what this life is all about

In the course of the last few weeks it is really easy to be discouraged and distracted by all that is going on all around the world, but wait "God is in control!" It is in the Word that we read that "All authority on heaven and earth is established by God." What a comforting thought, that God is in control and no matter what happens in the natural we know that there is something more to this life that the here and now... Am i concerned and praying fervently about the present state of the world "you betcha!" (that is supposed to be funny) But all in all God is in control --- Angie and I are, well, at a place in our lives where there is so much changing that we are just trusting God with all we have, because we truly have nowhere else to go but to the Lord. As we embark on this next few months we covet prayer! With the due date of our lasted edition to the family just around the corner we are gearing up for all the change that that will bring --- I also am about to take the plunge and start a side business selling coffee to whomever will buy it, and this to me is a bit invigorating, a leap of faith, but I am feeling it is a step in the right direction for us as a family.

Just wanted to get that off my mind... maybe blogging through this time will be helpful to our sanity. does anybody still check this thing?

Paul and Angie's Rebuttal

Paul and i decided tonight that it would only be appropriate to have the "last words" seeing that this is our blog and all, so sorry jason and jordan you will not be able to add you rebuttal, which by the way was entertaining, tonight was the first that i got to read all the entry's of the week. I need to start off being serious and let you all know that I am very proud of all of you. You did a great job each day with the tasks that you were given, and for the most part i was impressed and pleased the the painting jobs you did, boys not so much! You never know what your going to get when you give a teenager a paint brush, next time we know, keep jason and jordan away from the paint. I do have to commend jason for his speedy response to his "fire" he walked out of the bathroom where he had been painting and took about 10 steps with white paint on the bottom of his shoes. I have never seen jason move so fast, we furiously scrubbed the brand new dark carpet, and after it was all wiped up he says, "now i know what it's like to put out a fire!" But not only were you willing to do the work that you were given, you also did a great job when it came time to do ministry.
It blesses me to be able to work with a group of young people who are excited to hit the streets and prayer walk, and pray for people. I would say that it seemed like you all enjoyed the ministry times better than the work we did. Work is great and it's awesome to be able to accomplish something and stand back and say "wow, look at that" and it blesses the people you do it for so much. And it is important, if it wasn't than it wouldn't be a gift that God gives some people, (service) but for too long the church has hid behind service project mission trips and it left out a major issue on God's heart, and that is taking His love to the streets, and going to those who would never step foot in a church building because they have a skewed view of church. They see rules and regulations, but what they need is for a child of God to show them His heart of love for them. There are many attributes to God and many ways to show the world His love. Thank you all for being so open and willing, even when your awesome faces got doors slammed in them. Remember what Leif said, "you can't humiliate someone who is already humble"


Paul's take---

Four score and seven years ago... oops wrong speech. Lets try again. This week was a really good week, it is hard to sit back and think of everything that we did because there was so much. I really enjoyed the time in Urbana and being able to connect with all our friends there and seeing the team dive right in. it was fun all staying at one house and being the founder of the "posture check" movement was quite fun. i would yell "posture check" and everyone would sit up ( as i am typing i sat up straight ) Angie and I have been trying to decide if our family of toddlers is easier to manage than a family of teenagers? we will let you know what we discover laster! I really do appreciate everyone on the team and their willingness to be flexible and stretched, even to the point of actually having doors slammed in their faces. i was so blessed when we discovered that every kid that came to the kids club was from the neighborhood that we passed out flyers in, go God. I was also blessed to see the teams hunger to spend time with the Lord and to learn and understand the concept of prayer. we had a prayer focused week... Conrad is a prayer warrior and shared with us some of his prayer experiences and then "the call" further fueled our desire to get before the Lord in prayer, joining 80,000 people crying out to the Lord is truly a life changing experience! Let us not stop praying for our nation and for an end to abortion and for revival to spread around the world.

---


Now on the lighter side, we though it would be funny to let our other readers have a little incite on what it was like for us to live with you all for a week

Jordan--- How can you drink that smelly fiber stuff, which one night ended up all over the kitchen window. Always right there helping load and unload, You could always count on Jordan to be where you needed him to be.

Heather--- Why is it "Hed" and not "Head"? She actually tried walking on water, way to go Heather! Always had a verse from the Lord to go along with what we were encountering

Jessica --- Poor thing, she was the one to discover that the horrible smell in the van was Jason's feet... it actually smelled like cat pee. You could always count on Jessica to be where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there, and always did her work diligence.

