Pray for the Bowmans!

Pray for Bonnie and Shane as they travel back across America in their car named "One Way Benz"! They did make it to Oklahoma safely tonight so say a little prayer that their trip tomorrow will go smoothly and safe. We enjoyed their visit so much....yesterday, we took the traditional trip to Silverton and Ouray and again, ended the night around the campfire. Here are more pictures of our time together.....


Bonnie does a little "bouldering" at Molas Pass....

Thank you Shane and Bonnie for your visit...we enjoyed every minute of it! We love you!!

OK....who's next?

27 kids in VBS today! WOW--God is good!

Bonnie and Shane Are Here!!

Is there anyone sweeter than the Bowmans??? Well, Bonnie that is! (Just kidding Shane..you're sweet too!) This awesome couple came up Saturday in time to see Mason play 1 1/2 games of his baseball tournament. What's amazing about their trip is that they drove a diesel Mercedes that Shane converted into using cooking oil as their fuel! (I know, they ARE brilliant too!) So they drove all the way here on oil and did not have to buy gas! They don't buy their oil....they have several restaurants that give them their oil when they change it out. Brilliant!
After the game, we had supper and sat around the campfire outside our house......now, I know you in Alabama can not imagine sitting around a camp fire at night this time a year but it feels great because the temp here at night is around 60 degrees......



Today, we went to church and they got to meet some of church members. We had a full house again today and Mike preached an awesome sermon about how to grow in maturity in Christ. We spent the afternoon riding up to Middle Mt. and showing them around Vallecito. We also took the boys over to the lake swing to let them have a little fun. Tonight we grilled ribs and are sitting around the fire again. We are loving every minute with these precious friends and are trying our best to talk them into relocating here (Shane loves that's there's no bugs here)...hhmmmm.....wonder if I'll get a comment after that.....

I thought this was a cute picture......

Man, we've missed this couple! They are so awesome with our kids and my kids feel so loved by them! If you don't see these guys back for a couple of weeks, you'll know we've kidnapped them!(Just kidding Kaylee....I know you need Grandma and Grandpa back before baby Wesley gets here!)

New Swing

Remember the magical swing the boys loved soooo much? Well they still love it but have found one they may love a little bit more.......here's some video footage of the swing...

Funny story....after VBS Tuesday, it was such a beautiful WARM day so we decided to go on a picnic in the canoe and the boys wanted to try out this swing. So we got over to the swing and unloaded almost everything, and then Mike has to try to reach the swing from the canoe to get it over to the boys. Well, of course, he flipped the canoe and our lunch was in it! Thankfully, it was in a small cooler which kept most of the water out so it was still edible. After the boys swung some, it started getting cloudy so Mike decided we had better head back. The boys were in the water and wanted to swim along side the canoe back to the house. It started sprinkling.....then raining...so we made them get in the canoe....then it rained harder, and we canoed faster, and faster and by the time we got to the house, we were being pegged with HAIL! and it started lightening!! It was funny and will be a very memorable day for us!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BABE!

TODAY IS OUR 14TH ANNIVERSARY!! 14 YEARS AND 3 KIDS LATER, IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT HERE WE ARE IN COLORADO. HOW WILL WE SPEND IT? CLEANING CABINS AND RUNNING MOVIE NIGHT AT THE CHURCH.....JEALOUS?? ONE OF THE JOYS OF BEING MARRIED THIS LONG IS THAT JUST BEING TOGETHER IS ENOUGH. I LOVE YOU MY MIKEE!! IT'S BEEN AN AWESOME JOURNEY TOGETHER AND YOU STILL HAVE MY HEART!!

I ALSO WANT TO WITH A HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO KAYE AND HERSHEL BECAUSE WE SHARE ANNIVERSARIES! THEY HAVE US BEAT BY QUIET A BIT....HAPPY ANNIVERSARY POP AND MAMA KAYE!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGELA!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MIKE'S SISTER, ANGELA LAWSON!! Her birthday is always easy to remember because it is the day before our anniversary! She is the oldest sibling and is a walking miracle as she was run over by a motorcycle when she was 5 and almost didn't make it. Her son Brent is getting married on October 10th and her daughter is Kayci who is married to Jamie Cummings.

Hope your birthday is awesome Angela! We love you!!

(Had to share this: 19 in VBS with 5 regulars out of town....but the BEST news is....4 prayed to receive Christ this week to add to the 1 last week for a total of 5!! Praise Be to God- salvation belongs to HIM!)

Please Pray

As you read this, please pray for approval from Chase on a short sale for our house in Cullman. I'm sure you are sick of us asking for prayer in this area, but it sure is a burden on us and we need fervent prayer. I know GOD will take care of our needs because He promised He would....

