My Return To Blogging

It's been quite a while since I posted here on our blog. Life has been and continues to be very busy here in Independence. I started working in our church office a couple of days per week doing the church bulletin, mailer, and working on developing our church website. In addition to that, I assumed the responsibility of leading our Women's Ministry. I am also working on a few projects that Dwight wants me to do for church as well. This is all in addition to Rachel's wedding and my Stampin' Up! business.

Our church is doing awesome. We hired Brad Brimmer as Youth Pastor. Brad, his wife Annie, and adorable daughter Lauren joined us in February. We are so excited to have them on staff at 1st A/G. They have seen a great increase in attendance in just a few short weeks. Brad is assuming a great deal of responsibility with our website. We are very grateful for he and Annie.

I had our first Women's Ministry meeting in February. We had an amazing group of women attend and we are off and running. We are currently working on our church cookbook. We have lots of fun activities planned through September. I'll keep you posted.

In March we started a 2nd morning worship service. We now have our Heritage Service @ 8:30am, Sunday School @ 9:30 am and our Celebration Service @ 10:30 am. These services are very different from each other and each is designed to reach people looking for what that particular service offers. I enjoy attending both services so that I can continue to meet and get to know our entire church body.

The wedding plans are coming along nicely. I am making the invitations, thank you's, rsvp's, programs and favors. I am very fortunate to have good friends here who have offered to help. We'll be busy the next couple of weeks. I did the Save the Date cards awhile back and sent those to people who we don't have constant contact with. I didn't send those to either side of the family or to people that Rachel and Mike had seen recently or talked to. Obviously, I will need to make many more invitations. I made 125 Save the Date's and I am anticipating making over 300 invitations. We have the cake, the flowers, the photographer, the preacher :o). I will look at candelabras this week and decide on those.

I continue to travel to Des Moines once a month to hold my Stampin' Up! clubs. I have two scrapbook clubs and one card club. I recently changed the day of week that these clubs meet, so now I only go once a month. I really want to get my business started here in Independence after the wedding. I'm looking forward to that.

Our music pastor is getting married in June. His fiancee, Sarah, Annie (youth pastor's wife) and I attended the Pastor's Wife Conference in Springfield in March. Since we were in Springfield, I invited Rachel to join us. We had a blast and some of it had nothing to do with the conference! I'm thankful for those girls - they will keep me young! I pooped out on them pretty early Friday night. Annie and Rachel crashed the Youth Pastor's Conference across town at James River. Pastor Brad was attending that conference. We had a fun weekend.

We continue to search for a Children's Pastor. Please pray for that God will send the right one our way. We know he has just the right person for that position.

We have an incredible Easter planned. Can't wait for that to get here.

We just got back from a 9 day trip to Hawaii. This was the Stampin' Up! incentive trip and 6 days of it was free. We extended it by three days and just had to pay for the hotel and food for those three days. We LOVED Hawaii, but it is a LONG plane trip. For those of you who know my husband really well, you know he walks and prays, walks and studies, walks and talks, etc. Well, there is not much walking room on a plane and he gets pretty ancy. I offered him some of "my help" but he refused. So I don't think we'll be going again anytime soon, unless of course it's free again. It sure was fun and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together. We came home yesterday to 6 inches of snow, but it was still really good to be home. We missed our kids and our church family.

Aaron is doing well. It has been quite an adjustment for him and we are so proud of his positive attitude. He missed his old youth group, but in a conversation with him just the other day, he said he was thankful that God has given him the opportunity to meet and know new people. He is so excited to have Pastor Brad and Annie here. He is working under Pastor Brad in a leadership training role and we couldn't be happier about it. Aaron continues his studies @ Global University and sometimes wonders what it would be like on a college campus. He turned 20 this week. My little boy is all grown up. (kind of) :o)

Rachel passed her exam to be Licensed with the A/G this month. She has an interview tomorrow and will then receive her credential at District Council in a few weeks. The week after that she graduates from CBC and the week after that she gets married. She is trying to drive her mother crazy. On May 11, I will put my feet up and eat bon bons (or wedding cake) all day.

