Faith is the Victory Mission's Conference

 We love Mission's Conference!  We plan for it all year and are so excited to see what God is going to do!
This year we decided to feature 4 of our missionaries that we already support and have a table with their info and a dessert from their country.

Brenna was appointed to do Belarus.  Our missionaries, the Rene family, sent a recipe for a Napolean Cake.  It was a 14 layer cake with custard between each layer.  Brenna made it exactly as written and  it was amazing!  So delicious!  So, for the conference, she decided to make a bunch of little Napolean Cakes.   It was a lot of work, but they turned out adorable for her table!

 (Each of the layers had to be seperately baked)

 My Sunday School class adopted Canada.  They loved helping me to make the Canadian flag by using tiny pieces of construction paper.  It turned out great!

 The desserts turned out great and it was so fun sampling flavors from around the world!

 So....under the foil is Brenna's Mini Napolean Cakes.  Can you believe I didn't get a photo of the final product!! Ugh!!

 We had Bro. Bob Parker and his wife, Janice, come for the Conference.  They were such a blessing to us!  The preaching was exactly what we all needed!  Then, we had them come back to our place for Sunday lunch.  We had a good time "picking their brain" on many topics, especially child training.  All 5 of their adult daughters are serving God in church and several are full time ministry.  What a great example!

Then, it was time to announce what the people of VSIBC have purposed in their hearts, by faith, to give to missions this year.  We were so excited to announce that the Faith Promise commitment has increased over $400 per month compared to last year's goal!  Glory to God!
What a great Conference!!

Happy Fall Y'All!

 It's that time of year again....my favorite season!
So many wonderful things this time of year...the air turns a little cooler and crisper, football, beautiful colors, pumpkin everything.Christmas around the corner....I LOVE Fall!

 We love to decorate around our home and add touches of orange any place we can.

 The kids really get into it and I love that!

And I love our thankful tree!  We hang a paper tree and cut out leaves.  Each day we write something we are thankful for.  Our tree quickly fills up.  God has been so good to us!

Feeding them from a Coke Bottle!

 Our baby kids, Paddington and Suzy are growing and bouncing around and are now about 2 weeks old.  But being new to this we saw something we were concerned about.  Peggy (the Momma doe) would not be still and let the babes nurse.  We watched and watched.  Finally on day 2 of seeing the little ones follow her around, but not nurse we decided to start giving Peggy feed and keep a firm grip on her while they nursed.  This worked...for a minute or two. She did not like that.  We watched for a couple of more days and researched and finally decided we would need to supplement the milk they are getting.  Not our first choice of how we wanted to raise them, but we were getting concerned they weren't getting enough.

 Silas and I went to the store and got the necesarry supplies.  The cheapest way to feed them is to use a soda pop bottle.  Pretty neat, huh?

 It was quite an experience, that's for sure!  We read that it would be tough to get them to take the bottle.  Boy, is it ever!  By the second day they were starting to drink a little bit of milk.  But, really not that much.  They teethe on it more than anything.

We are now on day 3 with 3 feedings a day.  Wow, that takes some time!  But, my kiddos are loving it.  We're starting school 45 minutes later than normal, but they are learning so much!!  I love life on our little farm!

Irma

 The power is back on, and even though our area rivers are flooding, we are attempting to get back to normal.  We did school for the past couple of days.
But, I thought I would post about our time after Irma.

It was a blessing to be able to evacuate to Josh's office.  We knew we couldn't stay in our mobile home during the storm.  Josh's office has concrete walls and floors.  Wow, those floors were hard during the night!!  But, we were safe.  And thankful.

As the sun came up Sunday morning, the eye went over where we were as a category one. Not nearly as bad as it was expected.  As Patrick checked the radar, he saw that the storm was breaking up on the other side of the eye.  After waiting a little longer, we knew the worst was over and my husband was itching to check on our home.  He and Josh left.  It took them a while to get back to our place.  There were many trees covering the roads.  Patrick had his chainsaw and cut as he went.  As he and Josh pulled into our driveway, they saw many limbs, leaves and twigs littering the yard.  Then, he could see our house.  It was safe and untouched!  Praise the Lord!

Then, they glanced at Joshua and Tabitha's camper.  It was standing, and untouched as well.  Thank you God!  They were so happy!

Shortly after, they came to get us and we went back home to a powerless house.  No electricity.  Or water.  But, we were prepared, and the days ahead without power went well and our generator was a huge blessing!  