Hannah --- Full of useless, but interesting facts, she should go on a trivia show, could win millions, who knows? Always paying attention to the teachings and sermons we heard and reminding us of them at just the right time. Hide the Word in you heart!

Jason --- Where do we start? His feet really do stink and he truly was the entertainment of the trip. You can really count on Jason to do anything and he will do it and not ask questions.

Kara --- Always asking "what" style questions. Oh and keep this girl away from radio's, stereos, MP3 players and sound systems, especially when she is supposed to be painting. Kara has a serious heart for prayer and is willing at anytime to dive into deep prayer for whatever the need is.

In closing we want you all to know that we love and appreciate you and would take you anywhere with us, it is an honor to work with such a great crew of kids, God has mighty big plans for each of you, keep seeking His face He will lead you to where you need to be!

Blogging, Tired, Oh and our Van is in the Shop!

Well we had a really good travel day on Thursday, we got up and packed all our stuff up and then cleaned the house we were staying at. we dropped some stuff off at Conrads and headed out... but first Paul had to stop and get some Green Coffee to roast... so we headed out around 10ish and made for Frederick MD --- Some highlights of the roadtrip were, Spanish Guitars, Our guest speaker Kris Valetton speaking 3 sessions, and Jason's smelly feet! We made great time getting to our hotel around 6, dinner at Chiptole and then some swimming and Olympics!

This morn we headed out for a day of sightseeing around DC -- We started the day out Arlington Cemetery watching the changing of the guard , and visiting the Grave of JFK -- W e then went to the Lincoln Memorial and Korean war memorial and then back to the van... that is when we had a change of plans.

So we get in the van and Paul puts it in reverse to get out of the parallel spot and low and behold there was no brakes!!!! so he slammed the van into park and apparently hit the E-brake in the process--- good thing we did not do any damage to the car behind us! so after gaining our composure the boys assessed the situation (definitely busted brake line) and Jason pulled a card trick... AAA thank you. we got a cab for the girls and Jordan and all their stuff and Jason and Paul stayed with the broken down van. good thing - nice tow truck driver and very helpful service / bad, thing - Midas Washington DC ( that is probably all you need to know, think about it $$$$$$$$$$) -- luckily the highway robbery is seriously a minutes walk from our hotel --- it will be fixed sometime tomorrow.

So we did get a nap in the midst of all of that and then headed out to see the town! We went to the National Archives and saw the declaration of Independance, Bill of Rights, and the constitution. then off to a very nice dinner at Austin TEX-MEX grille -- Jason could not get enough, best food ever he claims --- now we are back at the Hotel and very tired --- but we are resting up for THE CALL tomorrow --- should be a good time!

Jordan: Well today and yesterday were interesting. Yesterday was mostly like driving and was fairly boring. The biggest highlight was our guest speaker kris Valetton. Today we hit the big cemetery, Lincoln memorial, Korea war monument, and the National Archives which was the highlight of my tourist activities. The meal was wonderful and made me nice and full which is hard to do because portions are small at most places that serve food. The evening end with a good round of wrestling with my good pal/ used to be may good pal Jason who is now my arch enemy and we are not talking right now because he is really on my nerves and i think i might punch in my dream and sleepwalking. So for all you fun loving caring people who are not like Jason Good Night and See you Soon Jordan

jason: hello fellow americans and people who dont want to talk to jordan. the food was fantastic. i want some more FOOD! peace out and i shall talk to all you fellow americans soon. my face is .....

Jason's & Hed's rebuttal

Jason: hello fellow americans, i'm back. i was the only one that was wide awake yesterday morning. everyone else was half asleep, so they decided to do an activity to wake them up. personally i wanted to try walking on water. but of course we had to go in an opposite direction called pilates. pilates are interesting very interesting. i got some good laughs out of it because jordan squealed the whole time and paul was in pain. the girls did better than they did. well i got to go feed my awesome face with some awesome food created by angie. peace out and injoy the face.

