VBS

Ok you’re probably going to see several posts within the next couple of days.  I’m realizing that my “family blog” that was intended to keep up with the fun happenings of our family, has turned into the monthly Garrett post blog…and that’s it.  I’ve been so busy and just haven’t made updating the blog a priority.  I’m trying to do better so I’ve made a list of all the things that have happened to our family that I need to update on so I will be working on completing that list over the next couple of days.  First up-VBS!

If you haven’t heard of VBS, it’s Vacation Bible School.  Lots of churches host these “schools” in the summer to keep kids interested in the Bible and also still doing fun crafts and things like that.  Technically, Carter isn’t old enough for VBS at our church.  He’s supposed to have completed 3k (he starts 3K next month) but he was able to do it because I volunteered.  I worked as a crew leader for the 2K/3K kids so that I could have Carter in my group.

It was held at our church from Sunday night through Thursday night from 6-8:30pm.  We began each night singing in the sanctuary and learning the songs that they would perform at the parent concert on Thursday night as well as for our entire church congregation the following Sunday morning.

The theme we used was Mount Everest.  Several churches used that theme this year.  Mrs. Kristi did a FANTASTIC job decorating the entire church to look like Base Camp!

These three LOVED the music part!  May or may not have had something to do with Nana’s involvement in the music…

I probably shouldn’t have been taking pictures during prayer time, but I couldn’t help it.  Watching him pray just melted my heart!!!!

After Music, the kids went to the gym for some playtime.  They did all kinds of things that revolved around the Mount Everest theme.  Carter’s favorite day was the last day that included a silly string fight and some time playing with a big parachute and some balls.

This was one of the games we played.  Where the adults “rescued” the kids (they were supposed to be hikers in trouble) and carried them back to base camp.

This is me and Jamie and Jordan.  We’re all in the same Sunday School class and Jordan’s kids were in the same group as Carter.

We couldn’t believe Mr. Jeff could get that many kids to sit on the curb and listen to his instructions!

Of course he picked the blue silly string.  Didn’t expect anything less!

Papa came by one night to check on his grandkids.  Their faces say it all.  They adore their Papa.

After some games in the gym, the kids headed to the “Imagination Station” which was basically arts & crafts. 

These are ravens.  The kids learned about how God fed Elijah by having ravens drop food.

The second night we talked about how God comforts us so we had them spell comfort in cotton balls.  The next night we talked about how God forgives us and we ripped up pieces of paper and for each piece we said something we do that’s bad (our sins) and then we washed them away in a bowl.

After that, the kids headed over to Bible Time where they heard Mrs. Lisa tell stories about the prophet Elijah each night.  These kids were completely captivated by her!  It’s not easy to get a group of 25 3 year olds to sit still and listen to a story but they did for her!!

After Bible Time they went to snack time where they got a different snack every night and watched a DVD about Mount Everest (it was a cartoon with characters that talked in 3 year old terms…not something you and I would see on the Discovery Channel).  The crew leaders took a break during the snack time and that’s when we went to eat dinner so I only have one picture of snack time.

On Thursday night was the concert for the parents…

Carter had SOOOOO much fun and I’m not kidding when I say that the dang VBS CD hasn’t come out of my CD Player in my car in two weeks.  He requests to listen to those songs over and over and over and over.  Momma is beyond tired of these darn songs, but he loves them and I love hearing him sing about God and how powerful he is so I put up with it!

Garrett’s Baptism

On March 1, 2015, Justin and I had Garrett baptized at our church.  The service was done by our sweet Associate Pastor, Don Cross.  Don means so much to our family.  He married me and Justin, he was at the hospital when I was laboring and delivering Carter, he baptized Carter on April 29, 2012, he took me to the Holy Land with our church in February/March 2014 and baptized me in the Jordan River, he was there when I was laboring and delivering Garrett and now he has also baptized Garrett.  Needless to say, he and his wife are basically my boys third set of grandparents.

