Nursery Renovations & Our Newest Missionary Family!

Although this coming Sunday (July 19th) marks our 17th week of services, we are needing to do some renovations to make more room for our Sunday services.

Several men have pitched in and we began the work on constructing a new nursery in the garage area.

It is great to have some men who know how to work carpentry and are willing to help!

The nursery will have its own bathroom which will make it much easier for the nursery workers.

 

Yesterday, Brenna and I went to the church to take care of the 'mudding' of the sheet rock.  She taped the seams, mudded the screws and here she is mudding a corner seam all in culottes.   Don't tell this girl she can't be feminine and jump right into construction work!

When it is all done, the new nursery will be almost 260 square feet.

 

 

 

We would also like to welcome the Jason Hamby family as part of our mission's family here at VSIBC.  They were with us 3 weeks ago and the church unanimously took them on for support as they are working in Quebec, Canada!  Praise the Lord for our 5th missionary family!

 

 

 

New Missionary Family & Construction Ahead!

Since our last post about Memorial Day, we have had great services!  Here are some highlights over the past few weeks:

-- Father's Day was a great day with 35 in attendance and 10 fathers present for our service.  We honored the fathers with a small book & a $5 gift certificate to Brown's Country Buffet.  Before the message, we handed out brand new pocket knives to the Dads who answered trivia questions about Father's Day! 

The message for the morning was, "Jairus, the Hero Father".  He was a hero because: 1)He fell at Jesus Feet.(You'll never help your children if you first don't learn to put YOUR faith in the right place!)   2)He brought Jesus to his daughter. (We should never fail to introduce Jesus to our Children and keep Him before them.)    3)He continued to hope in Christ when things looked hopeless.  4)He let Jesus have full control over his home. (Our homes become greatly different when we let Jesus take control!)

-- Just 2 weeks prior to Father's Day, we had a Sunday morning service with 36 in attendance.  That makes two Sunday's in June with an attendance in the mid-30's.  Although we could seat another 15 or so, we decided we needed to take care of some renovations. 

We started by building the walls for a new nursery that we are building in the garage.  It will have its own bathroom and have plenty of room.  The nursery that we have now is not big enough to accommodate more than 3 toddlers.  So far, we have not had any babies in the baby nursery.  So with the addition of a large new nursery, we will be able to combine a baby/toddler nursery with plenty of room for toys and tables for crafts.

When the nursery is finished, we will be taking down the walls in the auditorium that we built to add a Sunday school room and the baby nursery.  This will allow us to enlarge the auditorium which will allow us to comfortably seat 80-100 people.  We hope to have this done as soon as the funds allow us to.

-- This past Sunday, we had the Jason Hamby family (missionaries to Quebec) with us.  Bro. Hamby taught Sunday school and preached the A.M. service.  After the service, the church voted to take on the Hamby family as our 5th missionary family supported by VSIBC!

-- As I write this update post, we have been preparing for our 4th of July church picnic at our home tomorrow.  We are all excited about the fellowship and we are having an old-fashioned ice cream social along with hotdogs & hamburgers!  Our missionaries, the BJ Stagner family will be joining us for the picnic as well.  Bro. Stagner will be teaching the Sunday school hour and preaching the main service.  It will be a great service on Sunday morning!

Until next time...

Memorial Day Service & Bees...

We had a great Memorial Day service at VSIBC this past Sunday! 

We had 28 in attendance for the morning service and 20 for the evening service.  This included 6 visitors! 

 

One of the highlights of the morning was the presentation of flags in honor of our loved ones who served in the military and are no longer with us.

We started with the Pledge of Allegiance as Silas presented the flag.

Then, we had a memorial time in which each person could come forward and receive a flag in honor of a loved one who served in the military and was no longer with us. 

 

As each person came forward to receive a flag, they said their loved one's name and branch of service. 

Then they proceeded to place the flag into a flower pot located on the piano as a memorial of that loved one.  (Brenna played a Patriotic piece on the piano during this time.)

 

The memorial decoration with the flags will be displayed until the 4th of July as part of our Patriotic theme.  (And it is a great reminder that freedom is not free!)

 

 It was a very touching service.  Praise the Lord for those who laid down their lives for our freedoms!

 

 

On Saturday, our family went to a Bee-Keeping Class.  We have talked about getting a bee hive for some time now but Momma was a bit nervous about bees and the kids.  After meeting so many people with bees, Kami decided that a class would be fun. 

 

We were able to learn about bees and "work" on a dummy (empty) hive.  Then we transferred to a real, live hive with thousands of bees.

We had to open the hive, inspect the hive and then describe the different bees, parts of the hive and locate the queen.  It was so much fun!

This hive that we are working on is the actual one that we purchased and was delivered yesterday.  The bees are already working hard at pollinating our large garden!

Kami's turn was next.  She was a bit nervous at first.  The man taking her picture is the gentleman who gave us the 2-hour class for free.  He is great at what he does.

 

It wasn't long until Kami was sold on the idea of bees.  She now claims that she is the beekeeper of the family! 

 

VSIBC Updates...Now 8 Weeks Old!

As we become so busy with the new church plant, I find that finding time to sit down and post updates is difficult.  My new goal is to post several weeks worth of short updates at one time.  So here goes!

- 2 weeks ago, we had 23 in our morning Sunday service with 5 visitors in attendance.  At the invitation, a Husband & Wife came forward to accept Christ.  What we didn't know was that their 10-year old nephew who lives with them came forward in Junior Church to accept Christ at the same time!  What a blessing!

- This past Sunday, we had 29 in the morning service for Mother's Day.  9 mothers were present and we had a special service honoring the sacred position of MOM.  There wasn't a dry eye in the service as we presented mothers with flowers, a book and a gift card to a local bakery/gift shop.  It was great to see the little ones from the nursery and Junior Church to file in and get a flower to present to their moms. 

- Several weeks ago, we found out that Kami was expecting.  We were shocked and surprised at this unexpected blessing.  However, this past week at an ultrasound appointment, the baby's heartbeat could not be found.  The little one had graduated straight to Heaven.  Kami went through a D & C procedure yesterday and is at home resting for the next couple of days.

- We were able to travel to Southside Baptist Church in Tampa, FL to be a part of their Mission's Conference.  Our family sang, presented the ministry of the new church plant and I was able to preach.  It was a great meeting and their emphasis was in planting new churches here in America.   It was a great meeting!

- On Sunday night, we had a husband and wife to join the church.  They have been coming faithfully for a month now and they wanted to be a part of VSIBC.  We praise the Lord for them and for another young lady who joined about 3 weeks ago. 

We are excited about what the Lord is doing here after just 8 weeks of services.  Please continue to pray for Victory Springs Independent Baptist Church!