All joking aside, we are very proud of the kids. When we entered this transition last summer, the number one concern we had was for our kids. The "ministry" was what they always wanted to do and both of them were working toward those goals even at that time. Even though they were grown, Des Moines was the only home they ever knew. Leaving home was very hard on both of them. But . . . God is amazing! They love Independence First Assembly and they are more anxious than ever to assume their role in ministry. We are thankful for what God has done and is doing in their lives. They continue to make us very proud parents.

Well, that should catch you up on our family happenings. As you can see I am still on Hawaiian time. It is only 10pm in Hawaii. It is 2am here and I am working tomorrow. I better get to bed.

Blessings to you and yours,

Shari

Happy New Year! a little late

Well, the holidays have come and gone and we are getting back to normal. (whatever that is for us) We had a wonderful Christmas Program with our children at church. The Adult Choir did an awesome job presenting their musical. Our Christmas Eve service was enjoyed by a full house. We had over 100 people come through our house for our Christmas open house. So December was full of wonderful holiday events.

January began with a flurry of activity as well. It started off with a disaster at the home we own in Iowa. We had some water in the basement and that required us to be out of town for most of one week, cleaning up and fixing that situation. Then we went to Orlando FL for 5 days for a Leadership Conference with Stampin' Up! We enjoyed the wonderful 70+ degree temps there. The only bad thing is that we were both sick with the flu while we were there.

Rachel and I attended a Bridal Show in Overland Park Kansas last Saturday and that was a fun day. We tasted about a million pieces of cake and lots of appetizers from catering companies. We are making lots of wedding plans. It will be here before we know it.

Aaron is hard at work on his Global University courses. His job at the Mall is cutting back a few hours on all the employees and this is a good thing for him. He originally asked for 20-25 hours so he could keep up with his school. Through the holidays he was working around 40 hours. It was just impossible for him to do school full time and work full time. So he is down to under 30 now and that is a good thing.

Aaron preached his first sermon in youth this month. We're proud of his desire to learn and be used of God.

We held our Week of Prayer at church this week and it was fantastic. We were so pleased with the attendance. We continue to be grateful for the opportunity to pastor this great church.

I'm sick of cold weather. I am ready for Spring and all it has to offer with flowers, warmer temps, pretty trees, etc.

Please continue to pray that we sell the house in Iowa.

Till we meet again . . .

December is a Busy Month

Tis the season to fellowship with friends and family. This week we'll be attending three Christmas parties at church. We have one today at lunch, one on Friday night and one on Saturday night. I love Christmas! I am busy this week baking, stamping Christmas cards, other Christmas projects and stamping Christmas gifts. I finished decorating our house this morning at 2am. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. It is really pretty. I am doing an Old World, vintage kind of tree and it would be done, EXCEPT all the lights went out yesterday and I can't find the kind of fuses I need for the speciality lights I have. Soooo . . . taking the lights off today and replacing them with new ones.

I am sitting here at my desk being distracted by the falling snow. Yes I said snow. After our 54 degree day yesterday, we are getting snow today. I don't think it is supposed to snow much, and hopefully it won't stick around too long.

We had a great service at church on Sunday night. Our Sanctuary is beautifully decorated for Christmas and everyone seems to be in festive mood with all the parties this week. We are really feeling like this is home. Dwight talked in his message on Sunday morning about inviting friends and family to our Christmas events. We provided cards that people could turn in with names of those they would like to receive an invitation to our special events. We ran out of the cards! What a great problem! We also provided a small business card size invite to pass out to friends and they all disappeard too! We can't wait to see how God is going to move in December! We have our Adult Musical, Family Night, Christmas Message and Christmas Eve service this month to reach out to our family and friends.

I am off to the first of three fellowships this week. I'm excited!

