The Lindsey Visit

We could never fail to mention our overwhelming fun we had with Lindsey over the past seventeen days. We had goals to do a lot of things with her, and accomplished most of them! The first big thing we did was go to a pumpkin patch and pick a few of those. We all had a blast! Earlier that same day, we ate at Chick-Fil-A (one of our new favorites–delicious food, very clean, born-again Christian owned, and closed on Sunday) in Shrewsberry because we had a couple coupons for free sandwiches. It just happened to be their fifth anniversary week, so they had a few fun things that afternoon. Lindsey was able to see a couple of “cows” in the restaurant.

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Just look at that smile on her face!
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Andrea and Lindsey also had a few baking days...

Lindsey also met some new friends…

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Visiting a farm with Hannah, Catherine, and Olivia Turner
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An evening with Jenna and Alyssa Starr
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Raking leaves with Kate McCleary

Sunday night was our “last hurrah” before she left.  The Mullers, missionaries to Mongolia, came and reported to our church just before they head back to the field early next month.  They are from Fairhaven, so they were able to take Lindsey back with them.  We had a lot of fun and fellowship with the Mullers and Eebee (a college friend from Mongolia) Sunday afternoon and evening.  We invited them to our home for lunch, and had pizza with them after the evening service.  This morning, on their way back to Chesterton, they picked up Lindsey, and we all said our goodbyes.  What a great last couple of weeks we had!  Maybe Andrea can tell a few more interesting stories in the near future…

Missions Conference 2009

Well, things have swirled around quite a bit over the last few weeks, and I haven’t posted much. I think having Lindsey here threw our schedule out of whack a bit, and I never really got to posting anything interesting.  Our Annual Missions Conference went extremely well. That was near two and a half weeks ago now! We had missionaries from Arctic Canada, South Africa, and Mexico. Each had exciting testimonies of how God had worked in their ministries. One message that much of our church remembers was on how to pray for your missionaries. After the message, Pastor Starr typed out the outline and gave it to the church as a guide. We were challenged to pray for five missionaries a week–specifically. The unofficial last night of the conference was on Sunday night, after all of the guest missionaries had left. First, we were challenged with a testimony from our teens highlighting their missions trip to Mexico back in August, then one of our own single young men shared with us his burden for working alongside of a church-planting missionary in Portugal. He will be taking a trip there later this month and a few days into next month.  Praise the Lord for a powerful and Holy Spirit-filled conference!

Thirty Day Challenge!

I was presented with a thirty day challenge on a blog I enjoy reading, Moneysavingmom.com.  It is, to “Give to someone in some fashion every day in November.”  Now I understand we are already two days into November, but you might just as well begin today!  Or tomorrow!  I think it is a wonderful challenge in this materialistic age, and I am excited to do it myself.  Yesterday I shared some homemade pumpkin soup with a friend whom I knew would enjoy it.  Today I wrote a card to mail to my grandmother who is recovering from knee-replacement surgery.  I am adding to the challenge, that it cannot be something I already regularly give, for example, time on a bus route you work each weekend anyway, or time spent with an elderly friend you routinely visit already.

I gave the challenge to my sister, and she said she would definitely do it, with the additional idea of journaling your giving along the way.  Better yet, it might be a wonderful project to work on with your children if you have any.  Maybe this will teach us not only generosity, but gratefulness for what God and others have so undeservedly given to us!

Are you up for the challenge?