Hed: hmmm well...sorry i'm REALLY tired and half asleep. This was NOT my idea Jason started it i guess i have to write too. So this might not be to interesting. Yesterday was really good...minus the posture checking. Soo...posture checking...it's something Paul came up with on like the first day. Pretty much he randomly yells POSTURE CHECK! And we all sit up straight... uugggg... :) Soo anyhow on to more real stuff..the prayer walking yesterday was really cool. We got to pray for a lady whose husband had broken his leg and who was six months pregnant. The lady was pregnant NOT her husband! Just thought i'd clarify that. Anyhow it was lots of fun...and pilates makes me feel good cause i'm not sore!! ya! anyhow i'm supposed to be cleaning. so i guess that's it for now! I'll be back! Leave a light in the window!

Missions Trip Blog - Post Three

Well, today was good! This morning was pretty good - basically got up, showered, had quiet time while waiting for breakist, and... yeah. Relaxed. Breakfast came a tad bit late. Anyways, we had an awesome breakfast time with lots of laughter, posture checking, and so on.

AFTER breakfast was when it got "interesting". (*chuckles under breath*) So, since we all still felt slightly sloggish and sleepy...we decided we needed to do something... ACTIVE! EXCITING!!! ... Walking on water wasn't quite working, so we headed in another direction - PILATES! Angie is an awesome pilates director by the way. :D *ahem* So...

Paul: "O THE BURNNNN!!!! O THE HUMANITY!!!!!"

That, my friends, is our youth pastor in the middle of a strenuous pilates exercise routine! :D *cough* We had a great time and it was fun. Then we did a prophetic exercise thing and you all can hear about that later. :) Just know that it was fun and interesting. (And stretching! :D)

Then we ate lunch and drove to the church. This was by...1ish or so? Anyways, we worked there till 5ish painting and sanding and filling and moving and sweeping and mopping and chipping grout and washing out carpet and unloading a trailer and.... yes. Busy. Then we came home, had some downtime, and finallly ate supper at 6.

At 7:15 we were back at the church for... STREET MINISTRY! Woot. Once again, more about that later. We basically broke up into teams of two and walked around Urbana, or the area around the church, prayer walking and looking for people to pray for. It was a really cool thing to do. Stretching as well. Teams were: Jason and Jessica, Jordan and Hannah, Heather and Kara. Paul and Angie also went out.

Jason and Heather will add their piece to the blog....tomorrow... ;)

Goodnight!

Missions Trip Blog - Post Two

Tuesday morning started out with Quiet time, then breakfast followed by a time of worship and teaching. We then proceeded to BAKE the cookies previously mentioned in the last post... Oh my did we make cookies... lot's of them. Some of them got refused though... well the batch the guys made did not work at all and did not make it to the party just the trash. Our morning was consumed with cookies. As we were finishing off the cookies we loaded the van and headed to Conrad and Vicki's for lunch. We sat and hung out with them for quite a while and talked about their twin daughters and how they're mirror twins, pretty interesting one is left handed while the other is right, and their eyes have similar "mirror differences" -

After Lunch we headed to the church to get ready for the Summer Party, we split into teams to get ready for Game Stations. Hannah, Heather and Jordan were in charge of the inflatable ring toss game, and Jessica, Kara and Jason were in charge of the ping pong ball toss - both games seemed to be quite challenging so we had to test them out for a bit. Next we spent some time getting signs made to mark the different stations at the party, blowing up ballons hanging streamers, and blowing up beach balls. The Church did some of the other stations like face painting, art and crafts, and oh yes the cookie station which our cookies did well at, but the leftover brownies we brought from the Hall Of Fame event were the hot items! hilarious. When we were done with most of that prep we spent time preparing for our drama that we were going to be doing at the event.

Once were all done we all ended asleep, or laying down, on the floor of the church. it is occurring to us that we are dealing with a Spirit of Slumber.. We are always tired and this is making us to be somewhat irritable at times, please be in prayer with us for this because we know that it is the enemy trying to bring us down, Pastor Conrad also said he has also been sensing a regular heaviness over the church as he has been there the last few weeks since they moved into the building ( they have been in for two weeks now ), so we know that we need to press in for breakthrough in these areas of spiritual attack.

