The Weekly Update

That's what my blog has turned into, it seems. At least you can count on me! Like clockwork, once a week. Maybe. ;-)

The remainder of our Revival with the Booths was just as great as the first part. I just sooooo appreciate Brother Butch's spirit. He's just so humble and sincere. According to my notes (since we all know how reliable my mind is), he preached on Friday about bearing one another's burdens and how much we need each other. At the end of service he set a chair up front and had each one who was willing come forward and be anointed for whatever their needs were: financial burdens, spiritual struggles, loved ones to be saved--just whatever the needs were. God really blessed us.

I think Saturday night is when Brother Booth preached about everything in the Word of God hanging on the two commandments: love the Lord, and love your neighbor. We can't truly love God if we don't love one another, and there is no place in The Church of God for hard feelings and grudges. Lots of good stuff and you could really feel the Lord speaking to our hearts through it.

On Sunday morning Brother Chris decided to give Brother Butch a break and do the preaching himself. I had mixed feelings about it. Ha! I LOVE to hear my pastor preach, but we also only have Brother Butch for a short time, you know?! No, I was glad he preached and I know it was a great blessing to the Booths as well. His message was soooooo good. He preached about snakes. :-) I feel like the Lord is really helping us with some things we've had on our hearts and minds for a few months now and I'm so thankful for the little glimpses and insights that He gives us along the way. Brother Chris preached about salvation (the brazen serpent being the deliverance from the fiery serpents and Jesus being our way of salvation) and then it sort of led into submission to Church government--since that's the reason the fiery serpents were sent among the Israelites to begin with. Anyway, it was a wonderful and anointed message and I'm so glad he chose to preach to us.

Sunday night was our final night of revival. We had another visitor that night (we'd had a few others throughout the week) and Brother Butch preached a good, simple, sound message from Psalm 23. We had good worship and good preaching and good prayer throughout the entire week and I feel so blessed and encouraged. I know God has been helping me in so many ways and I'm excited about what He is doing. I'm hungry for more of the Lord and I truly want Him to keep working in my life and changing me more and more into His own image. I'm grateful for a wonderful Revival and all that the Lord did for us--and the good that will continue to come from it.

This is the only other Revival picture I have to share. It's from the chair night, obviously. :-) This is Sister Grimes being prayed for. She has such faith and truly pours her heart out to the Lord for the souls of her lost family.

Backing up now... last Friday was James' birthday, so I had a cake made with his picture on it. If HE would have had the cake made it no doubt would have had a giant Church flag on it. I had it made though, so it had a giant picture of him on a surf board. :-)
He's wearing his new schnazzy orange shirt and matching tie that I got him for his birthday, but you can't see it well because pictures always come out TERRIBLE in that room. Too bad--it's great. That orange is my new favorite color as of last year and I decided several months ago that James would be getting a shirt in that shade for his birthday. It was even on sale--and the tie, too, thank goodness (do you have any idea how much people pay for ties?! It's NUTS!!!), so it worked out just right. :-) We had a nice time visiting over cake and Kool-Aid after service that night.

Saturday was the only day we were able to actually spend some time with the Booths outside of church. They and the Clarksons came up the mountain and we met at about noon and drove up to Sandia Crest, the top of the mountains that overlook the city. Here's a picture of the nine kids together: Joe, Gage, Cainan, Sam, Glory, Sadie, Katie, Naomi, and Gabby. They had a great time running wild all over the mountains together that day. :-)