What was so special about Garrett’s baptism was the circumstances behind it.  Let me rewind to a little over a year ago when Justin and I found out we were pregnant with baby #2 in November 2013.  We were really excited, but unfortunately, that pregnancy was ectopic and we lost the baby around 6 weeks.  I was devastated.  But I never lost faith.  I knew God had a plan for our family and waited patiently extremely anxiously for it to be revealed to me.  It took over a month for the termination process to be complete but once it was we were told to wait another month before trying again, which we did.  Lucky for us, we were able to get pregnant again right afterwards.  I found out I was pregnant just days before heading to Israel with the church.  After coming off a loss, I was beyond reluctant to tell anyone I was pregnant.  It was extremely difficult to keep it to myself in Israel, particularly because I was with my in-laws, but I did.  Don baptized me and several others in the Jordan River in the exact spot where John baptized Jesus.   Again, he had no idea that I was pregnant at the time, but I did.  And the uniqueness of the situation was overwhelming for me.  I knew that when I went into that water, that Garrett was inside me, that we were getting baptized together.  I spent that entire trip praying that God would let this baby stick and that he/she would join us as planned in October. 

Fast forward to when we had the ultrasound and heard a heartbeat.  We came to my in-laws house to pick up Carter (they kept him while we went to the doctor) and we called Don and Ina to tell them the news.  I got them on speakerphone and said “Don remember when you baptized me in the river?”  He said “yes” then I said “well, technically you baptized two of us”.  Not sure what all was said after that….Ina was screaming a lot. 

Fast forward almost a year and I’m planning Garrett’s baptism.  I of course wanted Don to perform the service and since he’s usually our contemporary pastor, I had to pick the dates that he was already doing the traditional service, which narrowed down my options significantly.  It was either March 1st, March 15th or mid-April.  March 15th was out because my mom had to work that day.  April was out because I had already gotten Garrett’s baptism romper in and it fit perfectly so if we had to wait until April, he would likely have outgrown it.  So it had to be March 1st.  We invited friends and family, planned for a lunch at our house afterwards and Ina (Don’s wife) even saved some Jordan River water from our trip and boiled it to sanitize it so that we could use it for his baptism to commemorate the fact that he was technically baptized in the Jordan once already.

On the way to church Sunday morning, the morning of the baptism, I look at my timehop app (if you’re not familiar with this let me explain real quick-this app links to your social media accounts and shows you what you posted on that exact date in the past several years) and low and behold, I see the picture of Don and my father-in-law baptizing me in the river.

My heart just sank.  How could it be possible that I had planned my son’s baptism and not even realized that it was on the anniversary of my own baptism in the Jordan???  I was floored.  Naturally, Don already knew it was one year, but I guess I just didn’t realize it.  Before he called us up to perform the baptism, he told the congregation the story that I told above.  It made the baptism so special for me.  HUGE thanks to my friend Tiffany that took a video of it for me so that I could always have it.  In case you’re interested in watching the video, click here.   For some reason I can’t get the video to post directly on this page like I used to be able to do, which is extremely frustrating, so all I can do now is post the link for you to go to if you’re interested.

Here’s several pictures from the big day!

**I’m fairly certain that I’m making faces in the above picture to keep Garrett from crying**

Love this picture of Don carrying Garrett around the church so that his new church family could get a closer look at him….though you could see those Michelin thighs from a mile away!!!!!

The Morris Family!!

 

The Smith Family (my sister and her family)

 

Gigi (my mom)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don and Ina

Nana and Papa (Justin’s parents)

 

The Rogers Family – my grandfather, dad, aunt, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, niece and cousins.

Just Garrett with mommy and daddy

 

Morris family one more time.

And of course I had to take a picture with my baby next to this banner!

 

The yummy cake from Edgar’s Bakery that we ate after lunch!

Of course the kids needed a more “fun” dessert ;)

Excited about those blue cupcakes!!

 

I wish I had taken more photos of our friends and family at the house after the service, but I was just too caught up in talking to people and enjoying their company so I didn’t take many at all!  Regardless, it was an amazing day and one that I will always remember. 

I am Peter

Right now, all the Sunday School classes at our church are reading a book called “The 3 Colors of Ministry” by Christian A. Schwarz-NCD Discipleship Resources.  This is my  kind of book.  Why?  Because it has lots of quizzes that tell you about yourself!  Within the first chapter, you have to take a quiz that tells you which Bible character you are most like and that person’s strengths and deficiencies when it comes to the ministry.  Let me give a little bit of background.

