I'm So Far Behind!!!

But at least I've got a somewhat decent excuse this time. That's nice, for a change. :-) We had prayer meeting every night last week and are in revival every night this week. Since my usual blog time is at night after the kids are in bed, it's just been pretty tough to work it in. I've been trying real hard to get to bed at a decent hour, too... which seriously cuts into my usual blog time. Ha! Anyway, thought I'd try to slap a quick one up here this morning.

We have been having a WONDERFUL Revival. Every night has been so different and just so, so, so good. Monday night Brother Butch preached about having the blood applied. We had good worship and a good prayer time. Carlos (Brother Juan's son) has been interpreting for his family throughout the revival and is doing a great job. Toward the end of the service he was interpreting for Brother Chris and he just broke down and started crying, then fell to the floor praying. The guys gathered around him and prayed for a while and he came up sanctified. :-)

Tuesday night Brother Butch preached a beautiful message on "The Way of Holiness." It was soooooo good and I just keep going it over and over again in my mind. He spoke of growing in the Lord and being sensitive to the things that God lays on our heart and simply obeying Him--and then sticking with them. If God showed you something 20 years ago that He wanted you to quit doing, then it's still wrong today. If He showed you something 5 years ago that you needed to do to better serve Him, then you'd better be still doing it today. There is NO unclean thing in the way of holiness and our lives need to be perfectly pure before the Lord.

Wednesday night we had good freedom in our song service and then a message about the Holy Ghost. It was a really good service and it felt like it was coming to a close, but not with our pastor. :-) One of the things that I love the very most about him is how easily and comfortably he can get people into the altar who otherwise wouldn't have come. Brother Chris asked if everybody had the Holy Ghost and even asked a few by name. "Do you want to receive the Holy Ghost tonight? Come on up here, I'll pray with you." He asked a young girl in the back if she was saved. "No? Do you want to get saved? Come here--let me pray with you." It's so strange because he IS putting people on the spot... but it doesn't FEEL like he is. It just feels like he's your best buddy--and he is--and he's just there to help you through. The kids just respond to him so well. Before long he had about ALL of the little ones up there on their knees praying and crying and seeking the Lord. I say "him"--I know that it's God who was doing the work and the blessing, but I love how He uses Brother Chris to get people up there seeking the Lord. It is so beautiful. The kids prayed for a long, long time and you could tell God was doing something special in their hearts. The young lady was saved and sanctified that night and all were richly blessed. I love seeing the kids in the altar, pouring their hearts out and learning to seek the Lord and feel after Him. It's the same thing the adults are still doing and it's beautiful to watch the little ones beginning to take those first steps of learning how to pray and surrender to God.

Last night Brother Butch preached a wonderful message about not doubting the Lord. He used the verse in Luke where Jesus said to His disciples, "Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" We need to hold fast to what the Lord has already revealed to us and not begin to question or doubt it. He spoke of the Hebrew children and how their faith never wavered. They didn't doubt God, they simply said "If God saves us, we're not going to bow to the idol; if God doesn't save us, we're not going to bow to the idol." Sometimes we go through hard and difficult things (I thought sooooo much about what Sam & Tammy went through last year--a year ago today and tomorrow, in fact) but we'll just stay true to the Lord and not doubt and question him we'll see Him revealed in ways we never have before. Jesus was with the Hebrew children all the while, but He wasn't revealed to them until they went through the fire. What a blessed thing to suffer for the sake of Jesus when you can experience Him in new and deeper ways! I'm not sure Brother Butch actually said all of those things, but that's the way my heart received them. :-) Last night was a bit of a struggle; like we were all distracted and having a hard time getting focused and finding freedom. But we prayed and prayed some more and God really moved and helped us. We had an older Nazarene couple join us last night and I know they felt the Lord. We pray they can't stay away and simply must come back for more. :-)

So there's the update on our revival so far. We're four services in, and we've got four to go. I've been LOVING it and I'm sad that it's already half over! I'm praying that the Lord will change me this week--work some things in my life (whatever He sees that I need) to help me to be more like Him. I don't want to just get blessed and go on. I want to be nearer to Him and more like Him--we've been praying that for all of our members here. God is helping us. It's exciting. :-)

