our youth party!

Here are some pics of our youth group and the graduation party we had for them!

Need prayer

Please keep one of our youth in your prayers.  Her father has been dealing with ALOT of health issues over that past couple of years and the mother was just told by the hospital that it would be wise to make "arrangements".  This girl is too young to be going through this.  She is a Christian, but we are not sure about either parent.  She comes to youth regularly, but her parents haven't been to Discovery.  Please pray that Claude & I will have wisdom to know what to do and what to say to help out the best we can.

Also, I need some prayer.  I've been feeling kinda icky today.  Sore throat started when I woke up.  As the day progressed, I started feeling kinda like I was sideswiped by a truck.  Claude blames it on Jason having the truck air so cold yesterday on our trip to/from Raleigh.  (Jason bought a Apple desktop, but don't remind Lora because she's still getting over the shock of how much it cost!).  

Anyway, just send a prayer up for me that I feel better SOON!  There's alot coming up and I need to be in tip top shape.

Graduation Nite!

OH!  I couldn't have been any more excited or prouder if these kids would've been my own!  

We got to go to the graduation of 4 of our 5 seniors last nite!  It was wild to see so many kids graduate!  (Of course, this is coming from a girl whose graduating class had 42 students!)  To see 350+ kids in cap & gowns was AWESOME!  Anyway, here are some pictures of "our kids"!

This is Megan and her Mom & little brother!  Isn't she adorable!?!  She's our HAPPY youth!  She NEVER frowns (and I mean NEVER!).  Her face will not do a frown!  She always makes everyone smile!

Megan and another of our kids, John!  They are so cute together!  When John first started coming to Discovery Church, he was a sophomore and BOY was he a handful!  It's been the most amazing thing to watch this crazy boy grow into a funny, caring, respected young man.  I am humbled that God allows us to work with such wonderful young people, like John.

Here's John with his little sister, Izzy (I call her Dizzy!).  They are the neatest pair!  I've never seen a brother and sister have a closer relationship than these two.  

John is heading off to the Marines in a couple of months.  Of course, we don't talk about that right now, because it makes Izzy sad.

I'm just grateful that I still have Izzy for another 2 years before I have to say goodbye to her!

This is Alex!  He's only been with our crew for about a year!  The first time he came to youth, we thought he was a college student who wanted to work WITH the youth!!!!  We call him "Fuzzy Alex" for obvious reasons!  He has a very dry and ironic sense of humor!  We just love him to death!!!!

I love this picture!  It's a great one of Claude and Alex.  

This is a picture of Kaitlyn and JC (and their respective parents).  JC and his sister, Courtney, have been coming to Crosslink for a while, but Kaitlyn just started hanging out with the crew recently.  She and JC are adorable together.  She is funny and he is a smart-alec, but we love him anyway!  Seriously though, we adore JC.  He adds so much to the group and has great leadership qualities!  I'm really gonna miss him. He's gonna stay local though.  He'll be going to ECU.  Kaitlyn will be leaving us to go to Campbell University which is about 1 1/2 hours away.  We told her we will come visit and go shopping with her since she's close to Raleigh!!!!

JC and his sister, Courtney, do NOT have the same relationship that John and Izzy have!  JC and Courtney are a typical sibling relationship.  He loves to pick on her, but when it comes down to it, he'd defend her to the very end.  I love them.  They are just so much fun!!!  They kinda remind me of my older brother and myself!  

Here's all the guys from South Central HS!  from left to right:

John Cobb, JC Lommatzsch, Ryan (not sure of his last name, just met him!), and Alex Lorentz.

I'm so proud of these kids!  They are really gonna be missed in our group.  

How does a parent do this?!?  How do you let go?  Maybe God knew what He was doing by not giving me kids of my own!  I would never want to let them grow up and leave!  

We had a fabulous time!  Graduation parties practically every night last week and then the final day came and went off without a hitch (except for JC tripping while walking in during the opening ceremonies!  That was HILARIOUS!  Only because it was JC!)

We love you all graduates of '09!

To our graduates from Florida, we thought about you and are sorry we couldn't be there for yours.  Congratulations!!!!  Well Done!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!

Precious treasures

I can honestly say the only thing I don't like about living in North Carolina is the fact that my beautiful nieces are in Florida.  I miss so much of their growing.  My wonderful mother takes lots of pictures and so I'm not totally left out of the loop!  Here are some precious treasures!

She's gonna be a supermodel someday!!!!

(Rose - 3 1/2 years old)

She can be rocker or sweet and sassy!  See, I told you she's gonna be a supermodel someday!