The three colors of ministry are:

• Green – represents wisdom (The Creator)
• Red – represents commitment (Jesus)
• Blue – represents power (The Spirit)

Overall, the diagram associated with these looks like this:

 

Then you take a quick little quiz that looks like this:

Based on the number of points you accumulate in each column, you have to draw a circle within the above diagram.  Mine looked like this:

Which was the most similar to this character:

 

The above character wheel is for Peter.  Everyone knows Peter and the things he did and said during Jesus’ reign.  As I was reading about Peter and what his strengths and weaknesses are, I realized that I am SO much like him.  Let me give you some tid bits:

• When Jesus walked on water during the storm while the disciples were scared in the boat, Peter was the only one that walked on water towards Jesus (even though he did eventually fall through the water).
• Peter was famous for denouncing Jesus three times, but he was also the only disciple that followed Jesus into the courtyard, while all the others disappeared.
• When the Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus in the garden, Peter jumped to Jesus’ defense and cut off the Roman’s ear to protect his Lord, but what he didn’t realize was that wasn’t what Jesus wanted.

Peter is a risk-taker.  He is passionate.  He is willing to die for the cause because he is so faithful.  He jumps into the deep end (literally) based on his faith.  His faith gives him the power, the strength, to be a risk-taker.  Because of all these things, Jesus said to him “On this rock, I will build my church.” – Matthew 16:18.  Peter had both power (moved by the Spirit) and commitment (moved by his faith in Christ), but what he lacked was wisdom.

Peter was too rash.  Too quick to defend something and didn’t take a minute to think things through.  He cut off the Roman’s ear without really thinking.  I mean, Jesus had been preaching for some time now about how his life would end.  He’d even told them at the last supper that very night that he would die.  Peter knew that Jesus needed to die for our salvation.  But that’s not what he was thinking about when he got all sword-happy and chopped off an ear.  He wasn’t rational, he jumped too quickly. 

Peter could be considered one of Jesus’ overzealous followers.  And sometimes, his overzealous followers can be more damaging to his cause than non-Christians.  So what does that mean for us Peter’s out there?  What can we do to keep this from happening?

In the book of Acts, Peter began to grow in his wisdom.  So it’s possible for us to grow too.  Growing means knowing what you need to work on and praying for God to work on you in that area.  Lately, I have been praying for wisdom, like our ole buddy Solomon.  See, what’s weird about this whole thing, is that after reading 1 Kings, the book where Solomon asks for wisdom, I realized that I needed to be praying for wisdom.  I can’t remember how long ago it was that I was in 1 Kings, if I had to guess, I’d say it was back towards the beginning of the year.  But when reading about Solomon, it just hit me that I also should be praying for wisdom.  It’s weird that I knew that this was my weak spot before ever taking this test.  So of course once I took the test and read what it meant that I was Peter, I knew it was dead on (and I could also see God up in Heaven looking down on me saying “told ya”.  He does have a sense of humor you know!)  I have truly felt God deliver in this area in several ways.  Part of the reason I began my journey of reading the Bible front to back was because I realized I lacked wisdom of scripture.  I knew the big Bible stories you learn about when you’re a kid in youth group, but I had never sat down to read the things that happened in between those big Bible stories.  I truly believe that reading the Bible has helped with my lack of wisdom and it’s part of my prayer every day. 

I am a huge believer in “ask and you shall receive”.  If you ask God to reveal to you what you need to work on, he will!  And he will tell you how to work on it.  But you have to ask first…and you have to be open to his signs.  He isn’t going to make a hand appear and write a message on a wall (the book of Daniel) for you to see.  He will tell you in other ways.  He may use someone else to tell you what you need to work on.  So if you do ask God for a sign, you have to keep your eyes open!

Chapter 1 ends with a pretty spectacular quote:  “God loves to use imperfect people”.  Ain’t that the truth!!!  Peter didn’t have wisdom, but he was used to build God’s church.  Moses didn’t have power (Moses wasn’t a great speaker-God gave him his brother Aaron for that) but God used him to free his people.  Jonah didn’t have commitment (he resisted God’s will) but he was used to save the people of Nineveh. This is a recurring theme in the Bible.  God has always used imperfect people to accomplish his will!