Catching up from a busy weekend!

We had a wonderfully busy weekend! It started on Friday night when we spent our family night doing our Haiti Christmas boxes. Since our church has 4 church plants that they support, we did shoe boxes for the children in Haiti where we have our "Church on the Street."

We went shopping at the Dollar Tree and found some great gifts for our children's boxes. Each girl donated some money from their allowance and so did Mom and Dad.

Anli had a little boy and Virginia has a girl around her age. They both enjoyed shopping!
We went home and put on some Christmas music and made hot chocolate. We had bought some fun wrapping paper for the girls to wrap all their presents inside the boxes. Then, they worked on handmade cards for each child. Pacey, well he's just a camera hog.

They were both so excited about giving to other children who don't have anything at all. Virginia also said that they would love this...you're right!
On Saturday morning we set out early for Auburn's Homecoming! We have taken the girls to Auburn every homecoming game since Virginia was born...they have literally grown up going to games! We met several of our college buddies there to tailgate. Most of them weren't going to the game, but came by to enjoy some fellowship and lots of laughs!
It's so wonderful to have awesome godly friends from college to get our kids together with each year. Most of us are in ministry in some way and love that our kids can enjoy each other!
The kids had a great time playing together from biggest to smallest. Kristen (in the middle back) had to stand right behind Sarah Frances because this is a BIG drop off! Aren't they all the cutest Auburn fans you have every seen?
OK, this is Sarah Frances...my best friend in the world (Kristen) little girl! She is the CUTEST thing and has gorgeous eyes. She is so precious and I got to spend lots of time holding and hugging on her. But, a few times she ditched me for Jay...what's up with that girlfriend?

Jay, Shane, and Kenny are best friends and have been ever since college days. They were even roommates for a while! It's great to have those friends that last a lifetime!
After a few hours of food, fun, and fellowship, we were off to the game! It was a gorgeous day filled with lots of sunshine and cool breezes. Perfect football weather! Jay's parents get season tickets...well, every year I have been married to him! We always get to go to homecoming and take the girls with us. It's a great time and we leave whenever the girls want to!It's great to be an Auburn Tiger!
The girls loved the game and all the fun of half-time activities! I think orange and blue hair suits them just fine.
We put on face tattoos at home...yet they didn't come off that night very well. Virginia still has sticky stuff on her face after a wash of rubbing alcohol, makeup remover, soap, water, plastic (yes, they said to rub plastic on it), and a repeat or two of all those again!

Here is a blast from Homecomings past:

2001

2002
2003...don't know where the family one is!
2004
2005
2006
2007

War Eagle...

Georgia Baptist Convention

Today was a great time of fellowship as a friend and I attended the annual Georgia Baptist Convention Ministers' Wives luncheon! We enjoyed a wonderful lunch and a table full of ministers' wives that we were able to meet. We also had a great music group from Hebron Baptist Church called By Design that shared in song and Anne Wright brought a message of God's provision in suffering.

Please keep me in prayer as I was presented as president-elect for the GBC Ministers' Wives for 2009 and will become president in 2010. It is a privilege to serve the ladies of Georgia and begin to mobilize them for missions! I also got a special treat by getting to see Barabara Curnutt again today at the luncheon. She was there to represent WMU and Women's Enrichment Ministries. I just love her and her heart for women in missions!

Thank you for constantly supporting this ministry in prayer. God is connecting so many women to dive into His Word and to minister to the world! I am so thrilled to know these women and to serve them. It was a wonderful luncheon and completely sold out attendance was awesome!

Great Meeting!

Today I had the amazing opportunity to meet with Paula Hemphill, Beth Ann Williams, and Barbara Curnutt from the WMU and Women's Enrichment today. Paula had set up this meeting and we had the best time sharing and brainstorming how to mobilize and minister to the women of Georgia...and the world! These women are leaders in women's ministry for the Georgia Baptist Convention and work passionately to love women.

It was awesome to sit and share with these ladies for over 2 hours! We had Bibles out sharing verses that God had placed on our hearts, shared our stories and passions, looked at the hard facts about where women are in our country and world are right now and how we can minister and mobilize them for Kingdom growth!

I look forward to what God is up to in 2009 and 2010 through these partnerships. We will be working on a few things that are in the "embryo" stage right now to truly give women a place to minister to other women personally. I am very excited and honored to be among such passionate women!

