Awesome Provision!!

Bursting at the seems is how I have often described our Thursday night Bible study. Kids have been practically right on top of each other...not such a great dynamic with all those raging hormones. :/

Last night was our second week with a little elbow room. This is not because kids have stopped coming - just the opposite has been true. We have been given permission to use a building 1 BLOCK from our ministry house...and we get to use it for virtually free.

It belongs to another group who are very interested in the community but who are not able to do much themselves for the community. They are eager to partner with anyone who is trying to make a positive impact.

We breaking it in with Thursday nights and are looking forward to many other possibilities in the future. While it isn't a long-term solution, it is a well-timed answer to prayer!

Settling In - Upcoming Stuff

Now that title could win some awards for creativity. :)

Andrae and Lone have been here for a month now. Their house is coming together and they are starting to feel a little more at home. Andrae has been a fun partner in ministry because he dreams big ideas too...it is very fun to have someone to bounce off of who won't feel overwhelmed. His wife is fantastic as well. I can't wait to spend more time with her.

We are having an open house for 2nd Mile this weekend. I can't wait. I love connecting people I love with other things and people I love. Does that make sense? I am excited to have a bunch of people from my church have more of a chance to meet and connect with my community and the ministry my life is poured out into.

My sister and I are planning on moving soon. We are waiting for some details to line up. If you want to pray for us - please pray for that...our current residence continues to be a great habitation for mold, mice and cock roaches. My sister can't wait to have a room to sleep in again (her whole bedroom is still strewn about our entire house). We both can't wait to have a home again...

More than ever before, I am looking forward with great anticipation to what God might be doing in the months ahead. Hopefully I will do a good job at keeping you in touch with all God is doing.

Busy Month

Starting from the middle of December and ending at the end of this month I will have gone from Jacksonville to Orlando to Jacksonville to New Orleans to Jacksonville to Miami to Jacksonville to Charlotte to Greenville to Atanta to Jacksonville to Tampa and finally back to Jacksonville.

In the midst of it all I have dealt with 3 break-ins, several family crisis situations, moving an office, end of the year business details, homework, trying to facilitate the beginning of a website, discipling girls, @ the beginning planning of our distict conference which is a little over a month away among a few other things... Oh yeah and in there somewhere was Christmas and New Years! :)

Hopefully this isn't indicative of the year ahead! :)

Learning From My Mistakes

I have learned that it is very important to have serial numbers for items which you may want to recover if they are ever stolen. Well God has blessed me incredibly with a new laptop and an external hardrive (this is the provision that helps with the backing data up lesson that I learned) and I will absolutely be keeping and filing my serial numbers!! :) I may be a slow learner but I do eventually learn! :)

Holding Loosely

Our ministry house has been broken into three times in the last two weeks. This makes a cumulative of eight break-ins total between that house and my own over the last two years. It also means tens of thousands of dollars worth of "things" that the Lord has chosen to take away just as He was the one who gave them. It makes me very aware of how much I come to depend on things...like laptops :) in my life. It helps me to appreciate the gifts when I receive them from the Lord. It teaches me that I need to back up my information. :) I have been praying that my heart would continue to be gentle and loving toward whoever it is that is in such a situation that they feel desperate enough to repeatedly break-in to our house.

BIG NEWS!!!

God had provided our team with an Executive Director! We have been praying for this moment for over 4 years now!! Andrae Robinson will start as of January 1st. However, he and his wife Lone (pronounced Luna) will not move out to J'ville until near the end of January. They are joining us from California! Andrae grew up in California while his wife grew up in Denmark. They met in an orphanage in Honduras. We are excited about the huge ways they will contribute to our team. Their giftings and personalities will mesh well with ours while filling much needed gaps!

Tacoma/Seattle

I just spent 3 1/2 glorious days in Washington State. I spent time with incredible friends, hiked in crisp, chilly weather, took in the brilliant fall colors, went to one of the largest REI's in the nation and toured two beautiful cities! What a wonderfully refreshing little retreat!!

What was that rainbow thing again?

I think God said that He set the rainbow in the sky as a covenant that He would never flood the earth again like He did in the days of Noah. By the end of 2 weeks of straight rain, I was starting to wonder if He had changed His mind. No, I wasn't in an ark floating, but the carpet in my sisters room was floating on top of the ankle deep water that filled her room.

300 gallons of water later...her floor is finally starting to dry. I would have taken pictures but I don't think she was in the mood. :)

Unfortunately, Sophia's flooded room was not the only thing ailing us at our house the last couple weeks. The roof was also leaking, our thermostat stopped working (not a good situation in an already hot and very wet environment) and we have an animal decomposing in the wall next to my room...yummy!!

The adventure continues....

One Tired Girl

So this year I took the plunge and decided to bring a student to school. Thomas is so gifted and talented - with the ability to do anything but he is not always very motivated...so I decided I would encourage him to be motivated by picking him up. This meant waking up at 6:45 a.m. and generally getting back to sleep by a little after 7a.m.

Well then Veronica -(I don't have any pictures of her) asked if I could pick her up as well. She lives near Thomas and is going to the same school. That seemed like a good idea because I really want to make in-roads into her family. This meant waking up at 6:40 a.m. and still getting back to sleep a little after 7 a.m.



Then I was talking to Amp (Thomas' brother) and found out that his bus stop is on the way to Thomas' school but it would be a 2-mile walk for Amp every morning to get there. The bus picks him up just a little earlier than the other two need to get to school so that means getting up at 6:30 a.m and getting back to sleep a little after 7:00 a.m.

Are you noticing the trend? The time is getting earlier and earlier...

Then...AJ has been having trouble at home and has been staying at Thomas' house. His school is 3 miles away. A bit of a walk to say the least. This didn't change my getting up time, however, it is 3 miles in the opposite direction...so now I'm getting home at 7:30.

Well then...AJ has been having trouble at home and has been staying at Thomas' house. His school is 3 miles away. A bit of a walk to say the least. This didn't change my getting up time, however, it is 3 miles in the opposite direction...so now I'm getting home at 7:30.

I think the word must have been spreading that Miss Ruth is a taxi driver because I got to Thomas' house one morning and 6 boys came piling out of the house...all going to different schools. Now not only does that mean I am up longer and longer...but 6 boys and one girl (Veronica) don't all fit very well in my little Corolla...so you guessed it...I had to make two trips. Not arriving home until almost 8 a.m.

This definitely does not happen every morning...but occasionally I am greeted with some kind of surprise like this when I get to Thomas' house at 6:40 in the morning. And let me tell you this tired girl often turns into one yucky, grouchy girl when I am met with all these unexpected surprises that are cutting into my sleep.

I could say that I am just tired and excuse my grouchi-ness away as a result of that...or the fact that I am caught unexpectedly off-guard or the fact that these kids are only thinking of themselves and will most likely not even be grateful (like most teenagers)...I'm sure I could explain it away on a lot of levels if I tried hard enough but really it just reveals my selfish, impatient, sinful nature which resides at the core of who I am. Under the right conditions I am an evil beast in my responses. This has not been pretty.

Anyway, I would love your prayers that God would deal with my sinful, impatient self in such a way that allows me to deal with grace, gentleness and perseverance with my kiddos.

On a side note...I know most people in the human world are up at 6:30 or earlier on a regular basis but unfortunately, I work late often not getting to sleep until at least midnight and if you know me well you know that I need a whopping 9 hours of sleep. I know that is sickening but I think God made me that way on purpose.

Face Book

I just recently joined the millions who are addicted (I mean connected) to facebook. If you have an account...find me! :)