Thursday morning we got up (in Salida) and headed (with a sick-o -- thanks again for that pitcher you loaned us, Em!!!) over to Pueblo to visit their service that night, then be there for the District Convention that weekend.
I probably shouldn't post the following pictures. I never know if you're going to be happy to see them or depressed afterward, Mom! ;-) I know, I know. "Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ok at that gorgeous blue Colorado sky!!!" Right?
The view from the top of "your hill": the Twin Sisters. Probably the header for the upcoming issue of the Western Skies. :-)
We stopped by the Royal Gorge on our way so the kids could see it. They've been there before, but were too little to remember. Here's the same picture we've taken a hundred times before! Ha! If you click to enlarge it, you can probably see the Arkansas river way down at the bottom. We never did see the cable car. Must not be running yet this year.
Here are the kids searching for "fools gold" while James tends to his injured knee. He had just slipped on the gravel and scraped it up a bit.
The picture doesn't show what it really looks like at all, but it shines and shimmers--enough to hurt your eyes if the sun is shining brightly. You can see why folks used to think they'd struck it rich when they'd come across a whole bunch of the pretty, but worthless, stuff!
We got to Pueblo and did a little running around, then went to Keven & Michele Lewis' house. We spent the next two nights with them and it was GREAT. I love them sooooo much and it's been ages since we've really spent any time with them. Chris & Haley Thompson stayed there on Friday night, too, and we even squeezed in a game of I Buy after service. Perfect! Strangly, I can't recall who won. REALLY. I would hate it if I was the winner and can't remember it!
The Convention was really, really good. I don't have my program in front of me, so I can't recall all of the details (looking over the program is my only hope!) BUT I do have a few pictures, so that helps. Here is the "greeting of the District Overseer and wife" part. :-)
Special prayer for the pastors
Ah, yes! Brother VanDeventer's ABM boost was picture worthy! I get so tired of the same old convention picture: a guy in a suit behind a pulpit, another guy in a suit behind a pulpit, some other guy... So it's great when there's something different to take pictures of! James took these. Brother V has really been emphasizing the need to reach out to our strays and backsliders and those who have been lost in recent years. He and his daughter Julie sang "The Lost Sheep" as Brother Chris and the Gleaners acted it out.
Here's one particularly cute little sheep. :-)
The theme for the convention was "By Him All Things Consist" and the messages were entitled "By Him the Church Consists" (preached by James), "By Him Sanctification Consists (Keven Lewis), and "By Him Families Consist" (Dustin Hays). They were all really good. I was really blessed by Brother Keven's message and we had a good time of prayer afterward and the Lord really blessed.
Ha! I love this picture, although Sister Karen wouldn't. ;-) She was simply on program to read a scripture at the beginning of a session, but it all came out in true Karen fashion. She was reading about when God created Adam, caused him to fall into a deep sleep (thus Brother Daryl lying on the floor), took his rib and made a woman. It was quite... colorful! :-)
When Convention ended on Saturday evening we all headed to Country Buffet where we had our very own private banquet room, which was GREAT. When I say "we all" I mean a bunch of us who were at convention--44 of us; 19 adults and 25 kids. I think that's what I counted. We had a men's table, a women's table, and two children's tables. Seems we're always outnumbered by the little ones anymore. Good thing our kids are so nearly perfectly behaved. (HA!)
I'm not sure I would trust a massage from this particular girl, I don't care how cute she is!
Genesis kept the kids occupied with various games once they got restless. One of the privileges of having a room all to yourselves!
And Brother Daryl kept the men entertained. ;-)
More disturbing than the hat itself is how proud he seems to be of himself in it! Ha!
After we finally cleared out of the restaurant we headed to Colorado Springs to move into the Hays' house for a couple of days. We were up talking until about 1:30 or so that night. I think. All the nights run together now! We visited their church Sunday morning--what a beautiful place to worship God has blessed them with! James preached about the harlot of Revelation on Mother's Day. ~sigh~ I tried to tell him ya' just can't do that, but... ;-) I did call my Mother to wish her a happy Mother's Day, but was too late to be the first. Dewayne Smith beat me! Can you believe that?! It's bad enough to be a rotten daughter and fail to get your Mom's card in the mail in time (it's still in my purse--but I'll be home sometime this week and get an envelope for it, Mom! Ha!), but then to be beat out by Dewayne Smith?! ~sigh~ I'm a loser!!! ;-)
After service we went back to the house and were served peanut butter sandwiches in the home of Dustin Hays. Can you imagine somebody serving peanut butter to his guests for Sunday dinner??? And on Mother's Day??? ~gasp!~ Well, I never!!! Some people are just that way, I guess. ;-)
Later that day we all loaded up and headed to Castle Rock to meet Jon & Em for dinner and orchestrate the first passing of the baton. Actually it was the passing of the evangelist, but he'll probably feel a bit like a baton by the end of this revival! Ha! Brother Ammons flew in to Denver yesterday and preached at the Aurora church, he'll be preaching in 'Springs for three nights, Salida for one, Craig for three, Pueblo for three, and then Aurora for two more--with people passing him along to the next church all along the way. :-) Anyway, we had a GREAT Mother's Day dinner complete with dessert (Jamey, Emilee and I tried the three different kinds of those fantabulous molten cakes!), even though we were outnumbered again: adults-7; kids-11. But those short people are the reason we were the guests of honor for the meal, right?! Despite what we considered to be a little bit of chaos going on at the youthful end of the table we actually had a comment when we left about our "well behaved" children. HA! It's all relative, I suppose.