Barbara was truly a gift! She and I connected in an instant and I look forward to working and learning with her. She already has blessed my life!! It was wonderful to meet Beth Ann and we have 2 girls about the same age. It was wonderful to talk openly about women our age and how to encourage and exhort them! As always, it was great see Paula and reconnect after our recent trip to Poland. Happy Birthday, Paula!

Please continue to pray for me and Desert Flower Ministries as we see where and what God has for us in the coming years. He is placing me in new areas among awesome women that I will glean so much from. I just pray that I can be a servant in some way to these ladies as they share with me the needs of Georgia.

Tonight we are doing our shoe boxes and having a fun Christmas night! I can't wait! Tomorrow we are heading to Auburn for homecoming and tailgating with lots of friends from college days. We are so excited to see them and their kids as we eat yummy Guthries and hang out. We'll hit the game and see our Auburn Tigers! War Eagle...

James 3: A Story

This video was produced by Desiring God Ministries for a conference called "The Power of Words and the Wonder of God." My friend Chad placed this on his blog and I was blown away! I was convicted of my own use of words and my worship of God. I pray that this will touch you as it did me today.

A Good Laugh Today!

Jay sent me this in an email today...it is worth posting instead of forwarding it to people!

These two churches are across the street from each other:

What a good laugh I had over this! Have a great day today!

...yes it's fake...but fun anyway!

The Great Pumpkin!

This past weekend we had a great time hosting around 1,000 people at our fall festival! It was an amazing night and we had over 60 families who shared with us that they were not attending ANY church at all! We have a week full of follow up and praying for those families.

The next day, we took all of inflatables from the association and games to our apartment complex to reach more families with the love and Gospel of Christ.

It was a great turn out with over 100 residents and 50 Noonday family members. We are so thrilled that we were allowed to begin ministry at our complex...and our church is the first to do anything here! God seems to like us living and ministering in apartment complexes...and we just love it!!! This is the second complex in 4 years that we have had the

Even though Georgia was playing...our dedicated pastor came to minister! He even got into the swing of things by coming by and getting his face painted. But, he had to quickly wipe his face clean because he was taking his wife out to dinner afterwards! He's such a trip:)

Tonight, we enjoyed a great family night together. I have been loving my igoogle homepage so much...and I have a slow cooker gadget on there that gives me new recipes every day. Well, tonight I did a shepherd's pie in the crock pot and it was YUMMY! I love cooking in my crock pot and now that I am getting recipes every day I have been using it more and more.

We followed up our dinner with a new fall dessert...peanut butter ball pumpkins! WOW, were they rich and good. Jay loves peanut butter balls (dipped in chocolate, of course) so we did a little bit of a fall twist on them tonight...while still doing the traditional ones.

Jay helps us make one of his favorite holiday desserts!

Look how cute our little pumpkins are! Those are green sprinkles in the top...so they were edible too!

Jay turned on the election results on Fox a little later in the evening just to check in. Well, Anli got interested and started asking all kinds of questions. My favorite moment was when she called out to her sister..."Virginia! You are on TV! Come quick!"

We had a sweet moment when we talked about God being the one our total trust is in...no matter what happens tonight. She said, "If those two men would just not be president, then God could just be the president." You are so right, sweetie!

We watched a cute Charlie Brown that I had never seen called "You're Not Elected Charlie Brown." It was all about elections and it was really cute. I can't believe I had never seen it! Then, of course we had to watch The Great Pumpkin too in honor of making our pumpkin treats. We enjoyed a wonderful night together and were on our knees praying for our country and the two men running. It was sweet to hear my girls praying for those men.

Finally! I have my very own cornucopia! We finished up another batch of salt dough decorations today and both girls made me gifts just like they made for my grandmother on her birthday. I am thrilled to have these treasures! Isn't this just the cutest thing ever? I love it!

James 3: A Story

This video was produced by Desiring God Ministries for a conference called "The Power of Words and the Wonder of God." My friend Chad placed this on his blog and I was blown away! I was convicted of my own use of words and my worship of God. I pray that this will touch you as it did me today.

Rejoicing on election day!

I sent out a wonderful God-centered article on voting last week to several of my friends. I will share it below. It conveys the exact discussion Jay and I had last night together on our home date night. Today, some will be happy and some will be disappointed in our new president. But, this is a wonderful opportunity to show the world that God is our true King and He is in control! We can trust in His plan...not one of a president.

