Greg in Mozambique, Africa

Greg is loving his time in Africa right now! Here he is helping to build a playground for some kids. They are working with Children's Cup, an organization that cares for orphans in Africa, and Healing Place Church, an awesome church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You can follow their trip at the Mozambique blog!

Mozambique is located on the south-east coast of Africa. It borders Swaziland, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania. They have gotten to spend some great time with the missionaries who are there. This area of Africa has a big Islamic influence, so the Gospel is greatly needed. I love Children's Cup because they are meeting a huge need in Africa - caring for orphans - and spreading the love of Jesus. Because of the AIDS epidemic, Africa has more orphans than it can handle. This creates a huge opportunity to practically show the love of God. I'm so glad to be a part of what God is doing in Africa!

Water Hose Wrangler

Check out our crazy puppy Cocoa (affectionately known as "Loco Cocoa" by John Farmer)! He loves to help us roll in the water hose. We call him our "Water Hose Wrangler."

What Are Americans Really Worried About?

David Wakerly of Hillsong Church in Australia (Kid Inspiration) blogged about this study recently done by the folks at Barna Research.

With the 2008 presidential election campaign well underway, a new survey suggests that the biggest issue of them all may well be one that leaders do not seem to be focused upon: the well-being of America’s children…

Trailing the focus on children were matters such as improving national security (72%); helping the poor and disadvantaged (69%); upgrading the reliability and honesty in news reporting (63%); increasing the nation’s investment in environmental protection (60%); and enhancing the state of marriage and families (60%).

I don't know about you, but this is NOT what I'm hearing about in the news, but this is what people are really worried about! I think this is a reason our recent Parenthood series at church has been so great! David expressed my opinion too - "If the government won’t focus on kids, then hey… let the church lead the way!"

Facebook vs. MySpace

Ok, I just discovered Facebook and I love it! I've been using MySpace for a little bit now, but I totally think Facebook is cool. Sure it's not as "personality" driven - like the layouts on MySpace, but it's so intense on connecting you to people. Everything can be a network. And I have to say I'm a sucker for the icons. Very cute and clean looking. You can also see all on your homepage when your friends update anything on their site. I got on it because one of the children's ministry blogs I read encouraged everyone to get on to discuss stuff. Now I'm addicted. :)

What do you think - which is better Facebook or MySpace?

I Love My Life car stickers

Don't miss your chance to get your very own "I Love My Life" car sticker from John and Aimee Farmer. The stickers are $5 each and you can see Nicki Cooper to get yours. All proceeds go towards Kingdom Builders.

Here's a picture of the sticker on a car window.

Here We Are...Three Services!

Sunday was a great day in God's House! We had almost 1500 people (1470) in the house, with 383 in Kids Life. That met and exceeded our attendance goal this year of 350! 26 Fresh Starts and 57 first-time guest cards filled out - it was an overall great day! Thank you to all our awesome teams for pulling together and making 3 services look easy. I'm so proud of all of you guys!

And the days leading up to the weekend were incredible. Some shout outs to:

Aimee Farmer - cleaning out the nursery/preschool area

Nicki Cooper and Linda Wong - for making sense of the crazy Nursery/Preschool closet

Ryan Emerson, Christian Santiago, and RJ Vergara - for persevering and making the Kids Life stage look awesome!

Melissa Horn, Kissy Blanchard, Tammy Wade, Kristi Shack and Gwen Lee- for cleaning and organizing like mad dogs

Vasan, Sherrie (and family), Amanda Meneses, and Belinda Russell - for making JKL shine

I hope I didn't forget anyone!! Thank you to everyone who did such a great job this weekend with the prep work. It COULD NOT have been done without you.

Vacation Bible School finished on Friday. The last day was awesome! We had a special offering of canned and non-perishable food. The food will go to our church's brand new Food Pantry that John and Rennie Williams are coordinating. It was awesome seeing the kids give so freely! We asked the children to bring one item, but most brought a whole bag full! I know it's parents helping their kids learn to give joyfully and freely - and I think it's an incredible lesson to learn at a young age.

I actually had the opportunity to help a family in need last week with some items from our Food Pantry. It was a great feeling to know that we had something to give them, but we completely depleted the supply with just that one family (they had 6 kids)! Hopefully our VBS offering will set us up to help many more families and always have plenty to give away. Doesn't God say that He gives seed to the sower...that's exactly what He did. How awesome is He!
(cool pic thanks to RJ Vergara!)

Vacation Bible School

 

Vacation Bible School is in full swing this week! We are having a blast! Wednesday's craft was a Prayer Bear. The kids made two - one to keep and one to give away to orphans in Africa. Ours are going to Mozambique with a mission team from our church - that includes my husband Greg. I just love this idea that the kids are learning now the joy of giving! And they are learning to be concerned about what's happening around the world, rather than just their own world. It's awesome!