DreamCenter Book Bag Give Away

What a great opportunity I had this morning to go share the salvation message with families at the DreamCenter. Amie and her crew did such an amazing job of organizing the event to give book bags away to kids. From what I know, the NewLife pastor and his church started the book bag give-away tradition in the community. Seacoast has partnered with them to reach more together than they ever could do on their own.

This morning, the Adopt-a-block teams went into the neighborhood to invite families to come to the event. They had to wait in line before coming to hear our story. After the message, they could pick up a book bag stuffed with goodies (thanks to the Nerve2Serve kids) and get free haircuts. Outside there were basketball games, music, and sno cones - yum! I went out and played a little b-ball with the New Life pastor's daughter and then we joined in to the Cha-Cha Slide and Chicken Dance.

Here are a few pictures from the day. It was hot, it was fun, it was so worth every bit of it!

We used a lamp with a light bulb in it to tell the salvation message....we got to smash a light bulb (it was great!). Here is the message we shared: It starts at the beginning of the Bible. God created a world that was full of good and light. Just like this lamp sitting here shines, God’s light shined everywhere and on every thing. Then…sin entered the world through man when Adam & Eve disobeyed God’s command and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This sin separated all men from God. Without a source of power, the light cannot shine.

(Unscrew light bulb from the lamp.)

We are the same as this light bulb. We need God’s power to shine His light, but with sin, we are separated from God, the source of light.

(Throw light bulb onto floor and shatter!)

The sin we have in our lives separates us from God. We tell lies, hit our brother or sister, disobey our parents, take things that don’t belong to us. All these separate us from God’s power. Sure…we try and sweep up the pieces with our own power. (Sweep up small amount of light bulb shatters and hold them up) We think we can shine again by ourselves and say, “God, look here I am! I can shine your light. But the reality is that we cannot do it on our own power. We get nowhere on our own strength.

The good news is that the God offers us a choice. He tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He provides us a gift (pull out new light bulb). One that we aren’t worthy of, but fully given by His grace. He provides us the opportunity through the cross and blood of Jesus to shine His light. A light that can never be extinguished.

It isn’t automatic! It requires action on your part. The Bible tells us it is not good enough to merely listen to the Word. It requires a choice. God offers us full forgiveness of our sins if we ask Jesus to burst into our hearts. He asks us to repent and turn away from our sins. It doesn’t mean that you’ll never do wrong again, but it does mean that His light will shine from within you and no matter what happens around you…the light is NEVER turned off. Are you willing to make that choice? Do you want to have that light live within your heart?

If you have never made this choice to follow Jesus, I want to offer the opportunity to do that right now. If you have made that decision, I want to ask you to recommit your life to follow Jesus and tell Him you are ‘ALL IN.’

Father God, we thank you for these new names written in the book of life. We ask that you protect them as they walk out of this place and let them know they have a home here at the Dream Center. We want to walk through this with them, support them and provide them with extended family. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Abby 1 Year Update

Abby just had her 1 year check-up and she is doing great!
Weight: 19 lbs - 30% percentile
Head circumference: 17 inches - 15% percentile
Length: 30 inches - 75% percentile

That means we have another tall, skinny baby. How did that happen?

She isn't really saying much at this point - mostly da,da,da and ma,ma,ma type stuff. Hopefully she will start developing more words soon. I can tell that she is understanding so much of what we say. She knows to stop when I say no. And today we played a "please and thank you" game where I rolled a car to her then said "please". She then picked it up and handed it to me and I said "thank you". She was so excited to be playing the game and I was excited that we are starting early with using nice words.

Abby's 1st Birthday

Musical Inspiration

Cody is very creative when making his make-shift drum set. Here is a short video of him giving Abby a private concert...she doesn't seem very thrilled by it. (Disclaimer: He was wailing on the drums right before I got the camera out...so I apologize if it's not very exciting.) In case you were wondering where Cody gets his musical ability, here is another video of Clay playing a homemade Didgeridoo. Want to learn how to make or how to play one yourself? Just want to see what a real Didgeridoo looks & sounds like? Click here.

Pool, pigtail, pirates, and more!

