A Little of This-n-That.....

Busy, Busy, Busy......

Last week we attended the Mission's Conference at our home church and what a great time we had.  Kami and the kids did a great job with the children's mission program each night! (you can read about it in the previous post)

On Saturday, we celebrated Grandma June's (Kami's Grandmother) 90th birthday.  We set up the fellowship hall at church and had supper with friends and family.  Elisabeth and Brenna did a great job on their cake that they made for Grandma June for the party....

The Saturday before, we also celebrated the 40th anniversary of Kami's parents.  It was a great party and the girls also made a cake for Grandpa as well.  They tried to re-create the car that mom and dad had after they eloped 40 years ago!

After Grandma June's party on Saturday night, we packed up to leave for our meeting on Sunday.  We had a great meeting on Sunday at Bible Baptist Church in Crystal River, FL with Pastor Tom Reaves.  We also want to thank Bible Baptist Church for added our family as one of their missionaries!  We are now a step closer in getting to our mission field!

We are also excited to have Madame Estelle that has been visiting us here in Florida for the past week as well.  She has been a true friend and was one of the main people who helped us make it through language school.   We are glad she is here and was able to spend Thanksgiving with our family.

Please pray for Brenna, she has had a virus for almost a week.  She has had a fever and now has a bad cough that keeps her up through the night.  Although Kami, Callie, and I had a touch of the virus as well, ours came and went but Brenna seems to be hanging on to hers. 

Thank you for all of your continued prayers for our family.  We hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!

Mission's Conference at "Home"

This week's Mission's Conference is extra special for us because it is being hosted by our "home" church.  I love mission's conference's at Winkler Road Baptist Church!

Pastor Strange asked Kami to create a Kid's program for each night of the conference during the preaching time.  Since we have several missionaries here, she decided it would be nice to have the children visit a different country each night. 

Each night, Kami and our family have decorated with a different theme that matches the country being visited.  The first night, the kids visited Bolivia. (There were 30 children the first night) They had their "passports" in hand and learned about the country of Bolivia.  They even got to meet "Jorge" who is a coffee bean planter!

Each night, Kami teaches the kids how to win someone to the Lord using the Romans Road and they actually get to witness to the "national" (Joshua in disquise) that they meet in each country.   Last night in Morocco, the kids witnessed to Ahmed!   The "national" usually has a snack for the kids to try as well.  For Bolivia, they got to try banana chips!  Then the evening ends with a craft that emphasizes that country.

The kids are having fun and so is Kami.   Tonight's voyage will be to the island of St. Barthelemy!

Please remember to pray for our conference and also for me tonight as I will be preaching in the main service.

No kids allowed!!!

After a very hectic week and another mission's conference coming up this week, Kami and I decided it was time for us to have a date!

We have not had some time for just us since we left Canada.  As we have traveled to meetings over the past several weeks, we keep passing a little restaurant on the river about 2 hours north of Ft. Myers just off of the interstate.  Across the street, there is an outlet mall as well.  Each time that we pass it, Kami has mentioned that she would like to go to both places. 

So, yesterday, we left the kids (except for Callie) with my mom and headed out for our date!  We spent the afternoon walking, walking, and walking through all the stores at the outlet mall.  Then we went to the little restaurant on the river.  However, when we got there, we found that it was a pub/bar so we left and went some where else.  Then we went back to the hotel room with cheesecake to enjoy the Eagles game! (P.S....if you have never tried the Priceline "name your own price" website, you need to.  We got our hotel room at half price!) 

I love my wife and I enjoy every moment that I share with her.  She is so much fun to be around and we just laugh and laugh when we are together.  She is truly my best friend!!!  I love you Kami!!! I can't wait until our next date!

By the way, we found a great big used book shop at exit 217 on I-75!  We loaded up on some used books for our kids.  If you are ever in the area, it is worth the stop.  Just look for the Goodwill used book store behind the Country Inn and Suites.

"News From the Road"...

We have traveled quite a bit over the past several weeks and a lot has happened.  So, I'll give you an update on some of our "News From the Road!"......

1)  I first want to thank my father-in-law.  The tires on our van were about to blow out and he helped us get some new tires for our van.   We also had the biggest vibration in our van while traveling (I thought the van was going to explode out from under us!).  We found that the universal joint was broken and about to give out.  He volunteered to replace it for us and we had a great time working under the van and telling stories.  Thanks Dad! (Praise the Lord that the new joint was only $12!)

2)Elisabeth is needing a "palatal expansion" to open up her nasal passages 4 millimeters.  This will help her to breathe and help her sinuses to drain which is what is keeping her from healing when she gets a cold or flu.  We saw an orthodontist and her work starts this Friday.  She will have an appliance installed in the roof of her mouth that we will "crank" every night and this will expand the roof of her mouth.  Then she will have braces to move her lower jaw forward.  Our insurance company said that since she is seeing an orthodontist, they will not cover any of the cost yet this whole procedure is not cosmetic but medically necessary.  We sure could use your prayers about this matter as we try to convince our insurance company to cover this!

3)We want to thank Southshore Baptist Church in Riverview, FL and also Heritage Baptist Church in Ocala, FL for taking us on for support!!!  We are another step forward and anxious to get to St. Barthelemy.  We have had several other verbal committments for support but the pastors of these churches were not sure of when in the future they could take us on.  It depended on the financial situations of their mission's budget.

4)We have been enjoying this week's mission conference here at Southshore Baptist Church. They have provided us with a wonderful hotel room! The conference has been great and the preaching right on target! It has been a wonderful week. We will be heading back to Ft. Myers on Thursday and then we will be involved in our home church's mission conference next week. Thank you for all of your prayers!

Callie Grace loves to "smooch" with her daddy!

Do your kids always love doing school???

Starting the day off right!!!  Silas can't yet read his Bible but he is

doing his best to copy is big brother and sister!!!