They boys found this spot (you'll have to enlarge it to see) with TONS of ladybugs--I've never seen anything like it! Before long they had them all over their arms and faces and then it was only a matter of time before they were putting handfuls of them down each other's shirts (even Brother Butch was an unfortunate recipient of such a gift) and all other manner of boyishness.
The Booth family up at the top. That's Albuquerque down below.
And the Clarksons.
Brother Chris rode the rail the entire way down, but I didn't get my camera in position until he was nearly at the bottom.
We drove down the mountain and found a nice, quiet place for the gourmet lunch I had prepared: make-it-yourself peanut butter or lunch meat sandwiches! Ha! James had baked a homemade mac-n-cheese dish to take along. He was a much better host than I. :-) The adults ate and visited while the children got lost up in the woods several times. They finally showed up for some sandwiches of their own and then were off again.
Just as we were getting ready to leave this cute little old man that worked for the Forest Services (or whatever it is) said he would love to give the kids a 10 minute something-or-another and let them earn their Junior Ranger badges. :-)
He took them on a little hike and pointed out all sorts of interesting things about the different trees and wildlife. He was very informative and just an adorable little old guy. ;-) The kids really enjoyed it, but I can't remember learning a thing because I was visiting with Brother & Sister Booth instead of paying attention. He had sent all the kids to smell the bark on this particular tree, but of course I don't know why...
Once they earned their badges and effectively wiped out the goodie supply from the little ranger shack (!), we took the troops back to our house to enjoy homemade ice cream that we had started before we left. Unfortunately, it either didn't set up or we were gone too long and it set and then mostly melted again. Oh well! It was about the consistency of a milkshake (a runny one), so we just poured it into cups and enjoyed it that way. :-) That morning I had chopped up the last of our strawberries with sugar and baked a shortcake/biscuit sort of thing, so we had that, too. It was such a nice, relaxing day and I so enjoyed being able to spend some casual time with the Booths and the Clarksons. We don't do nearly enough visiting around here for my taste. :-)

Then after our service on Sunday night (we have church at 5:00) we had arranged to have a cook-out. It was great! Here's Sister Shanda getting the burgers started...

Sister Yolanda cooked up some skirt steaks (is that right?) -- I never got any, but the guys declared they were delicious. I'm sure they're right.
Brother Juan and Brother Hugo
This is the part of the crowd that opted to eat inside at the tables. That's Brother Platero in the dark green shirt and Sister Platero next to him. Not a very good picture of them, but they are the cute little Navajo couple who have been coming to church now for a couple of months. We love having them. Especially on Sunday when they brought some fresh Indian Fry Bread to the cook-out! Ha! It was sooooo good. :-)
James taking his turn at the grill. The burgers were a wee bit greasy, which made for some great flames. :-)

Sister Shanda and Brother Juan's daughter, Karen
The traditional passing of the apron ceremony...

Couldn't NOT post this one...
And that's about it!

This has been a good week, though it's felt strange to not drive into town for church every night after the past two weeks! It's sort of a relief and a disappointment all in one. :-) I can't remember much of what's gone on, so I'll just slap a couple more pictures up and call it good.

A day or two ago I set the tent up on the boys' room just for fun. Everybody was wearing white because they'd been playing cops and were still in uniform. :-)

That evening James moved the tent outside and told the boys they could sleep out there if they wanted to. They were soooooooooooo excited--they've been begging to do that since LAST summer. We built a campfire and toasted some marshmallows just before bedtime. Unfortunately I had a big smudge on my camera lens that wasn't discovered until late that night. Oh, well--I like these two shots anyway:

We got everybody ready for bed, had devotions outside by the tent, said goodnight to the boys and headed into the house. Since they boys were having a fun night out in the tent we told Katie she could stay up late and watch a movie. The boys lasted all of about 15 minutes (probably the time it took to actually get DARK outside) before they called it quits. HA! Sam was really, really bothered that they had chickened out (even cried from embarrassment), but what is a 6 year old to do--especially when his 8 year old brother ain't staying out there for nuthin'! Ha! So they got to watch the movie, too, then went to bed. Katie has been begging to stay out in the tent herself, but it hasn't worked out for her to give it a try yet. It would be terrible for the boys if she actually pulls it off and lasts all night when her time comes!

Today we had elk stew for dinner--left overs from the elk roast from a couple of days ago. YUM. My kids are as crazy about deer and elk as I am and it makes me very happy. :-) Katie and I made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon and added some butterscotch chips just because it seemed like the thing to do. They were terrific. :-) Uummm... tonight James pulled out all of our tempera paints and kiddy paint brushes and we all sat around the table doing our best Bob Ross pictures--since James is on a HUGE Bob Ross kick right now. He can't wait until his Bob Ross Beginner's Set arrives in the mail (his birthday present from Mom & Dad) and I'm determined to find a big afro wig for him to wear while he paints happy little trees. HA! I love it! Don't worry, I'll be SURE to get pictures, if only I can find a wig... ;-)