Happy Halloween!

Hope Everyone has a safe and fun Halloween!

Families on Mission

As previously posted, Jared and I got to drive to Nashville last Thursday to meet Elli and then had to turn around and drive right back to Kentucky the same night. Some of you may have wondered why the trip was cut so short.

Well, Jared and I had the privilege of taking a group from our church to Eastern KY for the church's first ever "Family Focused" Mission trip. We had 19 people from 6 families who attended.

So, why Eastern KY? Well, several of the nation's poorest counties are located in the mountains of Eastern KY. The coal mining industry used to be booming in a lot of these places, but due to the local mines shutting down and the lack of other gainful employment, many of these areas have no source of consistent income. This creates both a great spiritual and physical need for the people in these ares.

We teamed up with an organization called Club 180 Ministries. This organization has several different things going on including a teen parenting program, a coffee shop caleed "Cafe 180," an after school program called "Excel 180" and a gymnastics program called "Flip 180." You should definitely check out the 180 Ministries Web site by clicking here.

Our group did several different things to help out the 180 Ministries. One group of girls spent their whole day going through bags of donated clothes and organizing them for placement in the 180 teen pregnancy center. Teens who are pregnant have the opportunity to take parenting classes, attend Bible Studies and do various other things to earn points. Once they have enough points, they have the chance to go Shopping.

Another thing some people from our group did was sort through some of the many donations that Club 180 has received. This is an important job, because it is hard to function when things are not in order!

Some of the handy men tackled the construction projects that desperately needed to be done. One of those was the installation of a drop ceiling in the upstairs office. These guys overcame many frustrations and worked so hard to make sure everything was done well. They worked all the way through the fall festival until everything was done.

Our kids and remaining adults spent most of the day cleaning up a local park and getting things ready for 180's community Fall Festival. Our kids did a great job of working hard without complaining! They swept and mopped things inside, picked up garbage outside, raked an old volleyball court to make it suitable for playing and all kinds of things. Even after all that hardwork and exhaustion, they were troopers. They played with lots of kids at the Fall Festival and never once complained about being cold! Me and 2 other ladies spent our night grilling and serving 120 cheeseburgers, brownies, chips and drinks. People just couldn't believe it was actually free!

While we were there we had the opportunity to stay at a place called "United for Jesus." This organization has taken an Old Middle School and turned it into a bunk house. We weren't sure what to expect, but everything turned out wonderful. Besides having no heat, the facility was wonderful!

So, even though we would have loved to spend the weekend with our brand new neice, God had a different plan for our weekend and it was great. We had the chance to spend the weekend teaching future missionaries how to serve the Lord! What greater thing could there be? But, needless to say, after making our trip to and back from Nashville and then spending the weekend working hard, we were pretty tired. I think this picture says it all!

Sweet Baby Girl

Well, I realize that I am partial, but isn't this just the cutest little girl in the world? I can't wait to see her again!

Meeting Ellianna

Well, as many of you know, I was not going to be able to go home yesterday for the birth of my neice. But, at about 3:30 I just couldn't take it anymore! So, Jared and I Jumped in the car at about 5:00 yesterday and drove to Nashville to meet this beautiful little girl!Ellianna Michelle was born at 12:23pm central time on October 23 and was 17 3/4 inches long. She weighed 4 pounds and 15 ounces, which is a correction from my previous blog post.

She was not expected to be so tiny. At Sara's ultrasound 2 weeks ago, the baby measured at 5 1/2 pounds. So, it was quite a suprise that she was so small. But, she is healthy and happy! Right now she is just spending lots of time in the incubator to keep her body temperature up.

Hopefully I will have lots more pictures to post soon. Right now I just have these from my camera phone. We actually remembered to take our camera this time, but we forgot to use it!

It's a Girl!

Well, that's not really a suprise but I couldn't think of a better title. I don't have any pictures to post yet and don't have a whole lot of details for you at this time. But, Ellianna was born this afternoon around 1:00pm central time. She was only 4 pounds and 8 ounces so she was immediately rushed to neonatal ICU as a precaution, but the baby and my sister are doing well for now. So, if you think about it, say a little prayer for Sara and Elli. Hopefully they will both have a restful night.

I will post more info soon!

It's Time to Have a Baby...for my sister, that is.

Well, at this time tomorrow, my big sister will be in pre-op, preparing for her C-section. Hopefully she won't kill me for sharing this snippet of the email she sent me yesterday:

"...The doctor scheduled my c-section for 12:30 on Thursday, so by 12:40 she'll be here, my insides may still be hanging out, but we'll have a baby."

As you can tell, she is in good spirits. Hopefully sometime tomorrow I will be able to post a new pic of my brand new niece Ellianna Michelle.

If you think of Sara today, send up a little prayer for her. I know she is nervous and excited all at the same time! Isn't she gorgeous, though? She glows as a woman truly blessed by God!

C-A-R-dS-C-A-R-dS-Go-Cards-Go!

This is the chant that Jared and I got to hear over and over Saturday as we sat in a sea of Cardinal fans at the MTSU v. Louisville Cardinal football game. We went to the game with some friends of ours from church and, despite the fact that our alma mater MTSU got killed, we had a really good time. Here are some pics from the very cold day! (Of course, we forgot our camera as usual, so these are the best we could do with Jared's phone!)