After eating again, pizza at the church, it was time for the summer party. there was kind of an air of expectancy at the church, mainly who would come, and sure enough they started to come and get right into the activities that were going on. The game stations went great there was face painting, crafts and lot's of wonderful pictures colored. About half way through the evening we gathered all the kids together and had our time of drama and a little bit of teaching. The drama went really good, somehow everyone got stuck to this chair except Jordan (you will know later) Then Paul explained the skit and talked with them for a little while, God even called his cell phone to show that we can connect with God wherever we are ( Jason played the role of God calling from the kitchen, the kids thought it was cool!) Then it was back to the game stations until the event was over, we cleaned up and headed for home, stopping along the way to give a group of about 7 or 8 jr-high age kids all the cookies they could handle, they were very excited that these weird people in a van gave them good cookies.

We came home and started to relax, we ended the evening playing SCUM, which turned out to be very fun. then it was off to bed---

Please be praying for us fervently, we can feel the enemy trying to bring us down especially with tiredness, believe with us for more energy and excitement, and clarity in thinking and direction. Today ( Wednesday ) is our last day in Urbana we want to end our time here strong and go into the next phase of trip with the same excitement, that what has been started here would continue as we go into the end of the week!

Jordan: Most people don't see what really counts in friendship. Friendship is doing what you can to help your friends. A lot of the time we let how we feel influence how we treat our friends. The Christian walk is similar to it. We may not feel like going after God, but it is the most vital things in our life. Friendship, also, is walking with your friends. God walks with us. He is our best friend. Life is as it is with our friends is a revelation of how God is with us.

Jason: hello fellow Americans. i don't have much for this blog. yes my awesome face is still being awesome. God has been moving in many ways. I agree with everything that Jordan said about friendship. Friendships are amazing. there are different levels to friendships. The lower levels are where you know each other from like school. You know there name and where they live. the middle levels are where you might hang out outside of school and you know them on a more personal level. then the upper levels are awesome. you know that person very very well. you know what is going on in there lives, and you might have a thing called accountability with each other it is really cool. then of course you have the highest level husband and wife. ill be back! stay in tune for more of the awesome face.

Missions Trip Blog - Post One

Apparently Heather and Jordan are BFF's....

After a rather quiet and long drive we arrived at Crossway Christian Church at around 9 am Sunday morning. The service was good. Paul led worship with Jordan on keyboard, Jason on bass, Heather on vocals, and some other guy we don't know from the church on drums. (Or at least the person writing this doesn't know him.) After church we went to the church picnic for lunch at the local city park. The weather was wonderful. We were there for an hour or two and Jason had the chance to play softball with most of the people from the church. Jordan spent the time reading under a tree beside the softball field and the rest of us besides Paul hung out by the swing sets. Then we went to the house we are staying at while here and put away stuff.

Paul and Angie took naps while the rest of us played a rousing game of... CLUE. :D *cough* It was quite interesting, and we can all agree that Jordan and Jason are rather competitive people. u_U Jason ending up winning. ;) No one was sad about that either, except maybe Jordan. Actually, I think most of the girls were ready for the game to come to an end. Haha

Then in the evening we went to Crossway's youth thing. There were about 23 of us in all and it was incredibly fun. We played a couple games and got to hear a girl named Jennifer's testimony. It was amazing!! Ask one of us team people about it sometime... O! And we also got to teach them a game: HOUSE ON FIRE! Bwahaha. Yes. WE have passed it on, and Jason actually enjoyed playing it!

Monday: After everyone had gotten up and used their allotted "15 minutes" of bathroom/shower time, we sat down to an awesome breakfast provided by some of the lady's at Crossway. It was probably 8:30 or so by the time we ate. After breakfast was quiet time. IT lasted about an hour and afterwords we all gathered together for some worship time in the living room. Which lasted till... 11ish? Then we watched the "Three Chairs" teaching by Leif Hetland. Basically it talks about three different chairs, and which chair are you sitting in.

...*jason comes over to kara sitting on the laptop typing away and asks to post* ...

Jason: hello fellow americans. jordan used up more than 15 minutes to wash. this made me have to move faster and that is hard considering it was about 7:26 in the morning. the breakfast was amazing, except for jordan he has some weird ideas for breakfast sandwiches. toast and STRAWBERRY jam and eggs, sausage, cheese. who uses STRAWBERRY jam on a breakfast sandwich? yes i will admit i fell asleep during the movie. i'm sorry. oh and i got a door slammed in my face. have you seen my face its awesome. who in the world wood slam a door in my face?! i stood there for a second after it happened and was like wow my awesome face just got slammed. but just pray for this mans deliverance. other that......my face got slammed. peace out ill be back, and stay tuned for more of me and my awesome face.

