Shawnee, Kansas

We've got a group of 27 that will be arriving tomorrow from Shawnee, KS. I continue to be amazed at the way the Kansas connection is prospering us right now. We are so excited about this group and yet, I find myself always wanting it to be the "perfect" experience for whoever comes to our place. It's almost funny, really. I want so bad to organize it so well that there could almost be no room for God to actually work in the process. Shame on me. I was privileged to go to a regional prayer summit this week sponsored by Nazarene Headquarters that was actually really good. It took a little time for me to get used to it, but I really did enjoy the many facets of spiritual formation that were involved. I was proud of my denomination this last week. That's exciting! One of the main things that I will remember is to do more "being" than "doing." I think that same idea applies to this group from Kansas. Why I am so conditioned to productivity as opposed to quality and following God's leading and letting him work. I pray that I have the courage this week to allow this reality to become real with this group from Shawnee. Pray for us...we will be painting our church sanctuary! Yeah!

Beautiful Maryland and Delaware!

Well, we are getting ready to wrap up our summer vacation this year. We spent some time in Maryland and Delaware with some really good friends (actually, family in our minds) who live up there. We spent four days on the beach in Delaware and stayed at a great condo that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. This being Sam's first trip to the beach we were pretty sure he would love it. He gets so extremely excited about the sand box at home that we knew he would be overwhelmed with all the sand on the beach. We were not disappointed. He spent most of his time digging and finding new things but also spent quite a bit of time standing with his daddy on the shore letting the waves crash into him. He would scream with joy when the waves crashed into his legs. He had a blast and we did too. Anna and Emily, our God-daughters, were a blessing as well. I have never seen two more well-behaved girls in my life. I honestly think you could leave them in a house by themselves for an entire week and they would be just fine. Beautiful, precious gifts from God. Anyone who would think otherwise clearly isn't thinking much. We will get up and go to church tomorrow, and head back to OKC late Sunday night. Big work week ahead as we get ready for several things coming. A mission trip from Shawnee, Kansas, trying to plan for Celebrate Recovery, and more boot camp! Peace!

Showers...Oh So Close!

We had a great time with the group from Central Church of the Nazarene. For those of you who read this and don't know who I'm talking about, this is the church that we served in while I was in seminary in KC. Altogether, we spent about five years there. We had a great group and they got so much done in such a short amount of time. I'll post some pictures of the group and their work. Ryan Forshee, Jerry Brockhaus, Jason Classen, David Green, and Terry and Liz Blake made up the group. Each one sacrificed in their own way to come and I'll never forget the impact they made. We are very close to finished and I hope to have the project completely finished by the first week in July. We have a group coming from Shawnee to do some significant work--Shawnee Church of the Nazarene...the Kansas Connection continues! God is so good. He brings what we need at just the right time.

Development and Fundraising

We have been so blessed to be working with a lady from OKC First that is basically an expert when it comes to fundraising and development for non-profit organizations. She used to do this for a huge evangelical organization and has raised tons of money to help people. She started helping us about two months ago and little by little has begun to make her presence felt in very powerful ways. She's been helping us put together a ten year celebration event and we've seen amazing things happen already with that. She took a day off from her "other job" today and came and did a workshop with our leadership group on development and fundraising and just did a phenomenal job. God continues to bring people our way in really cool ways!

Tomorrow, we've got a group coming from our former church in Kansas City (Central Nazarene) to remodel a room we have and install showers, a washer and dryer and mop sink. It's been amazing to watch God provide literally everything we need and more for this project. We have seen God answer our prayers almost immediately with regard to this project. We'll have 7 people coming down to help with this project and I can't wait to see them. I know many of them well and each one has impacted our lives in a special way. It will be fun to see them. I hope this is just the first of many trips down to OKC from our friends at Central Church in Lenexa. Love you guys!