Videos anyone??

Okay, Okay. I know. I've been gone for like forever. I am truly sorry. And even at this point in the game, I don't have much to say. BUT, have no fear. I have some really funny videos of the kids at my mom and dad's house. You remember, like forever ago when we met the Chaney's in Arkansas and played all weekend long??? Yeah, those kids. Anyway, one is of them running up and down the hallway laughing more than you would think possible. The other one is just the boys, but who ever thought an air mattress could be so much fun????

The Fellowship of Believers, Part 3

So this past weekend we had a reunion with our friends the Chaneys, and all things said it was wonderful. The Lord was good and protected our health (just say no to Chariganitis!). His grace and peace was felt as our kids played so well together. You'll have to look at Candace's post to hear more about that, but I was struck by something else. The act of service with other believers. You see, on Saturday afternoon, we spent time together cleaning up sticks from my parents yard. They had an atrocious ice storm last week, lost power for 6 days, and were left with wreckage equaled only by tornadoes. Praise the Lord their house and health were not effected, but the damage to the yard was crazy. See above. That's my dad standing in their front yard.

The kids helped pick up tons of sticks and we were all basically happy for close to 3 1/2 hours! Even the little ones. I guess that's what started my thinking. I mean really, Samuel and Zeke (both almost 2 yrs old) stayed outside with everyone and played the whole time! And Benjamin and Anna Grace (not known for their 4-year old ability to follow through) stayed outside and worked almost the whole time, excluding a short snack break. :) Why is it that I have to fight to get them to clean up the blocks, and yet they helped in the yard for close to three hours? What is that dynamic that motivated all of us to serve and have loads of fun!?


"Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does," Ephesians 6:7-8
Jesus himself says, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with alll your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than this." Mark 12: 30-31

Doesn't it look like fun? I don't know the dynamics of this, but I do know a couple of things.
I know from my own experience and from the testimony of the bible, that serving others, and putting them before ourselves is very important to the heart of the Father. I know also that he has designed us to live together in love, to be bound to each other as we are bound to him. I also know that doing something together binds our hearts. There's got to be something to it- if it wasn't an important aspect of a believing community of people, then the Lord wouldn't have mentioned it. And I can tell you, this weekend was possibly one of the best we have had. We loved on each other, we loved on my parents, we played together, we ate together, we prayed together, and we served together. We will stand before the Father one day, knowing that we obeyed his heart this time, and that he has used obedience to him to bring us all closer. We know the Father better because of it, and we know each other better because of it. Thank you dear friends! Let us continue to serve Him together, to run the race to which we have been called, and to love wholeheartedly all the days of our lives.

p.s. I totally wish I had a better before and after pic to show you, but the difference was truly amazing!

Shout Out Sunday!

Hello all, there will soon be more photos and posts about the previous weekend, but I would like to make a public shout-out to fantastic people. This weekend we met our friends the Chaneys in Arkansas along with my sister, from Conway. We spent Saturday morning at "Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari" in Gentry, Arkansas. It was loads of fun with the kids and then we came home and worked all afternoon in the yard- cleaning up the sticks from the massive ice storm in Fayetteville. Hard work with people you love is always really cool, totally rewarding, and really productive. After a bit of birthday cake and kids dinner, we put the kids to bed early graciously, my mom and dad kept all 4 kids while we went out to dinner. And what a wonderful dinner it was. I came home and said, "That was a really fun day." You know? When all things go well, everyone is basically happy, and you do really cool things with really cool people. I am grateful. For family, for friends, and for the kindness of the Lord to unite hearts together.

More pics to follow soon. . .

Let the drumming begin!

For all of you who already know this, Benjamin has been drumming in front of the TV for quite some time. We did it at the prayer room and church as early as 2 (we had to learn what to hit and what not to hit). It seems he is passing on his technique well and teaching his sibling a thing or two. You can't hear what he is saying, but he is telling Samuel that you have to hit the floor and not Daddy's book of worship songs! Funny boys, but they raise praise to the Father in heaven. He hears them- even their beats on the floor and smiles such a grand smile that all heaven knows- these boys are meant to worship! We are all created for it- we just display it in different ways. Let the drumsticks reign!

Are you kidding me?

Okay, so you got to look at these pics. They are the the cutest things ever. And though I am sure I don't want another one coming out of me, I am totally sure I could handle one of these. Happy looking!

So I thought these were blog worthy events from the Miller visit (then I'm done talking about it, I know, I know) Anyway, the one on the left was a typical example of Samuel longing to be bigger. He made it to the back seat in the van before I could get to him and he thought it was really, really funny to be sitting in between the big kids, Benjamin and Faith. The second one was a great motherly plan that ended in miserable failure. The conversation went like this,
"Emily, you sit down here at the bottom of the Chick-Fil-A slide with a camera and I'll get the three big kids to slide down together."
"Great idea, Lydia. It'll make a great pic. You think Samuel will do it?"
"Sure, here we go."

Lydia proceeds to squish and smush herself up into the Chick-Fil-A playland, obviously designed for children 3 and younger. Upon making it to the top of the slide she begins the long and arduous process of convincing said toddler that the slide with your brother and good friend would in fact be really fun and not scary at all! After appropriately placing the children in the right order, Faith in the front, Samuel in the middle, and Benjamin at the rear- this mother proceeds to push the children down the slide. The picture you see is the one Emily took as they reached the bottom. The one you don't see is the incredibly-too-large-for-the-slide mother coming down as the children just did to pick up and rescue the crying children who now feel totally misled and confused as to why their wonderful mother would come up with such a plan. Oh well, here's to motherhood!