We brought Brother Ammons "home" to the Hays' house and enjoyed one game of Balderdash with him (James has dubbed it the best game ever) and shared plenty of laughs. He was instructed early on that the purpose of the game wasn't so much to make points as it was to laugh and cause others to laugh. We did laugh a lot. But of course, points always matter. Especially when you're playing with certain people. I would like for everybody to notice the red game piece and the yellow game piece. Beautiful, isn't it? I'm sure you can figure out which pieces belong to whom. :-)
After the game we all sat and visited until 3:30 in the morning when I finally told Brother Ammons that the young men in the room were looking really pitiful and weren't going to last much longer. Brother Ammons, of course, was still going strong--nevermind the fact that it was 5:30 his time! Ha! We sooooo enjoyed listening to him. He's an amazing man. He's got that great, quirky sense of humor and does a really great imression of Herman Ard (and has a plethora of stories to share), and he's just got so much wisdom--we all just love hearing him recount his experiences over the years and rehearse the series of events in the early 90's and whatnot. His memory is AMAZING and you feel like you learn so much from just visiting with him, both from the events themselves and from his insight concerning them.
Yesterday Brother Dustin had to work (while all of the other people were together--at his own house--visiting... Even though it goes against all of my usual sentiments toward him, I can't help but feel really bad! Being a PEOPLE person, too, I can only imagine misery of that kind!), and the rest of us just hung out around the house, then ran to Mardel for a while in the afternoon. Came home and I was able to get a nap, though I found out later that Jamey never got the chance. She's the one with a nursing baby and who's doing all of the work around here--she's the one who really needed and deserved a nap! Maybe today. Anyway, she fixed a wonderful meatloaf dinner, then we were off to our first night of Revival.
Here are a few random pictures from the day.
We had quite the costume parade with varying characters throughout the day. At this moment we had a cop, a Batman, a firegirl and a cowboy. Aleah doesn't much care what she is as long as she's with everybody else!
I'm having a hard time recalling exactly what was going on here, but Brother Dustin was putting on some sort of demonstration. Doesn't Joe look impressed???
Brother Ammons checking up on the forums. :-)
There was one very, very unfortunate event that happened on the way to church that I just can't make myself talk openly about as yet. We'll just say it was terrible enough that I feel forever chargeable to Dustin Hays... which has to be just about the worst possible position to find yourself in. I spent a great deal of time apologizing and expressing just how mortified I am and in essence just groveling a whole lot... I even told him he's welcome to drop another boulder on Joe if he wanted to. The matter still hasn't been fully... Resolved, shall we say? HA! Literally. ~sigh~ I HATE being on this end of the game! I really prefer for HIM to be the one indebted to ME in one way or another. It has a much more natural flow that way. ;-) But for now I'm a little bit at the mercy of his graciousness... Ooooooh, I hope Dustin does something really dumb or destructive or in some other way swing the pendulum back where it belongs very, very soon. :-)
In spite of the calamitous prelude to the service (!), we had a really, really good first night of revival. And a nice group of musicians! (Excuse Joe's casual attire; it was necessary after the pre-service catastrophe.)
I was sooooo blessed by Brother Ammon's message. He's so... thorough in his study and knowledge of the Word of God. His message was not something he sat down and studied for in a few hours; it came from an obviously ongoing study of the dates, times, places and individuals involved in the account we were reading. He spoke of Simon and Martha and Mary and three different dimensions of worship, respectively: passive worship (inactive, almost non-existant), pastoral worship (done from a sense of duty or responsibility), and passionate worship (sponaneous and deep, heartfelt worship). There were so many aspects to it and it was so very, very good. The Lord really blessed and helped me in the alter service--He is just so, so, so good to me! He deserves nothing less than our passionate worship and that's what I want to give Him.
Jon & Em had driven down from Denver and Daniel & Cathy had come from Pueblo for the service, so afterward we all sat around and visited until after 11:00, I think, while the kids ran wild in the other room. It was great listening to Jon and Brother Ammons talk.