The situation at present is that we have an offer on it below what we owe Chase Mortgage on it. We have completed and faxed in a short sale application so please pray that they will approve this request and accept the offer. We have contacted Chase to try to speak to someone to make sure they got the application and can't even find out. We have made 2 attempts and were left waiting on the phone for 2 hours before having to hang up to go somewhere. It's so frustrating!!! and we feel so helpless!
Thank you my christian family and friends!
Lori

VBS Report

Thank you for your prayers for Olyvia...she was there yesterday and I have not doubt it was because all of you said a prayer for her and her parents! So to put a face with the name...this is Olyvia...she is opening a new BIBLE the church got her for her birthday.....

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We had 18 children there yesterday and 5 were out for various reasons!! That's a total of 23 kids so far this summer! But the greatest news is that Kylie, a 13 year old that's been coming to Teen Night, Movie Night, and VBS, accepted Christ as her Savior!! She is from Farmington, NM, visiting her grandparents for the summer.... unless we can talk her in to moving in with them!!

So, I forgot to share with you that Mike's friend Randy Pate was coming for a visit last Thursday but didn't get to come because all flights into Dallas were cancelled. We were terribly disappointed but God is in control and had other plans for us and Randy. He will reschedule and hopefully get to come out in the next couple of months.

Here's a few pictures of our VBS snacks.....so cute!!

The water is blue jello and the sail boat is an apple with a piece of a fruit roll up sail........

This is a moose pie made out of rice crispies.....

Our next visitors are Bonnie and Shane Bowman from Holly Pond and we can't wait!! They should arrive at the end of next week to spend a couple days with us.....and Tony Jetton, plan a trip out and we'll "play" like kids...there's so much to do! (Thanks for all the comments by the way Tony...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!!!

My niece Hannah (on the left) turns 17 today!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH! It's so hard to believe it's been 17 years since the exciting day of my very first niece coming into the world. She was born in Baton Rouge and I had to wait a couple of days before getting to see her and thought I would die! She was the prettiest baby I had ever seen! Now it's been 17 years and she is only one year away from being an official adult! That makes me sad! But Hannah, you are a great teen that loves God and lives to please HIM...we are very proud of you. Hope your birthday is awesome!

Our week

Summer is here and the "summer" people are back!! Our church was full today so that was nice to see. We had our first "official" new members to join the church today and one of our teens from Friday night came!! (Exclamation marks because it is a 16 year old boy that we never expected to show up at church) Now the challenge is learning all their names!

We had 10 teens at teen night Friday night, 4 of which were new this week. I have a new found appreciation for Youth Pastors now!! The world has soooo much to offer these kids so there is a lot to compete with. Thank your Youth Pastor even if your kids are not in the youth and show them a little appreciation for what they have to put up with!

Friday we went up Middle Mt on 4 wheelers again but were able to go up much farther then the first time. Here are some shots of the pretty scenery up there.....

Haven always seems to get pretty great naps while we are riding!

We really wish we had some kids from back home to share this with this summer......ANYONE??

We want to wish a very HAPPY 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY to RUTH AND BUD SILVEY, members of our Grace family and parents of our close friend Jeff. I realize that they probably don't get to follow our blog but Tammy, please tell them that we are thinking of them and wish we could have been there today to celebrate this awesome event! Everyone else, please pray for Mr. Bud as he has cancer and needs God's healing power in his life right now. Pray for the family also as they walk with him thru this.....May God Bless the Silvey family and hold them tightly in His arms! We love you!

Be Encouraged....

We are encouraged that we had many visitors in church Sunday, we had 4 more kids at VBS Tuesday, and tonight had the largest group at Movie Night that they've ever had! Praise the Lord!

"May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." 2 Thess. 2:16-17

Please pray for the parents of Olyvia...the little girl I mentioned in a previous entry that had been wanting to come for so long, and finally came and was just so eager to learn more and more about Christ. It seems now that her parents are keeping her from coming ....maybe they are feeling or seeing the Holy Spirit working in their child and are afraid....I don't know...but Amy is their neighbor and she continues to offer to bring Olyvia and they always have an excuse now. They haven't let her come to VBS yet. The last time I saw her, she said to me "I'm sorry I didn't come to church Sunday"....what 6 year old apologizes for not coming to church when she's only been in church 3 Sundays? I'm telling you, God has His hands on this child and He will use her to reach her parents. Please pray for her....thanks! Lori

Rock Climbing, Teen Night, and More....

Thursday we went rock climbing on a small mountain at the end of Vallecito. It was fun and Haven did awesome! Here are some pictures from the little adventure......

Landon found crystals in the rock....

Views from the top....