In other news... Katie fell out of a tree the other day. No big surprise there, but how I found her was surprising. Her skirt had snagged in the very back, way down at the hem and she was HANGING by her skirt. The boys had come for help saying that Katie was stuck and when I came around the corner and saw her I stopped dead in my tracks and just started cracking up. There she was, suspended half way between the tree and the ground, her fingers and toes dangling a few inches from the dirt, her bottom up in the air and 2' of skirt up above her securely fastened to the tree. She was wearing bloomers (so was modest, at least to a degree) and I really, really should have just left her there and gone for the camera. It was truly hilarious. But alas, I missed the opportunity and went to release her instead. Still, I'm sure that image will be forever imprinted in my mind. :-)

Joe has been telling me this week how that some day I'm going to regret the fact that I make them "work" so much. "Some day, Mom, you're going to have grandkids that you'll never be able to play with because you've trained us that children are here to work; so your grandkids will be too busy working and working and working to ever be able to just spend time with you and play with you--and then you'll be sorry." HA! I've been dying over the way his brain works. Thinking that far ahead in an effort to get out of doing the dishes or making his bed. Ha!

And last of all...

Today is James' birthday!!! He is a whoppin' 31 years old today. I've been racking my brain all week to figure out how in the world I was going to get his present without him knowing it. I finally gave up because--though I'm certainly not comparing him to God in these ways--I've come to the bitter realization that in MY LIFE, James is omnipresent (everywhere I am), omnipotent (having very great or unlimited authority or power) and yes, even omniscient (having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things). I just came to this realization yesterday and I'm still struggling with unkindly feelings because of it. Ha! I NEVER go anywhere alone; if I need to go to town, all five of us go. In many ways it's a great blessing (James does nearly all of the shopping by himself, allowing me to very seldom leave my cozy little house--that's fantastic!) and I'm sooooo thankful for it... but it makes me realize that I've lost all of the independence I once knew (do I still know how to drive a car???) and it makes surprising James for his birthday pert near impossible. So yesterday I just told him we needed to go to town early for revival so we could go buy his birthday present. We went to Penney's and he helped me pick out his shirt and tie. ~sigh~ So sad. Actually, I did the picking out so I guess that's worth something. He found a really great jacket for cheap that will go with it great, too. I'll get the shirt ironed so he can wear it to revival tonight. I also told him that we need to pick up his cake from Sam's Club on our way to church tonight. It's so much easier this way than trying to sneak something by him. I actually pulled it off for Father's Day this year and I just wasn't up to trying another surprise. We were all at Barnes & Noble and I waited until he was looking at something, snuck up to the front and bought a Dilbert book, asked the happy cashier lady if she'd help me out (she was happy to); on our way out the door I followed behind the rest of the family, grabbed the book from the lady, threw the bag in the trash and shoved the book up my shirt until we got in the van where it was then deposited under my seat. ~whew~ Still not sure how James let that one get by. ;-)

So that's it--all of our news. We're hoping to have the Clarksons and the Booths up tomorrow for a picnic in the woods, then maybe back to the house for ice cream or something. We haven't had a chance to spend much time with the Booths this week, so I'm really, really hoping it works out. We're also hoping some of the Hatch folks will be joining us for service tonight and maybe staying over. That would be so great! Don't know that I'll be writing again until all of the excitement dies down--maybe Monday or Tuesday.

Before I go, here are the only pictures I've taken in the past week. These were taken at our Wednesday night service.





Ah, yes! We had a new snake in our yard this week! I almost forgot! The boys catch garter snakes down by the pond regularly, but a few days ago Joe came bursting through the door yelling, "Sam found a snake, and it's NOT a garter snake!!!" There have been lots of rattlesnake sightings up here (though I've not heard of any this year yet) and the biggest concern is that one of THEM would show up in our yard. I went running to the door and there was Sam, STANDING on a definitely-not-garter-snake. He had the snake trapped well, with it's head barely sticking out from under his shoe. I just said, "DON'T MOVE, SAM." But he moved. ~sigh~ The snake started slithering straight toward the front door. I was looking for rattles, but it's hard to see when it's moving around like that, you know?! The snake climbed up the little step and was apparently coming inside to visit a while (!), so I slammed the door. THEN I thought, "Oh, great--I just shut my kids out there with what might be a rattlesnake!" James and I went running through the house, out the back door, and around to the front porch... where the snake had found a hole under the house to escape to. It all happened so fast and we never were able to get a really GOOD look at it (it was moving too fast the few seconds we saw it), but we're about 98% sure it was just a bull snake. Still... 98% isn't sure enough when there's a possibility of a rattlesnake, you know?! I guess that's why we pray. :-) Joe saw it again about an hour later, but it was gone once we got there. It'll probably show up again one of these days. It made for some good excitement and a healthy rush of adrenaline, too.