They're both rather sagacious and you can tell they enjoy having those intellegent conversations with one another that they're unable to have with the rest of us. Ha! Even still, the general consensus would be that Jon is a dope. Mom, I'm glad you weren't there. You would have been ready to hurt him just like the ride back from Fields of the Wood last year. ;-)
Anyway, we had a great time. Aleah needed her picture taken so she could come look at it. Emilee had just brought this dress (and the sunflower one, Mom) to her. The hem appears to be coming out, but that's easily fixed.
The church actually has black lights up front, so the guys turned off the regular lights and let the kids "glow" in the black lights for a few minutes. Even Brother Ammons had to get up and go play in them for a minute. :-)
We got home rather late and got the kids to bed while the guys visited. Brother Ammons decided he'd better head to bed somewhere around midnight and the rest of us gathered around the table for some nachos and a game of I Buy. Unfortunately, it was 2:00 in the morning before we realized it and Brother Dustin, of all people, decided he just couldn't take it anymore. Wimp. ;-) We only made it half way through the game, but I think I was winning nicely. :-)
Today we got up and got the whole crowd showered for the first time in way too long (gross--bunch of smelly kids!), then Sister Jamey and I ran to Wal-Mart for a few necessities and left James & Brother Ammons to babysit. :-) We just got back a few minutes ago. Haven't decided yet if we're going to take a nap or play a game this afternoon. Jamey probably needs a nap! I've been writing this post up off and on all day.
Thanks to a really fast Internet connection I was even able to slap all of those pictures up here! Wa-Hoo! I never expected to be blogging from here, but I actually had the free time today after doing some laundry and emptying and repacking our suitcases. (They were getting a little out of hand!) Everybody has decided to lay down, so it's nice and quite around here. The weather is gorgeous. All of the windows are open and there's a nice breeze wafting through the house. ~Aaaaahhh~ What a great day. What a great trip!
Okay, from here...
We'll be attending the Revival here in the 'Springs and staying at the Hays' house again tonight and tomorrow night. Thursday Brother Ammons is preaching in Salida, so we're going to drive over and be there for that service as well. We'll probably just get a motel room there and then head home the next day. Unless plans change again. You never can tell! I'll either blog from Salida or when we get home at the end of the week. I have a couple of books to read, too, so it'll be a tough call whether to read or blog. :-)
8 comments:
Good post and pictures. Sounds like your having a really great time. No surprise. Dustin and Jamey are good people to hang out with. You all have had a lot of fellowship with a lot of people this trip. I am so jealous :o) Not really.... I think that is great. Enjoy the rest of the week. You guys did alter your plans a lot.
Tell Bro. Ammons hello for me. he is a good man.
oh and I am real anxious to hear how you are indebted to dustin. :o)
You are definitely going have "people" withdrawls when you get home after all the fellowship you've had. Sounds like my kind of life.
Oh and Balderdash is tagged the "liar's" game here by our youth and their pastor is a pro at it...how funny that your husband loves it so.
very good pictures.
I'm so surprised to see a new post from you! I assumed James had decided to stay longer when I never heard from you yesterday. I figured if you were driving home you'd have called on your cell.
The Howard house doesn't look like home anymore. It looks abandoned. And the logs are REALLY needing some TLC. Your dad would LOVE to have that barn back, though! Thanks for the pictures--ALL of them. And thanks for recounting the events of your trip. But I'm dangling here, waiting to hear the details of your indebtedness to Dustin! God has ways of humbling all of us, you know? ;-)
Oh, and Daryl . . . as I looked at the first picture of him (when he was on the floor portraying Adam) I was thinking, "Oh, good. He's looking more like himself; neither shaved clean nor wearing a long-haired wig) then I read on and come across him wearing a girlie hat. *shaking head* He just can't help himself, can he? LOL! And as for the shot of Karen!--"Could you die?!?!?" That's SOOOO Karen!
Great post! I laughed out loud. How I miss the days of Revials. Driving 30 45 minutes to get to one. Anyway..... Just like 2 days ago I was thinking about when you and Jon would argue so when you called him a dope I just died! What fun. Great pictures. It was nice to see my mom. Love you Bec!
Tammy -- I certainly wish you could have been with the PEOPLE, too! That would have made it even better. Just keep focusing on CAMP--just one month to go! :-)
Sister Nowling -- I was going through people withdrawl the moment we said goodbye! Ha! As for Balderdash, we call it the lying game, too. It always amazes me how many ministers are so good at it... ;-)
Cathy -- Thanks! (Love that one of Connor!)
Mom -- Su-u-u-u-u-ure. You act all excited that I posted while on our trip, but we both know it's not good enough. I'm still in trouble for not posting every day! Just can't make some people happy, I tell ya'. :-)
Weesa -- I can't imagine what you're referring to. Jon? and me? Arguing??? Never! ;-) Wish you could come join us at Camp or some such thing so we could ALL be together one of these days. That would be soooooooo cool.
Post a Comment