Appleton, WI

Hello ALL....it has been a long time.....I am currently in Appleton , WI with my brother Justin and his family. The kids and I are staying here right now until our house sells. Adam is currently in Toledo working and keeping up with the house stuff. It is difficult to be away from Him but we all need this break. I needed to get away from Toledo for awhile. I will tell everyone some of the stories we have had with the house...kids....etc when I can get on with some more time! I miss everyone in Toledo....please pray for us..

By the way, my brother's computer does not work very well so I will not be on very much.

Summer Fun

It was starting to get really hot about a month ago...and our old pool had a hole in it so we decided to get the kids a little kiddie pool this year to romp around in. It was so cute and had a little sprinkller attached to it. Here are some pics of the kids playing. (ethan wouldn't get in it until later)

After taking the kids out and getting them showered and dressed we looked around for samuel and we couldn't find him....all of a sudden I look out the back door and this is what I saw!!1 I was horrified at first because I didn't think that he could open the door and then I started laughing and got the camera. He loved it so much he didn't want to get out! He's gonna be my little water baby....

His diaper weighed at least 3 lbs! It was so funny watching him walk back to the house!

So this is our new net for the trampoline.....I hated not having one, especially when neighborhood kids would come and play. The trampoline was left here when we moved in...and then some friends of ours gave us their net. I feel a lot safer now.

One Monday morning Adam's mother, brother and the kids and I headed up to the Zoo! It ended up being a scorcher that day and the kids were all crabby(as you will see by ellie's face in practically every picture) Let's just say I was glad to come home that day....:) Here we are in the car ready to go....

WE rented a wagon...it started off ok...until everybody got thirsty and wanted to go home after 5 minutes.....

I had to take a picture of Adam's cousin...I never thought I'd get to meet him but I did....(just kidding!!)

some birds...I know how boring!

This was Ellie the whole day we were there! *sigh*

Everytime I am at the Zoo I never get to see the elephants...this time I got some good pics and I was actually able to see...(when I wasn't reprimanding my kids) *sigh*

All four with Grandma....

the best part was at the petting zoo when I got to watch samuel chase around the goats (he called them puppies) It was so cute!

I got some bad pics of the gorilla, but I had to tell you about them....there was about 4 or 5 of them and all they did the whole time was pick there noses and eat them. My kids could not stop laughing. It was funny to watch!

Grandma and the kids again...

Uncle Seth and the kids.....

Ellie before we left....it was like this the whole day!


And I just had to share the cute picture of Ethan I got afterwards! I don't capture the moment with him too much....


We have had a great summer so far and now....in a month or so we are going to pack on up and head to the Great Outdoors and move up north! That will be fun when we FINALLY get there. Keep praying for our house to sell...we have 3 interested buyers.....we want the right one for this house!

Our Fourth

We had a wonderful and very relaxing fourth of July this year. It was nice and we got to spend it with some really great friends we have had here. Pastor Ted and Anna Slater are spiritual parents and grandparents to us and our kids ever since we moved to Ohio. They still are the music pastors at our previous church over at Bethel Assembly...but we get together when we can. I love them so much and it will be so hard to move away from great friends we have made here! Anyway...we ate, relaxed, played games, and then we went and enjoyed beautiful fireworks that I could not get any pictures of. Anyway...it was a great time.....

Here is a picture I will cherish always! I love you P.T. and Anna!

This is where I always see Anna....she is an imaculate housekeeper ...but she never stops! ;)
Here are the guys talking and having a good time....P.T., Adam, and his dad...doing what guys like to do....

The kids watched movies and played....it was relaxing....nice for a change sometimes!

Of course...Eliana posing like always...

A great picture of Adam and I!

Brett....he has been with us since he was 12....he's grown into a young man and is headed off for Hillsong in Australia this January! How exciting! Of course his sister Lindsay wouldn't get in any picture....she is great too!

Two peas in a pod......