Okay, that's really all. Wow, it really has been an eventful week around here! :-)

Nuthin'...N-U-T-H... You know, NUTHIN'

That's what I have to say.

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I last posted. How does that happen??? I really don't have anything to blog about, but it seems like I ought to write something after a week...

We are starting our revival with Brother Butch this coming Monday, so our pastor asked us to spend this week in prayer and fasting for it. We've been having prayer meetings at the church each night and have been so blessed already. The goal is to be IN revival before THE revival ever starts. :-) It seems like everybody is really putting their hearts into it and we are truly expecting great things from God.

~sigh~ I really can't think of anything to write! The only other thing of interest is that we'll be getting up at 4:30 or 5:00 tomorrow morning. THAT doesn't happen around here! Ha! We're going to be having a Krispy Kreme doughnut sale in an effort to help support our revival fund. Actually, I guess it's to START a revival fund! Ha! So... do you think we can sell 50 dozen in a few hours, or are we getting way too many??? We have differing opinions around here. Some wanted to get 25 dozen (the minimum), but that would only earn us $100. Others want to get 50 dozen... but what if you can't sell them all?! Of course we know what to DO with them if we don't sell them and it would make us all very happy, but that doesn't help our evangelist out at all. Ha! Anyway, it's our first time trying this and we're praying God will bless it and we'll sell 'em ALL. (We'll buy our own dozen or two...)

Wow. That's about it! I'm totally blank. How sad. I know this is very unlike me, but since I've run out of things to say I'm going to just bring it to a close. Whoa!!! :-) Hopefully next time I'll at least have some pictures or something. That always helps. :-)

The Face of Frustration

...and other miscellaneous pictures.

There's not a whole lot to blog about really. My family is well for the most part, though two-thirds of the children sound like they're about to cough up a lung most of the time. They must've got those dippy Smith genes that have issues with a lingering cough after a sickness. We just can't seem to let it go. Otherwise, things are great around here.

Yesterday we loaded up and went to town because I've been itching to get to the thrift store. The kids have been growing like weeds lately and were in need of some new clothes, particularly dress clothes for Joe. I think suits are out for him for a while. He seems to have developed my ape arms and even when you find a jacket that is drooping off his shoulders, the sleeves are still too short. Oh well. We'll go for more a more "business casual" look for him. Ha! Anyway, it had been ages since we've been to the thrift store and we found sooooooo many great deals. We ended up walking out with two pairs of slacks for Joe, a suit jacket for Sam, three boys' dress shirts, a t-shirt for each of them, three polo/casual shirts for them, a skirt for Katie, and a skirt, two blouses and two under-type shirts for me. Wa-Hoo! It was great fun to walk out of the store with a huge bag bulging with lots of great things that we were in need of (mostly) for a little bit of nothing.

Today we loaded up and headed the other direction out to Moriarty to hit a couple of thrift stores. We didn't find any clothes, but I'm happy with what we got yesterday so it's all good. We did find a brand new Apples to Apples game (the one we played at the Family Thing in Colorado, Mom) -- the cards are still wrapped in plastic. The kids picked up a couple of books and we spent a grand total of $1.80. That's the way to shop. ;-)

Now we're home and I'm lacking the motivation to do anything truly productive, so I'm blogging. I found some pictures I hadn't put up yet, so we'll go with 'em.

These were taken the day that Camp ended. When we made it home that evening all of the guys took turns with the bb gun. Here's Brother Oscar giving it his best shot... which, unfortunately was not very good... Ha!

I love the timing of this picture. The bb had ricocheted off the wood rail (they had small chunks of wood sitting on top of the rail to aim at) and hit Brother Oscar in the head! Ha!



Brother Dustin got extremely lucky--twice, even. He's not a very kind winner, however (don't you just hate people like that?! Ha!), and enjoyed rubbing it in to Brother Oscar...