... *kara regains the computer*...

Anyways. So lunch was around 12, and made by our wonderful mum, Angie. She made a delish lunch of sloppy joes, cantelope, and tots. :D Jordan enjoyed the tots. After lunch we changed into paint clothes and left for the church. At the church we painted for a couple hours. From say...1ish to about 4:37? At which time we went back to the house to change clothes, eat some snacks, and..hang out... till around 6:00 when we went BACK to the church to meet up with Conrad (the pastor), grab some invite fliers for a kids summer party event tomorrow night, and go prayer walk/hand them out through the surrounding streets/houses around the church. We broke into 2 teams of 4. Paul, Heather, Jordan, and Hannah were in one, and Angie, Kara, Jason, and Jessica were in the other. From there, each team broke into a team of two, each part of the team taking one side of a street and getting the houses on that side.

The experiance was good. Many of us were amazed to find that not only were we not nervous about talking to complete strangers, but we enjoyed it! There were differing reactions, with some people being very nice and open, to others who shut you down immediately. Paul and Hannah (in a team of two) were actually able to pray for an older women (60's) for healing who had been experiencing headaches/blackouts and seizures since the age of 4! Please continue to pray for her. Also, they were able to talk to a young guy named Dylan. He was high on drugs and Paul totally had a word for him. It was a pretty interesting exchange and Paul asked to pray for him. Dylan said no, so God told Paul to tell him that tonight when Dylan has a dream to PAY attention because its going to show him that God is for REAL. Please be praying about this as well!

So at around 8 or so we all got back to the church and Conrad asked if we could all pray together and then asked if each of us could pray at least a LITTLE! Let me just say - the prayer time exploded! It was amazing and awesome! Just praying over the town of Urbana, the Crossway Church, and the people we had come into contact with tonight! And also for the event tomorrow night. Please keep that in your prayers as well. Its for one hour and the team will be doing a skit at some point during the evening. Also, Conrad was thinking it would be cool if we could run one or two of the game booths they will have. Please be praying about it!

After the prayer time we all felt incredibly encouraged and excited. We came back to the house for a late supper provided once again by an awesome couple from Crossway! :) They stayed and ate with us. We had a lasagna supper. Yummm....

Cookies were next on the agenda! We had told someone on Sunday that we would make 4 dozen cookies for the Tuesday Night Summer Party, so tonight we made up the dough. The guys took care of the sugar cookies and the girls tackled the monster cookie dough and the oatmeal cookie dough. Tomorrow sometime we are going to try and actually BAKE the cookies. We are also going to Conrad and Vicki Esh's house for lunch at 12! Then in the evening is the Summer Party... Its going to be a busy day.

Jordan: well today was like a very interesting day as some of you know it takes me a little bit to get moving in the morning and when i heard my alarm it was 6:55 but it was set for 6:45 so as you can imagine it put me behind now if jason had got up and went when it was his turn he would have had a whole 7 minutes more and i would have only been "OVER" 4 minutes other than that things are great it was really nice to hang out with the crossfire youth group (Crossways youth ministry) on sunday they are a lot like our church today was a really good this morning devotions was good but it took a while to get into it but the toxic hard tile stuff we put out in the bathroom counter cleared our heads and me and mi amigo senor jason started to see a pink bunny but it turned purple and then rainbow so after that things cleared up with one massive head ache but the rest of the day was extremely good thank you for reading this very personal letter to all you River Fans Have a great week Love Your Beloved Freederick III. this is jason! JORDAN I GOT UP RIGHT AWAY!!! he likes to make me look bad. by the way my face is still awesome.

This is Paul... Anyways the day was really good. we are all really tired and off to bed, be praying for us that we would have an amazing time with the Lord this week! the prayer time this evening with Conrad was a real breakthrough moment for the group, God's presence came strong and we entered into a time of deep intercession, it was powerful! Thanks for reading this long post and please leave comments so we can see who is reading this! we will try to post some pics some time!

THE TIME HAS COME

Well the Mission Trip is coming ever so close, those of you who chosen to embark on this journey have received an e-mail laying out the details of this trip, and the goal with the Blog going again is to be an updater of what is going on. sounds like a winner huh? So consider this mission trip ground zero and leave comments please so i know if anyone is reading this... i do still have a blog and am so sorry for getting away from it... stupid facebook.... but hey you can chat on it!

p-dizzle