Speaking of sweet Samuel. . .

This is how he woke up from his nap today- I thought it appropriate to show you since I posted about him during his nap! I love the hair. . . . and the brother watching ominously.

Life as normal resumes. . . . .

Well, it seems that life is returning to normal and I am getting some needed perspective. I am paying bills, making cookies for Community Dinners, coloring with my son, and learning about life in general. You know how that is?? I have these mommy moments where there are a hundred other things going on, I am totally multi-tasking, feeling really productive, and the Lord strikes my heart with a truth beyond all belief. I am stunned and stilled all at the same time. I have to sit for a moment and actually think about it (for if you multi-task like I do, none of the tasks require any thought). So here I am, having a moment. . .



This morning at church the team that went to Myanmar in December shared about their experiences. (Myanmar had a massive cyclone devastate the land and people in May 2008 and the government would not allow foreign agencies to deliver relief aid) As usual, my sweet Samuel refused to go to class and screamed about it until we came back to get him. He spent the rest of the service switching between mine and John's laps. The team shared about the closed state of this nation, the inability of foreign missionaries to come for the last 40-50 years. They shared about the doors the Lord has opened through a Burmese missionary who is on staff here at IHOP-KC. They shared about the people, their heart to see truth, their desire for shelter, boats, homes, schools, and CHURCHES. They showed pictures of churches being built with money donated from this place and riding on the prayers prayed by people in these chairs. I suddenly find myself fighting with my son about not writing in daddy's bible, wanting to walk off and find daddy while he's talking loudly during the sermon- and all at once I am crying. Not for myself. Not for my crazy-making son (though that was definitely tear worthy). No, I find myself crying for those in Myanmar who don't know Jesus. I am crying that their hearts, their faces that are ever precious to the Father in heaven, that they they would come to know the true healer of all the wrongs done against them, that they would know their Father in heaven and the Son who is coming to make all things right. Oh Lord, that you would meet them . . . why am I so fortunate?

So, here is my new prayer- I am longing to have Jesus moments all through the day in my house, my van, and even in the prayer room. When the moment comes, and you have an ah-ha in your heart- the Lord has struck something. I don't have them very often, but they come at the oddest moments. I will pray that for all us mothers (and some fathers) who spend our days doing things that seem very disconnected from any missions at all. That the Lord would spark things in our hearts that would draw deep wells of love and desire to see the Father come and his Son known in all places.

Fellowship of the Believers, Part 2

Okay, so tonight may not be as profound as last, but I had a thought today. We had a impromptu birthday celebration for Daddy Miller (Tim) who has been staying with us. I would show pics of the apple pie with candles, but since there are 4 babies asleep in this house right now, there is a real possibility that the cord required to retrieve the pictures off the camera and put them on the computer is in a room with a sleeping baby. Thus, the picture you see before you is from the restaurant chosen by the birthday boy and attended by the family. As all 8 of us sat around a picnic like table enjoying the wonderful bbq and talking about the last week I said the following, "Good food is better when enjoyed with good people." Doesn't it feel like that?? Even on a totally shallow level, if the "atmosphere" of a restaurant is no good, then we don't go back. But I think there is something more here, the physical meal is more satisfying when enjoyed with people who's hearts you are connected to. I have had more dinners than I can count where over the table our hearts have become united and as time passed we either became better cooks, OR the food just became better. Is it a "super" natural (as some would like to say) bettering of food by the Lord, or is it simply just a dynamic that the early church knew about. Connect with other believers on a deep level and other areas of our hearts and lives will be affected as well. Eat on my dear friends! But only that you may know Him better :)

The Fellowship of Believers

So we have had the pleasure of hosting the Miller family this last week and we have one more to go. Some of you might question our sanity, for wanting to be together for so long. Eight people in the upstairs of our house. Honestly, I have to say, at the end of the first week, things are still going really well. It must be a testimony to the grace of the Lord- our children have not decided they hate each other and they are basically loving the time to play with someone else.

Of course, it has also gotten me thinking about the idea of real fellowship. What did biblical fellowship really look like? The Acts church gathered "together constantly in prayer" (Acts 1:14) Later it says that the Fellowship of the Believers "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer (Acts 2:42)." In the past week, we have assuredly "broken bread." We have eaten 3 loaves of bread, 6 gallons of milk, 2 large tubs of yogurt, and a variety of other things, we have watched teaching and the prayer room together during the day, and we have prayed. We have prayed through temper tantrums, no nap times, crying little ones, ear infections, and teeth coming in. And yet, the Father has been clearly present. The fellowship of the believers is so much more than simply gathering for a moment of time, or even a service, a meal, or a weekend. I have seen the Lord in our dear friends that I would not have seen given the short visit. It's the same vision I saw of the Lord in our friends the Chaneys, as they were heaving up the stomach virus we had given them. It's the same vision that I saw this summer, when our dear friends the Harpers were willing to come all the way to Arkansas to camp for two nights, with 9 children under the age of 4 and 8 parents- all to say a dear goodbye to our friends the Rupps. And it's the same testimony of the Father that I see when babies are born, houses are moved, and lives are turned upside down. Thank you, my dear friends for bringing the testimony of the Father's heart to mine.

p.s. How do you like the smiles my children are flashing these days?