Friday night we had our first Teen Night at the church and we had 8 youth show up! Now I know that God just drew them there because the only youth in our church is Robyn who is now a high school senior and Ashlyn who is 13 and hasn't been at church but about 4 times total in the 7 month we've been here. However, neither of these two girls were able to come so we got to meet some new kids. It's interesting how this night came to be...... Amy and Jason Knox moved here from Texas due to some circumstances in their living situation/jobs back in February. Not knowing Amy too well at the time, she took this quiz on Facebook called "What is your ministry calling" and the answer was "Youth Ministry". Amy had never worked with youth before. I had a burden that this church had absolutely nothing to offer youth but definitely didn't want to be the one to start something up. So when I saw Amy's quiz results, we started talking about maybe the reason God may have sent her here and she got excited thinking about working with the youth. She said she would only do it if I did it right along with her so I told her I would help out. So now we will be having Teen Night every Friday night. Pray for Mike and I in this ministry because this is something we want done, but didn't really want to be the ones doing it.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed with being on the Praise Team, VBS on Tuesdays, Movie Night on Wednesdays(starting this week), I have the kids on Thursday night during bible study, Teen night on Friday night, and small groups are starting soon on Sunday nights. But Praise God for activity!

I am cleaning cabins for one of our church members this summer to earn some "traveling" money so usually one day a week is spent cleaning. Mike helps me so I love it because it's good money earned pretty fast! Would you believe that I still can not go outside during the day without a light jacket on most days? Oh how I long for a hot summer day when the kids can swim in the lake and play with the slip-n-slide! Never thought I would miss the hotness of Alabama like I have! It just doesn't seem like summer....

Yesterday Bayfield had a town wide yard sale that I participated in. One of our members lives in town so some of us set up in her garage. There were over 60 different yard sales so it was fun walking yard to yard and I got in on some pretty good deals! Mason had a ball game (they lost) and then Mike took the kids to see "Night at the Museum 2" while I went grocery shopping. It was good to have activity here to take my mind off of missing our first Mule Day in Gordo! It's such a fun time with family and getting to see old friends and I was sad yesterday about not being there (especially after hearing several say it just wasn't the same this year without us). Maybe next year's vacation will be planned around Mule Day!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARTER!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARTER!!! IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT HE TURNS 7 TODAY. THIS IS OUR NEPHEW....MARK AND KARLA OWEN'S SON. HE'S A FUNNY KID AND THE BOYS JUST LOVE HIM TO DEATH! HE HAS SUCH A CUTE LITTLE PERSONALITY! HOPE YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY YESTERDAY WAS FUN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Son Rock Kids Camp

Everyone wanting to hear about our first day of VBS?? Well, it went well and we had 15 kids there....Praise God anyway!! I would have loved to report a larger number but considering that we only have 8 kids in our church now, we were proud that there were more than 8!! Three of our 8 regulars were not there due to being out of town. This just goes to show you how hard this area is to reach. God and church just is not a part of these people's lives. So we will press on and pray that each week it will grow and grow. Here are some pictures of the big day......

Our lesson for the day was about Jesus calling Simon Peter to be his disciple and how without Jesus' help, Peter was not catching any fish that particular day. Jesus told Peter to try the other side of the boat and when Peter was obedient, he caught tons of fish. The above picture is of our snack and I thought it was sooo cute....a pretzel rod for the fishing pole, licorice for the fishing string, gummy worm on the end, and fish crackers! Jesus called Simon Peter to become a "fisher of men" and Peter left his boat and followed Christ.

Are YOU a fisher of men? Have you told anyone lately about your Savior? Have you given up anything to "follow" HIM?

VBS Kick-Off Promotion

Since our return from the Grand Canyon, we have been very busy with getting ready for VBS. We are doing Gospel Light's "SonRock Kids Camp" and will be having it every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks. Because we don't have very many kids in the church, we planned two days of VBS promotion, one here in the Valley and one in the Forest Lake neighborhood. On Thursday we went around the Valley, inviting any children we saw outside, going door to door at homes that had "evidence" of children and putting fliers out at the stores, restaurants, and camp grounds. There is a neighborhood between here and town called Forest Lakes that has 800 houses in it so we targeted that area and went there Friday night to hand out fliers. Landon was the cutest thing, stopping cars coming into the neighborhood and handing out the fliers...(Mason was embarrassed for him! ....just the difference in personalities). We were very proud of his enthusiasum and willingness to serve in this outreach ministry!

So, on Saturday we had a block party at Forest Lakes with free hotdogs, cotton candy, popcorn, snowcones, and a big bouncy house for the kids to jump in. We had a good turnout with around 25 or so kids from the neighborhood. We turned around on Sunday and did it again here at the church for our community. The turnout for it was not as good as we wanted it to be but we had probably 15 or so kids that were not in our church come. MY kids had a blast both days, with unlimited jumping and cotton candy!! (We got all the equipment from the Colorado Baptist Association for $50...an incredible deal! You may want to check into seeing if the Alabama Baptist has something like that for churches to use).

After the VBS Kick Off Sunday, we then went to the community picnic at Camp Kanakuk, a summer christian youth camp that is here in the Valley. Food was good and it looks like they will be having a fun summer at the camp....So, I am exhausted from a busy weekend but ready for our first day of VBS tomorrow. Who knows how many will show up tomorrow but I am praying for a GOD SIZE amount of kids!