them the way. Lack of motivation can be fixed. Poor choices and family backgrounds of poverty can be overcome. But these are not the only causes of poverty either--there are still other issues to consider, such as health problems and mental disabilities. “[A recent study] found a high incidence of mental health problems in poor women, including those on TANF; more than half of the participants (63%) reported concurrent mental and physical health problems in themselves as well as in at least 1 of their children, whereas only 36% of employed women reported these problems.” (Hildebrande and Stevens)
Sabatke’s second point is that the lack of childcare places single women with children at a disadvantage when it comes to escaping poverty. She believes that Welfare to Work programs are not realistic, and that welfare opponents who would force mothers to place their children in daycare in order to work don’t care about children. She argues that if Americans really cared about family values, they would want mothers to stay home and take care of their children.
Eugenie Hildebrandt and Patricia Stevens in American Journal of Public Health quote a Women’s Employment Study report as saying that “when mothers repeatedly moved between working and being on welfare, or were in stable jobs with irregular schedules, their children were more likely to be anxious and depressed. (Hildebrant and Stevens) The article also says that “subsequent research identified more behavior problems in the children of low-income working mothers, suggesting that mothers’ employment may impose risks on development.” (Hildebrant and Stevens)
Sabatke also points out that even when single mothers do find employment, they often continue to struggle to make ends meet due to the difficulties of finding entry-level jobs that pay enough to provide for the needs of them and their children. Women who might desire to provide for themselves may still end up dependent on government assistance. A minimum wage job simply doesn’t generate enough income to pay not only for food, clothing, and shelter, but child care on top of that. Sabatke quotes the Wall Street Journal as calling the Job Training Partnership Act “a sham” for offering minimum wage jobs to poor young women in an effort to remove them from the welfare rolls. (Sabatke, pg 589)
Sabatke is correct that encouraging women to take low-wage jobs accomplishes little to help women get out of poverty. The minimum wage isn’t enough to support families—those kinds of jobs are better suited for teenagers who live at home and are entering the job market for the first time, or maybe retirees who want to do something to fill their days. No one should be expected, nor expect others, to support a household with a minimum wage job. The problem started back in the late 1990’s when the government welfare program, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), was first implemented. TANF was designed to be a program in which lower income participants would receive cash benefits for a limited amount of time (a total of sixty months one can be on the program in a lifetime) while they worked their way out of poverty. Because of the limited amount of time participants could qualify for this program, social workers strongly encouraged them to enter the labor market as quickly as possible, even if it meant taking a low wage job. At first the employment rate went up, but soon there were so many lower income people applying for the entry level jobs that there weren’t enough to go around. Many on TANF have graduated from the program, but remain in poverty, dependent on government assistance. (Hildebrande and Stevens)
Sabatke concludes that ending poverty among women and children will require education, availability of affordable child care, and a livable minimum wage. Until these things are implemented, she believes that welfare should remain as it is in order to provide for the basic needs of women and children. Even though welfare programs have not succeeded in lifting the poor out of poverty as many had hoped, to eliminate welfare entirely would have disastrous effects among those in poverty and could even negatively affect society. Although this is true, Sabatke’s approach to eliminating poverty is grossly oversimplified. The causes of poverty are extremely complex and cannot be easily or quickly solved. The solutions for poverty are unique for each individual and need to be addressed on an individual, case-by-case basis.
Works Cited
Hildebrandt, E., and P. Stevens. "Impoverished Women With Children and No Welfare Benefits: The Urgency of Researching Failures of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program. " American Journal of Public Health 99.5 (2009): 793-801. Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 24 Sep. 2009
Sabatke, Chrystal. “Welfare Is Still Necessary for Women and Children in the U.S.” The Prentice Hall Guide For College Writers pp. 587-590. Pearson Education Inc., 2008
Zinsmeister, Karl, and Eli Lehrer. "TEEN PREGNANCY SURPRISE. " The American Enterprise 1 Jan. 2004: Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 25 Sep. 2009.
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church website - 10/16/2009 2:42:49 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
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I thought I'd pop in and share the website I put up for our new church. It still needs work, but the basics are there. LINK
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What we've been up to lately - 10/26/2009 3:45:31 PM
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Consecrated2God
Posts: 5175
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: Formerly Jesus Land
Status: online
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Since Erick officially became the pastor of our new church, we've stayed pretty busy. Our Sunday morning attendance has jumped from 6 to 31 in the last couple of months, and next week we are starting a home Bible study. We have several unchurched people who are interested in coming to that.
Jay has been learning the bass guitar--he picked it up really quickly. Erick's letting him use the one I bought for him last Christmas. He played on the worship team yesterday at church. Erick was sick and so he sat up in the balcony and took pictures for the website. He preached, but he stayed away from everyone and we stayed home during the evening service.
We've also been busy on the house. Our construction loan is almost finished, and we're almost done. The upstairs bathroom is finished, and now we've got to do the downstairs one. Erick tore out everything and so far the only thing we have in the downstairs bathroom is a new tub, but the plumbing isn't quite finished. I'm hoping it will be finished by our first Bible Study. It's going to be so pretty when it's done. I'll get pictures of the house up when it's all finished.
Here is one of the pictures that Erick took of the service yesterday:
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