My sucky firework pic....I took like 10 and I couldn't get it to take at the right time! Oh well!It was an enjoyable day! Like always...and of course I got the beautiful sunset in my photo of the week that day too. It makes up for my awful picture taking over the past few months! ;)

Another open house....

This Saturday and Sunday we will be having another open house. Please pray that God will give this house as a blessing to someone else. I have been very discouraged, but yet I know our mighty God is in control of it all. This past Tuesday Adam and I met with the Eastern Regional Board of Pastor's for Adam's credentialing in the Open Bible. I was so nervous, but meeting with these Godly men was so amazing! The thick presence of God was in that room and the Holy Spirit confirmed to me once again that this is what God wants. (Sometimes you can question when things aren't happening the way that you planned.) I am so excited and I just need to learn to be patient! Anyway...they did put our open house in the right section of the paper this time....and I also made a blog where people could go and look at the pics of our house, and we put that in the paper as well! Check it out...... OUR HOUSE.....love you all!

Could everyone take a minute....

Adam and I would like some prayer. The couple that wanted our house, are not going to be able to buy it. We know that God is in control of this situation and selling this house is no big deal in His mind....so we are just asking if you could pray for the miraculous for us. We are having an open house this Sunday from 1-5pm. and we really feel that God is going to sell it for us. We also put an add in the paper but get this. They messed up and put in in the wrong section of the paper. They put it in South Toledo instead of East Toledo and the are running the add on the wrong days. Just pray that God has his hand on this and it was meant to be a mistake.....so that he will send the right people. Love you all. Also pray for me....I'm very tired....and a little stressed! :)

SO....I decided to go black-raspberry picking....

....in a tank top & sandles.....!!!


So silly old me decided to try my luck at picking black-raspberries for some friends of mine. Their season just started and they pay people to come out and pick for them. I figured since I'd be outside I would like to get a little tan so I wore a tank top...made sure to slather myself with 30 spf sunscreen so I wouldn't burn and wore my flip-flops. Big mistake!!! I think I bent over to pick little prickles out of my toes all day!

I am sometimes not so smart when it comes to some things....and then by the end of the day realized that I slathered myself with sunscreen and forgot the back of my neck which I started to feel stinging by 4:00 pm. I had been out in the sun since 10:30 am so it has gotten quite red and really really hurts! So now....a couple days later I decide to take some pictures.

It looks like I got in a cat-fight!

This is the worst part! Don't you feel terribly sorry for me!
Ouch!

My son Ethan wanted to take a picture of me while I was working with the camera so I decided to let him....I usally don't post picures of myself but it turned out good. Maybe he will be a photgrapher some day!

I can't post pictures.....

Does anyone know why blogger won't post my pictures when I do a new post? I keep trying to put them in with the URL and it's not working! HELP all you smart computer people!

Jess

Pray for Kaleb!

• I've been reading updates regularly on this little boy....his link is on my page! Please say a prayer for him today!

The Great "Instead" War!

Today while reading my friend Melissa's blog about her marshmallow war with her husband, a memory came crashing back to me about our war we had in college. We would pass this ugly "instead cup" around as a joke to eachother. I believe she won the war when she emptied out my closet and hung it on a long piece of tape that said surprise! (....although I do remember after college sending it to her in the mail......i don't remember what happened to it after that? hmmmm.) SO this is for you Melis!

A story.......

Hello there......Let me tell you a story....I do have some pictures that will be exciting! Here is my story about my new phone....our vacation to Pennsylvania....my need for change....and what God is currently doing in our lives.

This is my story.....

This is my new phone! :) (as of March)


I have currently waited over a year for my contract to be up to get this beautiful phone! You can ask just about anyone and they will tell you cell phones don't work in our family. We get one....it gets stolen...milk spilled on....lost....dead....run over....slammed in a car door and countless other ways you can ruin a cell phone. I've lived with hand me down cell phones for two years and I was so excited to be able to get this phone. It was a dream...(poor adam does not have one...so he is stuck using a pink razor:) HeeHee!