Give Thanks

This is my second favorite time of the year. I love watching the leaves change color, the brisk air demanding warm fuzzy sweatshirts and fall decorations. As I look back through 2008, we are reminded of how much we have to be thankful for. Here are the Top 10 things I am thankful for.

I am thankful for:

1) my relationship with God and the strength to endure all that has crossed my path this year.

2) my incredible husband, who has loved and cared for his family in an awesome way this year.

3) my spunky Rachel and my laid back Aaron. Thank you God that you sent them to my house to live.

4) a future son-in-law that adores my spunky Rachel.

5) our awesome church family that God has blessed us with. Each week it feels more like home!

6) our family and friends spread out all over the country.

7) provisions for our family.

8) that I will be a bit more warmer this winter than last.

9) a business that God continues to bless.

10) computers! How else could I stay in touch with everyone?

Take time today to list what you are thankful for this year. It can sure put things in perspective for you. When all is said and done, relationships are what counts. Make a commitment to strengthen your relationship with God, family, friends and all who cross your path. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tis The Season To Be Thankful For . . . Plumbing

Well, the last couple of days has been interesting. Late Wednesday the kitchen sink clogged up. I headed to church and Kenny & Renee came over afterwards so Kenny could take a look at it. He worked so hard, but just could not reach the clog. So today Warren came over and replaced some pipe and other things, and came to the same conclusion as Kenny. The clog was further than could be reached. So we called in the big guns and they took care of it. In the meantime, I didn't have to cook for a few meals. So, during this season of thanks, count you blessings if you have working plumbing, because it is a pain when you don't. :o)

Today ended with a good thing. My hubby and I went on a date. We went out to eat at Steak and Shake and explored a little bit with our Garmin. Good times, indeed.

Have a Great Day!

It's All About Love

Tonight I attended the Ladies' Bible Study at church. It is a video series by Beth Moore. I really enjoyed the study about love and rejection. At times we need to be reminded of how much God loves us and that He "chose" to love us. We have all experienced rejection in some form or another. The reason rejection hurts so much is because we love so much. We don't really experience rejection unless we love. Regardless of the chance of rejection, we must love with our whole heart. What a tremendous study. I'll be pondering these thoughts the next few days.

Rachel & Mike are coming home tomorrow. Mike will be filling in for Youth Service tomorrow night. He's excited about the opportunity. Rachel asked for vegetable soup so I'll be making that tomorrow. I may even make them a treat or two. I get excited to see them, even if they have been here almost every weekend since we moved here. It's always nice for Momma bear to have all the cubs home.

Aaron is gearing up for black Friday at work. He has to be at work at 5 am. This is a stretch for him, he is preparing mentally for it really early. :o) He is helping out in Youth Service too. He'll be opening the service and praying. He's excited about that too.

We had the Youth over last Sunday night after church. I made nachos, brownies and lemon bars for them to eat. They played Wii and had a blast! Several parents came too. We are so enjoying getting to know "our people."

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving next week. Time to start getting the menu planned.

Normal Routines

So we are almost on a normal schedule. Dwight is working at the church most days and a couple of nights a week, I am making lunch and dinner at home everyday, Aaron is working most days and we've been living here long enough now that I actually took time out from the unpacking to clean house this week. It's been fun for a change. I'm sure I'll tire of that soon, but for now I am so happy to be settled in our new home and back to a normal routine, whatever that is for us.

Our service last Sunday was so good. We are getting to know more and more people. We are loving being a part of First Assembly and the city of Independence.

I'm really looking forward to the holidays. When we began to transition in our job, one of the things I asked of the Lord was that we would be settled in our new place of ministry to enjoy the holiday season. God is faithful! I'm looking forward to decorating our home with Christmas things. I LOVE the outdoor inflatables. So if you're out driving around after Thanksgiving, be sure to swing by the house to see the MANY inflatables I have. I love Christmas and decorating for Christmas.

Have a great weekend!