Another fun weekend and its not even over yet! Here are a few pictures from the pool today. We met up with Grandad, Mamaw, Willow & Heath (who now wants to be known as "Spike" for some reason). Cody borrowed Willow's goggles and learned to go underwater. He was very nervous about doing it, but after a few times of getting used to it...he loved it! Yeah Cody! Clay gave Heath, oops, I mean Spike, and Willow some pointers on cannonballs.













Abby's hair is starting to grow out now so I decided to try a pigtail on top. Here is Abby's first official pigtail. Clay says it makes her look like a Teletubby...hmmm, I'll let you decide.





Chick-fil-A is one of Cody's most favorite places to eat and pirates are some of his favorite things to pretend to be. So, when Chick-fil-A had a Pirate Theme Night....Cody was in heaven! He got a big bag of "pirate booty" to bring home....you can see all of his coins laid out next to his food. Here are a couple of pictures from the event. One is of Cody dipping his fries in the ice cream and the other is of Cody with one of the pirates there. It looks like Cody has a pirate goatee, but it is actually chocolate milk running down his chin. Arrrgh!

And one last little video that I thought was funny....
Cody went and got the tube of Balmex (it's butt cream, for those of you who don't have babies) and was trying to put it on the cat...here is where I happen to see him pulling the cat toward him by her tail. He explains that he has medicine for the cat's butt....don't ask me why - I have no idea where he thought of that! Enjoy...

Glenn Beck '08

WARNING: This post reflects my personal thoughts and opinions ...oh wait, that's my 1st Amendment right! : )



Last night, I went to see Glenn Beck on the big screen. No, he wasn't in "Dark Knight". It was a live simulcast from Texas to 350 theaters throughout the U.S. We showed up right as it was starting and the only open seats were in the front row. Ahhh man! I was sure that it would make the whole show miserable, but it was actually not too bad. Once we got over how INCREDIBLY HUGE he was up close on a big screen...and in high-def! I think we could have felt the sweat fling off of his face if we had our 3-D glasses on.

Who's Glenn Beck, you ask? Well, I'll tell you, but first you have to come out from under that rock! (Ok, that's better.) Glenn Beck is a radio/television host and conservative political commentator to over 7 million listeners. He has also written a few books - one of which I am currently reading called "An Inconvenient Book".

So now that you know who Glenn Beck is...the show was his way of exposing the craziness of politics. He highlighted politics-at-work by reading a list of laws that have passed throughout the states (most of the crazy ones were from California...hmmm). Some of those included:

• making the sale of illegal weapons illegal (Philadelphia I think?)
  
• mandating that you need a hunting license in order to set a mouse trap (California)
• banning the use of used underwear to wash a car at a car wash (San Francisco)
• A city ordinance states that a $500 fine will be given to anyone who detonates a nuclear device within city limits. (California)

Some of his other "punny" commentary included answers to some of our country's biggest issues.

• Drilling for oil in ANWR - if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we figure out how to get the oil out form under the polar bear's butt?
• Mexican border - wait them out. Let them all sneak over and then when they aren't looking, we can sneak over THEIR border and move to Mexico..we get Cancun & they get Detroit
• Gun Control - Give us our right to carry guns and the bad guys can have the right to carry our bullets (in their chest)
• Edjukayshun - implement the "dumb child left behind" act...if they don't get their GED or diploma, then no government support for you

One of the highlights of the evening was when he got emotional talking about how he wants a better America for his daughter than what we currently have. (Not just "hope for change" like BO talks about, but real change) He said that "it's not going to come from our government....it's not going to come from you or me....it's going to have to come from GOD!" He actually voiced the things that America wished that our next president would say...it was truth, it was common sense, it was sincere. I would vote for Glenn Beck for president that's for sure...unfortunately, we don't have that option. So, all we have left to do is educate ourselves on what's really going on in the world, use our brains, speak up (loudly), vote and do our part to make a difference.

Fun night with Kenzie

We had another fun night with Mackenzie visiting. Cody & Kenzie played fire dept for a while and they used the vacuum hose to put out the fire. Later, we made paper bag puppets of Dora the Explorer and Swiper. On the show, Swiper always try to take Dora's stuff and she has to say, "Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping!" Then Swiper feeling defeated says, "Ahhh Man!" There is a cute video of Cody acting out this scene below.

Nerve2Serve:Missions Week