March '07 Adam and I took a trip to Pennsylvania without the kids. For his Birthday I got him Delirious? tickets. It is the one thing that he wanted real bad so I kept up with where they would be in the U.S. and bought the tickets for Pennsylvania.
Adam at this time also had his resume on line. We were beginning the process of finding another church. We hadn't been getting paid since November so we prayed and felt God's leading to start looking elsewhere. Well to our surprise a church was interested in us in Pennsylvania. The church was only an hour away....so we also set up an interview the same weekend. It was an exciting thing because we thought that maybe God was in this. All the figures seemed to fall into place. We prayed hard that we would know. We were supposed to drive down to Pennsylvania with another couple to go to the concert but since we had the interview the day before Adam and I took a train to Pennsylvania and met the couple at the concert. What fun it was to ride in a train! ALSO VERY EXHAUSTING! It was an experience I will never forget. We also got a nice tour of the whole state of Pennsylvania from a lovely young mennonite couple we rode next to the second half of the trip. It was fun! (Of course I got to sport my fancy new pick cell phone the whole way! How exciting! It was only 6 days old!) After the interview and driving back to Camp Hill where the concert was....we really felt that wasn't the church for us....it was sad and maybe we thought we were missing God on it....so we continued to pray....

Delirious was AWESOME! I LOVED IT!

THe day after we returned from Pennsylvania we received a phone call from the pastor saying that they had chosen someone else.... we already knew in our hearts this wasn't the place...but of course I was a little bummed.....I was so ready for change....
My kids missed me...that was nice to come home to though! :) The next day I was giving the youngest ones a bath! Not unusual, but this day was a little different. After I had given the kids a bath and got them dressed I went to empty the bath water out.....guess what I found.......

My 1 week old Beautiful Pink RAZOR cell phone was sitting in the bottom of the bathtub (which was still full of bathwater mind you!) I cried! The only reason Adam did not get the insurance was because the computers were not working the day we bought it and the man told him we had two weeks to buy insurance so he could do it another time.

Well to make a long cell phone story short....We called Verizon and the lady told me if I could get it to turn on and call to get the insurance...then I might still be able to get it covered. No luck it would not turn on. SO........I baked my cell phone in my oven in a glass baking dish(without the battery) for 12 hours at 190 degrees, got it to turn on, called and got the insurance....got a new phone...and VOILA...I have a beautiful pink phone again! *sigh*

Anyway... back to Pennsylvania....I felt so bummed and empty about the situation...even though I knew that it wasn't God.....I needed change

SO......I decided to rearrange and change everything! It's the only way I could cope! :)

(to be coninued)

(.contined) Re-arranging.....and God's Will

SO here is my Bathroom's improvements.....

This is what it looks like when your sitting on the camode!! :)

My beautiful daughter saying CHEEEEEEESE :)

I wanted a more conversational room that was seperate....so I decided to try and see what I could come up with....I also knew that the shelves I was waiting for were never going to get built (sorry honey) so I had some shelves down my basement that I thought would work with what I wanted.......heres what it looks like now....

No the shelf is not crooked....my picture taking is....wow huh?

still crooked picture taking!!

Here she is agian posing for the camera!

crooked again (I could never be a professional!)

The dining room....couldn't rearrange that....

My basement......our projector needed sevicing (almost 200 dollars worth) We sold that on Ebay and went back to the original TV. I like it better anyway.....I had to rearrange the basement too!

Anyway...The kids rooms are all rearranged also. I think I went nuts for a week! OH well...it was fun and kept me occupied....

So....that brings me to my next story.......

What is God currently doing in our lives?????....for the past 6 months we honestly have had no direction.....every door has closed with every church we have applied at......It has been hard! We have prayed and have had no sense of direction....not one! When your in a situation like that you look deep into your life wondering if you have sinned....where you went wrong.....but yet we saw God's provision until the last couple months. Every bill has been payed except for our mortgage the last two months....we are working to get that issue solved....I am not telling this for you to feel sorry for me....I am telling you because I know you pray and I know that there may be a reason that we do not yet see......