We had hampers and bins filled up with plenty of water so we could flush when we needed to.

We were able to keep our fridge running and flip over to the pump when we needed a quick, albeit freezing-cold, shower.  Patrick began checking on the precious people of VSIBC and helping around the neighborhood in any way he could.  I'm so thankful for my husband's servant's heart!

Joshua also picked up some of these battery power light switches.  They light up a room very well!  He also taught us a little trick.  If you prop up a flashlight to face a gallon jug of water, it lights up the jug and it will light up the room as well!  So neat!

My little ones tasted spaghetti-os for the first time!  They've been missing out!

And we had plenty of vienna sausages on hand.

We did lots and lots of coloring and playing games.

We played with our new baby goats, Paddington and Suzy.

They are so playful and getting plenty of attention from everybody!

Come dinner time, we actually ate quite well!  We grilled burgers and chicken and sausages.  Brenna even mastered the art of heating water on the grill burner so she could make some sweet tea.  It was amazing!

The boys threw the football and Silas enjoyed having some extra time with his hero/big brother.

The laundry hamper filled up quickly.  But, there were many blessings. We had time with each other.  We made memories. And we were safe.

Praise God for His protection, and seeing us through this storm!

Safe

Thank you so much for praying for our family during hurricane Irma. We are safe! It was quite a night riding out the storm. We are still without power. I'll post more when I can. So thankful for your prayers!

Hurricane Irma

 The latest reports on hurricane Irma are not looking too good.  It looks like the eye of the storm may pass directly over us.  And as of the update a couple of hours ago, it could be a category 2 or even a 3 when it does.  Please pray for us!

We started several days ago making the necessary preparations.  We have plenty of supplies and last night Patrick and Joshua boarded up all the windows of our beautiful home.  As I type, I'm filling up large buckets of water  to have on hand.  We will be without power.  And no power means no water. All 9 of us will most likely flee to a local area since our home is a mobile home.  Please pray for our home to be safe, but more importantly for my family to remain safe.

Please pray also for the precious families of VSIBC.  Many of them live in mobile homes as well.  We have checked on everyone, and all have a safe place to go to.  We have the church all boarded up and ready to go, too.

Please also pray for our families in Fort Myers.  They are right in the path as well and will feel the worst impacts.  They are all in a safe location, but pray, pray, pray.

Also, pray for St. Barths.  This is the beautiful island that God let us serve on for almost 3 years.  There are many pictures here on my blog of this gem.  But, St. Barths has been devastated by Irma.  Many have lost their homes, including Patrick's Grandmother and many other family members.  Pray that God will use this tradegy to turn the people of the island's hearts toward Him.

Thank you for praying!  I'll update when I can! God is always good!

Paddington & Suzy

Last April we wrote down the date September 7th.  That was the prospective date we thought Jenna could have some babies!  How exciting!  The only problem is that we could be gone on vacation for the birth.  So, we had Tabitha on standby, ready to assist and report to us of any happenings. We separated Jenna into her own pin. When we got back there were no kids.  So, we waited and waited.  Then, 2 days ago the girls saw 2 extra teeny-tiny heads in the paddock.  (The place where Jenna is not!)

Believe it or not, our other female goat had twins!  We didn't even realize that she was expecting!!

So, we are definitely new to this goat farming thing, aren't we?  :o)  But, we are loving it and it's so exciting!

Silas is the most thrilled of all since these are his goats.  He picked the names Paddington and Suzy!

The babies are absolutely adorable!! They have such pretty coloring.  They are half nubian, half lamancha. They love to be cuddled and held and we are all already forming a bond.

Our little farm is growing!!

One More Blue Ridge Post

 I know there has been a bunch of posts on our Blue Ridge vacation.  There are just so many memories that I want to remember!  A week before we left, Patrick told me that it would be so nice to grill some steaks while at the cabin.  But, finances were tight preparing to go on our vacation. So, we didn't think it would be possible.  Then, we had some dear friends from from VSIBC come to our door with several packs of TBONE steaks!  They had no idea the desire of our hearts that we only shared with each other!  Isn't God so amazing!!

 The steaks were wonderful!!

 We had fun making s'mores around the campfire.

 The girls kept up with their college classes.  They had many beautiful "desks" to choose from!

We praise the Lord for the time away and memories made.  As our trip was coming to an end, all of decided we were ready for home! We missed our beautiful North Central Florida, the flat land, our home, our church and our family!  God sure is good!