Then, there's Dahlia!  She is the "sweet pickle" of the group! At least that's what my brother calls her!  He says she's as sweet as she can be, but she can also be a pickle!  Mom says she's so funny because even at 1 1/2 years old, she bosses the others around!!!  

She's such a precious little thing!  She's got the most expressive eyes!  Man, do I love her!

Well, even if I don't have children of my own, I can at least know that some of my looks and my "distinct" personality traits are being passed down!  You gotta love the blood relations! 

A wake up call

You know, lately God has been really opening my eyes to how "human" I am and how "human" those around me are.  I was reading a blog about a church plant pastor in Georgia who, after 5 years of growing his church to over 1000 believers, had an affair with his assistant.  I am at a loss over this.  I have so many thoughts that go thru my mind over this type of thing.  My "human" side wants to know WHY did he do it?  WHY did he let his guard down?  WHY did he allow himself to be in a position that would open those doors?  Then, my "human" side gets very angry because it makes me think about the possibilities that could happen in my relationship with my husband.  It makes me doubt our commitment.  It makes me feel vulnerable.  It brings up memories of last September and what our church had to go thru.  

Then, my "Godly" side tries to remember the grace that God has shown me MILLIONS of times.  

My gracious wonderful God loves me and forgives me OVER AND OVER again.  He gently reminds me that NO ONE is perfect and NO ONE can be put on a pedestal.  Everyone will fall (all have sinned and fall short!).  My shortcomings and my sins may be "small" from a human perspective.  But, God doesn't have ruler for sin.  SIN IS SIN.  

So, I still have a difficult time getting past these kinds of things.  I'm just so grateful that God doesn't have a difficult time getting past my sins.  

Please pray for your leaders in your churches.  They have struggles and Satan attacks them relentlessly.  Please ask the Lord to guard them and put a hedge of protection around them daily.

Wonderful reminder

God reminded me today thru a wonderful friend, Jenn, just how blessed I am.  You see, it's been tight financially and of course, I worry.  I KNOW, I shouldnt worry about it.  God takes care of our needs.  Well, it's easy to know in my heart, but my head is logical.  And you know God...sometimes things don't work logically!  Anyway, I got up, fed the animals, had my time, paid our mortgage, went to Wal-mart and got groceries (BTW, healthy food is RIDICULOUSLY OVERPRICED!!!!), came home, went back to the gym to work out, went with Claude to get him a pair of jeans that ACTUALLY FIT HIM, then came home.  All this before noon.  I went online to check our account and got a little anxious.  The beginning of the month is always tight, but more so lately.  I started feeling a bit discouraged.  

Then, I read Jenn's blog.  She reminded me that I am blessed.  Sure, there may not be "extra" money around, but our bills are paid and we have a lovely house with air conditioning (Thank U Claude for being such a handy man!  I love you so much!).  We have food for me to fix fairly healthy meals!  We have vehicles that are paid for and STILL RUNNING (thank you Lord!)  We have a wonderful church and great friends who love us and pray for us.  We are blessed to have our overall health.  We have family who love us and pray for us.  We have neighbors who are actually opening up to us (again, God thank you for my husband and the wonderful Godly man that he is!).  We have opportunities to work with some of the best kids in the world!  I love them so much.  We have great leadership in our church.  We have so much more than I can list.  How great is my God that He gently reminds me of all the blessings He's given to us.  

Thank you Lord! 

Cool Story!

OK, we work with the youth at our church (or they work with us, still not sure!!!).  Last night, we had a special "ceremony" that all began because of the guys doing a Bible study on sexual purity.  Anyway, Claude had a firepit and gave each of the youth a deck of cards.  He told them to set aside the aces.  Then, he asked each of them to think about some things that they struggle with that they want the Lord to take away/help them with.  Once they'd done that, he asked them to throw the cards on the fire...one card for small struggles, more cards for the bigger things they struggle with.  Finally, he asked them to take each of the aces and use them as a reminder of their commitment.  Each ace has a specific place:

• clubs - in the car - to remind them while they are with friends driving around
  
• hearts- in the wallet - to remind them while they are out in general
  
• diamonds - by the computer - to remind them that they are a diamond in the rough and not to settle for generic/counterfeit
• spades - in the Bible - to remind them everytime they read God's word that they are the best "in the deck" and no one is as good at being THEM as they are.

So, here are some pics of them last night.  I couldn't help but cry.  I love these kids!  They are so awesome!!!!!