Our job is to be faithful in our freedom to vote in a way that we believe lines up with God's Word, and then place all our faith and trust in God alone! So REJOICE today! Rejoice and be glad even if those you voted for do not win this election. God is seated on His throne, high and lifted up!

Take time today to read 1 Samuel if you get a chance. Take notice of how David responds to Saul and the attitude of his heart. It's an amazing challenge to us right now! God's Word is so very relevant, isn't it? I am SOOO grateful that we have been walking through these passages in our LIFE group for the past month, and our group of ladies are ready to rejoice in God alone today! We know that God is the one who orders our steps and our lives. What a peace that passes all understanding!

Take the chance today to share that joy with someone...trust me everyone will be talking about it today:) Be a little salt in an uncertain and fearful world. Walk in faith...because that alone pleases God. Enjoy today and take time to share the Prince of Peace, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords with someone else today. What a great God we serve!

Please take a moment to read this article:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2008/3347/

Rejoicing on election day,
Frances

What a night!!

Last night was our church's fall festival...and it was amazing!!! I was so incredibly proud of our church and each LIFE group as they pulled together to make this truly a great fall festival. At one point our executive pastor informed us the we had passed the 1,000 people mark. Jay will count and see today how many of those are from other churches or those that are from the community.

My cute grils stop for just a minute for a photo in front our our trunk. We had a truck (thanks Sommer) but had a real trunk in it to store our candy!

This was my favorite overall trunk! It was an awesome antique car with a cute country theme. They even had mason jars in their trunk! Their games was a clothespin drop and Virginia said it was her favorite.

Each LIFE group did their own (on their own budget) car trunk for the kids to get candy and then they each had their own game for them to play. We had everything from a real dunking booth (brrr....), a helicopter to take pictures in front of and explore... football throws, inflatables, hot dogs, snow cones, and much more! Great job everyone for pulling together in spite of this economic crunch and prove that it doesn't take a lot of money to reach out to your community! It just takes a group of people who love and believe in God...and it was awesome!
Here are a few of our women from the class. But, we had LOTS of ladies and their daughters come to help face paint. We had a blast and the weather was gorgeous!

The Thrive women's LIFE group put together the face painting. Our theme for our trunk was Kingdom Kids...princesses and princes. It was a blast and all the kids loved it!

I loved the group next to us, because it was a football tent...and they had a wonderful Auburn banner and little Auburn corvette there. We enjoyed playing over there and enjoying a little bit of Auburn in the midst this Bulldog country. We loved feeding our family for $4.50! That bought us hot dogs, chips, and drinks! That's what I call a yummy meal!! Aren't these girls the cutest? Anli stops by our booth to get a clown face before she hits the games!

I had to work my LIFE group's booth painting face after face, so my hubby took the girls around all night. It was perfect for him since he took that opportunity to check on every booth, talk to parents, and making sure everything was running smoothly. You may notice that there is a little boy Jay is holding hands with...yep, that would be my husband watching another ladies' child while she worked a booth. My husband is AMAZING!!! I'm so BLESSED!!!

Now, I have to stop right here and talk about my husband's new role as children's minister. For the past 11 years, I have only known life as a youth minister's wife. I had grown accustomed to a husband whose ministry did not actively target or include my kids...and thus me after a while. I couldn't go on the trips because someone had to stay home with our children. He was totally gone in the summer and we would try to be as involved as we could, but his ministry and focus was on youth...and my kids are kids!

I can't even begin to describe how amazing life for our family is with daddy being a children's minister. We are together ALL the time! He's not gone at night...because children are asleep! The camps he will lead this summer...my kids are going...not as drag alongs but as participants! And I am going too as a chaperone...oh I love it! He is with them in Sunday School, children's church, in AWANA...you get the picture. Jay's full time job completely revolves around our children and family since we are the very people his focus is on daily.

Now, I loved youth. I am grateful for that season of our lives...but this one is just so perfect for where we are right now. Everything Jay is involved in...our children are involved in!

God, I just want to thank you for that right now. Thank you for this season and the gift it has been to our family. You are amazing!

Lots of friends were there and it was great to not only see lots of people we knew, but more people we had never met! Laura is a sweet friend we met in choir.

We had a great time and Jay did a fantastic job organizing the whole thing. Today, we are taking all those games and do an apartment Block Party right here at our apartment complex. We pray that people will come out today and we can share the love of Christ with them. What an amazing opportunity to reach out and love our community!