This is what God has started....let me tell you another story so you can pinpoint God's fingerprints in this....
The End of May '07 God decided to do something....and stir something.....Adam decided to call one of his old pastor friends that he used to meet with on a regular basis. They hadn't talked in over a year and Adam just wanted to go out to lunch with the guy(TOM). It had just been a long time. Lunch went well and Tom and him talked about many things. By the time it was almost over Tom asked Adam..."Would you be willing to move if that's what God told you to do?"
"I'd go anywhere God wanted me!" Adam said Tom looked at him. "Well, our church has planted 3 more churches outside of our church, and one of the pastor's has recently passed away. Have you ever heard of Iron River, MI?" Adam laughed..."Well yeah actually. My wife grew up in the U.P. about an hour and a half West of IronRiver on U.S 2. Pastor Tom sat back in his seat. "REALLY?" he said "Adam this is really odd! I am not saying it's God. It is just really ODD! Tom looked at Adam "Do you know how hard it is to find people with connections to the U.P.?" "Look at my calender Adam." Tom said as he showed him the book. "First I have lunch here with you at 12:00pm....next at 1:00 I am to call Cathy(the wife of the pastor who just passed away) to see how my progress is coming in finding a pastor for the church! This is really Odd!" " Would you be willing to go up and preach?" Tom asked "Sure why not!" Adam exclaimed.

That night Adam took me to dinner that night at TGIFridays. He hadn't mentioned anything about his lunch with Tom.
The First question he asked me was.. "If you could go anywhere...where would you go?" Of course not thinking in spiritual terms I thought 'he's taking me on a second honeymoon! YAY!'
"Hawaii" I said excited. "That's not what I meant" he said laughing. "if you could live anywhere where would want to be?" I thought about it for a moment....where would I want to live??"Well...I am definatley not a city girl. I am a country bumpkin at heart and you know it so probably in the country somewhere...and my mom isn't doing that great right now so I would really like to be closer to my parents" " But that is just me" I said. "Well that answers that!" Adam stated, and then he spilled the whole story. I actually started to cry. 'Maybe God was in this'. I thought.

Needless to say....Memorial day weekend we went up to Iron River, MI! I told God I would never live back in the U.P. unless he called me. After that weekend I know he was calling me! It is so weird how your heart can be in a place and you live someplace else. God has given us a special burden for up there. We knew if this was God he was going to work everything out.

Number 1. We need to sell our house
Number 2. We need to find a house up there.
Number 3. Adam need to find a job because the church plant is still just beginning to plant.

It almost seems like we are taking a step backwards...Adam needing to find a job, us moving but we know that God is in this....this is where it is at. These people are hungry for a move of GOd and they are desperate for the city to change and all I hear in my head is "Who will go for me?!"

A great revelation struck me as we were driving home. Neither one of us wanted to say that we felt this was God yet. It was too soon for me....then I saw a picture. The pastor that passed away left his wife and 3 children...22, 16, and 15. The 15 yr old is a boy. He reminded me of a fellow that was at Bethel A/G when we first got to Toledo. He was more Quiet and shy......Now that young man (Chris)from Bethel is a leader at our church preaching and teaching and is an awesome man of God. God plain as day asked me. "If you could go to change just one life would you?" I pondered it for a minute. "If you could go for another Chris would you?" That thought struck me hard! I know countless lives could be changed...but if we were to go just for one...would we answer the call?"WOW" What is more important? Making money? Having your name be heard? Or changing a life that might well be the next amazing evangelist of all time that will change millions of hearts for Jesus.

We got home...really felt in our heart that this IS God...and we are moving on. Two days after we put the sign in our yard to sell our house by owner....we have a buyer. Now the next two pieces of our puzzle need to fall in place. Please pray for us. We know God is in this! SO without further adew(sp) We are most definatley moving to God's country up North...they need a revival and a move of God that will shake the streets! Please pray for us as we continue to ask His will! Love you all!