Joe taking his turn. I think he hit the target twice and Sam hit it once. Everybody but poor Brother Oscar. ;-)


Later that night, however, our guest of honor received the royal treatment from the soda fountain. :-) Brother Dustin can mix a mean soda. James and I never touch the fountain when he's here; we just place our orders along with everybody else and he scurries on out there to start filling them. Of course, he doesn't wear the uniform for just us... only when there are special visitors apparently. Ha!



Okay, and here we have the pictures that inspired the title of this post. I only picked that title because it sounds kind of catchy. :-) I think I mentioned the game of Pictionary that we very nearly lost to the Hays while they were here. James was NOT into the game at all (that means even less than usual, if it's possible) and acted like his brain was on standby through its entirety. I remember having to draw the phrase "a bone to pick" and being ready to KILL him because I had drawn a bone AND a perfect little ice pick, chipping away at ice cubes in a glass. He had guessed the words "bone" and "pick" and I had written them down along with blanks in the appropriate places: "__ bone ___ pick." AND HE COULDN'T GUESS IT!!! He kept guessing things like, "The... bone... did pick???" And stupid stuff like that. How can you have "__ bone ___ pick" and NOT think of A BONE TO PICK??? I'm feeling a little frustrated all over again now that I'm talking about it. I may have to walk out to James' office and discuss the episode with him all over again. Ha! ANYWAY, the Hays seemed to enjoy the marital friction going on and Brother Dustin was quick to whip out his camera and document it... No wait... Nevermind! Ha! Now that I look at the pictures I'm seeing that the marital friction must've started way before Pictionary because we're playing I Buy here instead! Ha! Must've been a long, long night, that's all I can say. ;-)






I can't recall exactly what was going on here, but apparently Brother Dustin was dealing with his own frustrations that night. It's no wonder really. I mean, he was so EDGY the whole time they were here this time!!! ;-)




You can see here how excited James was about the games. In fact, sometime during the course of the game he disappeared. We figured he had excused himself to the restroom, but when he hadn't returned in quite some time we went in search and found him snoring in the other room! Ha! We woke him up and drug him back to the table to complete the game. :-)



Here he is, not looking just a whole lot better. :-) This was taken a day or two later. I still had not completed the laundry and he was all out of jeans, thus his farmer attire.



Okay, these were taken last week at Naomi's birthday party. I'll skip the usual pictures of gift opening and pin the tail on the donkey and just post the new game. This time we all took turns throwing paper plates for off whipped cream at Brother Chris. :-) Here he is, prepared for the worst.




The boys got a little out of hand, coming after Brother Chris when it wasn't their turn. When that would happen, they would find their own faces being rubbed in the blobs of whipped cream in the grass. You can see here that Sam is creaming Brother Chris yet again while Joe is getting his just dues...



Sam's reward was getting a kiss from a very creamy Brother Chris. :-)


This is what he looked like after my turn. :-) Made me very happy.



Let's see... other miscellaneous things... The other day James came home with with some new toys for the kids. "New" actually meaning from the Salvation Army or something like that. Joe got a microscope (which he thinks is SO cool), Katie got a new journal, and Sam got some of those little Wiki-Stick things.



And finally, Katie has been wondering what to make for the children's Mission table at Regional Convention. I suggest she try to make a tiny little Church flag that a tiny little creature could hold. Thought they might sell better if they were Churchy, you know. ;-) Anyway, here's what she came up with. Aren't they great?! Ha! I love 'em!


She said she couldn't get the snake to hold a Church flag, it kept falling over. I said it was just as well. ;-)

And that's it from around here! We're looking forward to a great Sunday tomorrow and heading into our prayer and fasting week with prayer meetings every night in order to prepare for our Revival the week following! Wa-Hoo!!! We've got the Booth family from Alabama coming out to minister and I'm just soooooo excited. I can't even remember the last time I was in a whole week-long revival. Usually if you get an evangelist out here you only have them for two or three nights, then send them to the next Church so they can have some revival services, too. Looking forward to wonderful things from the Lord. :-)

The BTI Box

After Camp ended last week it was time to get to work on the Annual BTI Box. :-) Each year we try to send a care package to those attending BTI from our region. (Though it was brought to my attention AGAIN this year by a rather bitter BTI attendee from a few years ago that there have been years we've failed to send anything all...) We try to plan it so they'll get the box about half way through BTI. We do it simply to cheer them and hopefully equip them with things that will help see them through the final week. Actually, we probably do it just because it's so much fun to put together. :-)

