Say YES!

My wonderful small group just finished a bible study on Lysa Terkeurst's "What Happens When Women Say YES to God". It's a fantastic and encouraging book as well as challenging. God definitely used that book and our group to change my relationship with Him. I believe everyone else in the group feels the same. I absolutely love getting together and hearing how the Lord is speaking to us each individually in such different ways through the same study. And we know it's from Him because it's beyond what we would do on our own. LOVE IT!

Next up: "Radical" by David Platt: radicalthebook.com

I'm scared, but really excited! It's going to be really challenging. Looking forward to going through it together!

Garden Galore!!

I had never planted or grown anything more than a few flowers in my window box back home, which died shortly thereafter because flowers don't like it when a cat sleeps on top of them.

Last year, a good friend of ours plowed up a small patch in our back yard and I started a little vegetable garden.

Well, I caught the gardening bug (the photo above is from early this summer). I'm all about growing everything possible now. It's so amazing to eat something that you put work into planting and caring for and harvesting... And I'm planning to do more next year. It is hard to keep up with, but I'm learning more and more about how to do things efficiently. Honestly, it's a stress reliever for me, and I enjoy getting outside and directing any energy or frustration into working the garden. It's great.

My crazy walrus shaped potato!

The herbs & vegetables that we have received from the garden this year:

cilantro

basil

lavender

apple mint

peppermint

tomatoes

green beans

potatoes

chard

lettuce

spinach

broccoli

green bell pepper

jalapenos
zucchini

squash

Obviously, I feel it was worth it!

Next on my list:

-Learn how to can, and

-go organic!

If you have any tips, I could definitely use them!!

Family Vacation!!!

My family came up to visit us this summer and we had a great time. We went peach picking at a wonderful local farm, Backwoods Berry Farms. Ben and Christy and I went there at the end of June to pick blueberries. Yum. (By the way, the produce there is fantastic!)

We did some tourist stuff including Lincoln's Tomb and the Lincoln Presidential Museum (http://www.alplm.org/), which was pretty cool.

Spent time with friends, shopping, playing mario kart...
Went to a Cardinals-Phillies game in St. Louis,

(Cardinals won 7-1)

We took some family pictures - first ones with Ben!

Overall, a great visit - just way too short. I miss them already!

The church heard round the world

My very dear friend, Christy is visiting us from Texas and going to be speaking with Ben this Sunday, July 4th about The Church. Last week Ben's message was about The Church in our own communities, and this week it is going to be on The Church Worldwide. Christy was a missionary to Kajo Kegi, Sudan for six months. She will be sharing her story, experiences, and photos from the trip. We are going to look at what The Church looks like outside of our western mindset. It's going to be great!

Join us at Waverly Christian Church this Sunday at 10am!

More than a Good Bible Study Girl

I've started a new book study with some friends from Waverly. It's called Becoming More than a Good Bible Study Girl.
Some of this week's section was on our time alone with God and learning to study His Word on our own. Might sound like the same old thing you've heard a thousand times, but this really brought it into a new light for me. I have had the BEST time studying the bible the past few days just after getting that clearly-defined push from the lesson and friends. God has been speaking to me on how He reveals Himself... and it's been so refreshing. I had felt so incompetent and overwhelmed the past few weeks, and getting to hear from the Lord has filled me back up and renewed a hunger for Him. It's wonderful.

Fun photo

First day blogging, having an interesting time trying to figure out how to run everything here. Sad but true; I'm not very good with learning new sites - it's all I can do to keep up with facebook, and I'm failing miserably at that.

I was playing around with pictures last night, this is one of our cousins' beautiful baby girls, Livie.

More photos coming soon!