church
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day 5: estes park.
One of the best surprises of our trip is that the church gave us gifts before we left: a fun U.S.A. travel journal, and this pack of envelopes. There’s a card and gift from a person or family for every single day we’re gone. We’re overwhelmed and humbled by this creative gift of love from our church family. We gather around in the morning to open our “card for the day,” and I cry at each one. Thank you more than words can express for your words of encouragement, generosity in giving us money and gift cards for special treats along the way, and for celebrating this trip with us.…
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cpc retreat 2018.
Retreat Scripture passage: Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right to the present.…
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sunday gratitude.
Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together 1. Freedom to worship God publicly. 2. Installing 3 new elders and 3 new deacons this morning. Men and families who are enthusiastic about serving. 3. Seeing friends get plugged into other forms of serving the church, knowing serving will bless them even as they bless others. 4. New faces and very, very familiar faces. 5. Watching people step outside their friend groups and their comfort zones to greet guests and make them feel welcome. 6. The…
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weekend.
We’ve had an unseasonably warm winter here in Columbia, which is perfect for the various projects we have going on. And we have a LOT going on. This may be a good time to tell you that we’ve found a home for our church, Columbia Pres! We just signed a long-term lease on a building in the Cottontown neighborhood of downtown. It’s right in-between where we live and where CPC currently meets on Main St. We’re so excited about our new space! It’s in a really fun area, and a coffee shop is about to open next door! We start major renovations in the next few weeks and hope to…
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what worked and what didn’t in 2016.
Hello my friends! I hope your Christmas was great! We had a wonderful holiday weekend, and then I woke up on Monday and wanted every single decoration taken down, stowed away in the attic, pine needles swept, and our house organized. As you well know, I have a much lower threshold for clutter nowadays. All the kids have to purge some toys before Christmas or birthdays, but we did even more on Monday, and reorganized their rooms to accommodate new things without losing dozens of Lego pieces throughout the house (which David and I inevitably step on). Now our home is back to normal and everyone’s at peace and getting…
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six things on friday.
Happy Friday, dear friends! Here are six things that are making my life a little happier these days: 1. We have a holiday and birthday cinnamon roll tradition. David’s birthday was October 7, but we had a few busy weekends in a row, so I finally made his cinnamon rolls this week. Homemade cinnamon rolls are something I was intimidated by until my friends in India showed me how very easy they are. Now I’m teaching Amie how to make them. If you’re interested, here’s our tried-and-true recipe. I prepare them the night before and then bake them the next morning and whip up a quick glaze. 2. A monumental…
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an ode to book and tea club.
Happy Monday and happy April! I hope that even if you live in the north, you’re beginning to shed layers and see signs of spring. The pollen is starting to ease up here and as you can see from the photo, the azaleas are bursting into bloom, which is one of my favorite things about this time of year (also: open windows, longer days, not having to remember jackets for four kids). We’re headlong into year two of the Book and Tea Club that my mother-in-law, Linda, and I started last January. It was born out of a longtime dream of mine to start a book club, and the years…
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lately.
Hello friends! I can’t explain the feelings of relief and joy I have now that March is here and spring is around the corner. I remember that it’s around this time every year (right around the time I can wear flip flops once again) that I begin to feel more like myself. I don’t like to use the word “busy,” but I’d describe our winter and this coming month as full. Very full. I began leading a life group, David’s doing three weddings in four months, we’re searching for a new worship place for our church, we’re starting on our house addition, and of course we have normal life and…
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easter party.
Easter is the most important holiday of the year for David and me, because it’s our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. For most of our marriage, we’ve tried to celebrate in style, whether it was brunch and mimosas with friends during seminary, a rooftop terrace get-together in South Asia, or buying our kids a special Easter gift each year. Because this is our day of days; it’s the reason we have for the hope within us. And so this year we threw a party in our backyard for our church, a week late to allow more folks to come. The band who played at our adoption fundraiser, Volcanoes…
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particularization.
“Particularization” is a fancy Presbyterian word for when a church moves from being a mission church to being a fully organized church with elders and deacons. We had a service two weeks ago celebrating CPC’s particularization. And it was truly a celebration. I was overwhelmed looking out over a sea of faces I love, some old friends and some new, thanking God for how many people worked and prayed and gave to help make this dream a reality. From day one things have raced along at an incredible speed, and I suppose that’s a good thing in that we haven’t had half a chance to settle down and grow comfortable.…
