It's not in vain

 I heard a quote when my Joshua was little that completely changed my outlook as a Momma....

"My greatest contribution to the kingdom of heaven may not be someone I win, but someone I raise."

That has stuck with me for over 20 years. When your babies are little you can sometimes feel like the days can be much of the same thing: diapers, laundry, making sure tummies are full and nobody kills each other. It may feel a little monotonous and wonder if it really matters. It's easy to read missionary stories of great men and women of God in all the things they experienced and did and then wonder what is your contribution?

If you know my Joshua you know that God has blessed regardless of his parents shortcomings. He's an amazing man of God, doing an amazing work, and God is blessing mightily.

As I came in the door after going with Patrick to take the visiting preacher for lunch, I realized history is repeating itself. My Silas had an amazing morning serving in various ministries at VSIBC. You would think he would want a nap or to veg out doing something mindless. Instead I found him and his siblings watching a Youth Conference message by Calvin Allen. Then, after that, he moved onto a Jack hyles message that his daddy had talked about earlier this week.

It was then it hit me... laying on that couch listening to a message could be the next George Mueller or DL Moody. The boy that I just did laundry for and made some toast for breakfast could be the next mighty man of God for his generation.

Let me encourage you young mama that's in the midst of this.... Your contribution does matter! God sees and He rewards even the smallest of acts as you care for your little ones. He's a miracle worker as He multiplies the deeds that you do for your family and makes it count for eternity! Be faithful! Keep serving! It's not in vain !

No greater joy!! A Great Baptism!!

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Wow some amazing things have been happening at VSIBC!  And when things are happening, people get saved.  And when people get saved, they want to show others the work that the Lord did in their hearts.  And when that happens they want to follow the Lord's command for Believer's Baptism.  

We had 5 that wanted to be baptized that day.  The way we had been doing baptisms at our new location is to have a truck with trailer come and get our "baptistry" and bring it to the back of the plaza.  Then, everyone would go out back to be able to watch.  Well, in the middle of the service it started pouring down rain!  I mean loud rain!!

So Patrick decided to scrap that plan and have the baptistry come around front.  We all stood under the overhang, or some stayed at the windows inside.  It's amazing because then the rain stopped to just a light drizzle.  

We only blocked the parking lot for a small bit while we had the Baptimsal Service.  It was neat to see people also ligned up at the restaurant to watch people getting baptized in a parking lot.  :o)

I sort of alluded to it last post, but Liberty and Freedom chose to get baptized that day.  I was so excited for them!! I was around their age when I accepted Christ and followed in baptism, too!

It was neat to see Joshua be able to be the one to baptize them.  Wow, the emotions!! There really is no greater joy!!

They both don't happen to be too crazy about getting their head dunked under water, but they wanted to do this.  They did really great!!

 

So proud of these girls.  And proud of their parents that are teaching them diligently about the Lord!! Joy overflowing here!

Visit from Mom and Dad

We always love it when my parent's come to visit!!  We were so glad they were able to come and spend 2 nights with us.  We planned a big family dinner and we showed them the progress on our church property.  

They gave lots of attention to their great grandkids,

and their grandkids,

and even to their daughter! :o)

I gave them updates about our little farm.  I love this picture Mom snapped of Dad and me. :o)

They helped Brenna and I keep the nursery for visitation.  Dad played and played,

(side note...Dad broke his hip and had to have a hip replacement a year and a half ago and then not too long ago he had to have part of his lung removed because of cancer.  Yes, he's amazing down on the floor playing!!)

and read and read.  He's such a good Grandpa.

They took us out to Akins....one of our favorite spots!!

Me and Mom even enjoyed some time on the porch together!  We drank tea, sweated in the heat and talked and talked.  I love how close we are!

And of course she got lots of snuggles from these precious babies in our family.

But the real reason they came??? Is this.....but I'll post more on that soon!

 It was such a wonderful visit!  We love you Mom and Dad!!

4th of July

We had an amazing 4th of July!! We decided to move our services to Tuesday and celebrate together as a church family.  We rented the Civic Center and had a Chili Cook Off!! It was so fun!

There was lots of red, white and blue....in the desserts and clothes, too!  We are a patriotic church for sure!!

We had 11 red chilis and 4 whites.  They were all so good!  I'm so glad I didn't have to judge.  That would be a tough job!!

Our judges were very careful and diligent in judging.

Micah even got in on the judging process.  It was fun!!

 It was a great evening together.  Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE my church family??

A New Endeavor

Wow!  What a summer this has been!  I realize that if I'm going to get caught up on my posting I might have to do a super long all inclusive post, there's so much happening around here!  But, we'll see how I decide to catch up. :o)

For now, though, I thought I would tell you something I am doing that's new.  At the end of spring we started milking Polly and Winnie.  We had fun making cheese and caramel and yummies, but we still had bunches of milk left.  I decided I would make some Goat's Milk Lotion.  We loved it!!! Especially my Patrick!  He said it made his sandpaper elbows soft again. :o)  

We started researching all the benefits to goat's milk for the skin and we were shocked!  So, we decided to see if any of our local friends would be interested in this type of lotion.  The ones that tried it also loved it!  I've received many comments of  "I love how this feels!!"  "My skin is improving so much!" and "The scents are so light and nice!"  

So, we decided to open up an Etsy shop, too.  It's been fun creating new scents and then hearing the great responses!

We have 4 different lotions.  The "Fragrance Free"  is the one that I've been using on my face morning and night.  I love how it feels!!  We also have "Anne's Raspberry Cordial" which has a berry scent with a  touch of lemon.  I think it's my favorite!  I also made "Miss Beadle's Lemon Verbena."  So far, this one is a favorite of people that have bought it.  The scent is lemony with some fruity undertones and a touch of fresh grass.  It has almost sold out!  And then Patrick wanted a manly scent.  So we made "Mr Darcy's Eternal Charm" that has a scent that is reminiscent of Eternity Cologne.

It's been fun creating new scents!

So go give us a visit over at StorybookFarmsFL!

 

Camp Lollipops / Teen Camp

So our Juniors came back from a wonderful week of camp!  Josh and Tabitha had one week to rest, then it was off to teen camp!!  Whew!  What a busy summer!!  They had an amazing group of teens that were able to go, they had so much fun!!  And more importantly, the Lord really did a work in their hearts.  But I'll post on that at the end.

We were so excited for Camp Lollipops number 2!  We did lots of fun things!

Once again we had lots of help around our little farm.

And we smiled lots. :o)

And fit in some cousin time.  I love seeing these two boys together!

We even managed to fit in some time at the park with our friends!  We had so much fun!

And just like that the week was over.  Patrick and I decided that we wanted to head to camp for the last night, just like we did with the juniors.

Wow!  What a week they had!! 

I was so proud of my Callie!  She placed 6th in the Bible Verse Competition!!  She did amazing!!

They had so many fun games, made so many memories, but the best part of all was this:

The decisions they made for Christ.  Each and every camper made life changing decisions, and that's what camp is really all about.

Patrick was excited to give Matthew a handshake and a hug, his new brother in Christ.  So amazing!! God is so good!

This is my favorite picture of all though.  This is our girls.  Revival really broke out on Thursday.  One of our teen girls, Bethany, accepted Christ as her Saviour.  When she came back from the altar she found her friends waiting for her with big hugs, so happy for her.  

Camp this year was amazing for our teens.  Eternal decisions were made.  I truly believed revival was sparked and it has carried over to VSIBC.  Incredible things are happening here!  So happy we can be in the midst of it!