Following are pictures of everything that made it into The Box this year. First off, we sent pictures of our Family Camp delegation saying that we missed them this year... since, of course, some idiot scheduled Camp in such a way that made it impossible to attend both that funciton and BTI. I really think the blame should go not only to the Camp Coordinator, but the man who appointed the Camp Coordinator. Shouldn't he be held responsible, as well?! Anyway, here we go--pictures. I think most or all of the other pictures have a description included already, you'll just have to click and enlarge them in order to read them.


(There is a terrific picture of Jacob out there somewhere, looking quite pleased with his new wand. Makes it all worthwhile, you know?! Ha!)


I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but these are little itty-bitty things. The crayon boxes are only about two inches tall. Cute, hu?!


Mama said Dad tried out the airhorn in the lobby after they opened the box. It works. :-)

I don't think you can tell in the picture, but each trophy has the name of a student on one side and their term listed on the other: Sister Julie, Sister Erika & Sister Tayde are all in 2nd Term; Aunt Kay, Jacob, Philip, Abbie & Belen are all in 1st Term.

For the six younger students, we came up with a cup-like-object (!) for them to keep on their desks. I love these. :-) You may have to enlarge them to read the attached tags. DEFINITELY enlarge the last one. Tayde's was the best of all. (Sometimes I wonder if she really likes us, or just endures us... Ha!)

Family Camp Pictures!!!

Okay, to follow are a WHOLE SLEW of picture posts for your viewing pleasure. I've been working on them off and on all day today and I'm finally finished. At least I'm quitting. ;-) Just be sure to keep on scrolling until you get to the post that says, "And Finally..." That's the last one. As you might have guessed.



This first post is just a conglomeration of pictures that didn't seem to fit into any of the other posts, but were still hollering to be seen.



First off, we have the Craig church van. Isn't it great?! That bunch piled up with the Pueblo bunch to travel together. Brother Keven had a nice throne-like set up for him to lounge in and prop up that busted leg of his. Rumor has it they had squirt bottle fights in the van the whole way to camp, then regular water gun fights on the way home. Only on a camp trip, you know?!

No caption for this one, I just thought it might be appreciated. One of those late night visits.
Ha! I would LOVE to give a description of this one, but I just don't know what to say! Brother Dustin was just squatting down to get something out of the fridge for Snack Shack and suddenly lost all sense of balance and found himself flat on his back. Nobody pushed, shoved, or startled him--he managed it without any help at all! ~sigh~ He's so cool. HA!
Brother Keven's wheelchair was a big hit at Camp. The guys had plenty of wheelie competitions, but this was my favorite picture. I think maybe Andy caught Brother Chris and Kate off guard.
Isaac thoroughly enjoyed the evening services. Lillie looks real happy about them, too. ;-)
We opted to take our lunches and dinners out on the porch when possible throughout the week. I heard some of the teenage boys complained about it (bunch of weenies!), but most of us thought it was terrific.

I'm not sure what Brother Daryl had just said or done, but Brother Chris' expression indicates it must've been pretty great.
KEEP SCROLLING...

Services & Classes

Here's a picture of the whole Camp. Minus me. :-) I didn't get pictures of the adult class because... well, because nobody is really interested in taking them or looking at them! I did, however, get pictures of the teachers:



Day One: Sister Galaviz, assisted by her dear skeleton, Chester. "Isn't he so cute?" she always says. Ha! Gotta love it. :-)

Day Two: Jonathan Smith. Notice the word behind him on the screen? Ha! I thought it appropriate. ;-)
Day Three: James
The choice of teachers really befuddled everybody. Jon and James... to teach on JOY??? They Hays were just trying to secure their hope of being fired as Camp Directors, I think. Ha! No, ALL of the teachers did a great job. Soooooo many good things shared.

And here we have the Teen Class, taught by Sam & Tammy Kaufman... and Jeremiah. :-)
And the Big Kids' Class, taught by Keven & Michele Lewis
And the Little Kids' Class, taught by Chris & Shanda Clarkson
And here are a few pictures of our prayer times in the evening services...