Weeks of Oct. 15 - Oct. 28th

Sorry I missed last Sunday's post. Since you heard from us last, we had our Harvest parties at the kids school. I organized and ran Sara's party and helped at Elissa's. Matthew's parents came down for the weekend to visit, Elissa went to a field trip to Daniel Boone's Home, Elissa sprained her ankle in a soccer game and had to go to the doctor to have x-rays done (glad to say the Lord pulled her through without a cast!), Sara had a field trip to a pumpkin patch (which I went on as a chaperone), We went to a Halloween Walk in downtown Kirkwood, we caught a turtle in our front yard(that was cool!), Elissa had a pizza party with her girl scout troop at Incredible Pizza, Sara had a pizza party with her soccer team, Elissa and Sara had a bonfire with the girl scouts (where I led the daisy's in song), we had our first Christmas pagent practice together, we had movie night again at our fieldwork church (Matthew stayed home to write a paper),.......sounds busy you say?! That's an understatement!!!

I have volunteered to be the music director for the Christmas Pagent at Webster Gardens Lutheran Church and are still working on the music selections and next I have to come up with movements to go with. (help, Sandy!)

Today at church Elissa (our 9 year old) took part in the sermon. She was asked to do a short skit at the beginning of the sermon and at the end of the sermon she sang "Jesus Loves Me" as a solo. (her first time doing a singing solo with a microphone in front of people,..not in the living room!) She did great. What a blessing!! I was up there by her singing today with the Praise Team. I found it funny today that I was the only female in the band today,....but wow - was it fun!!!! (great harmonies!)

Matthew has been working on a history paper on St. Peter Lutheran Church (our home congregation). Thanks to Jason for sending us the great St. Peter pictures! Matthew preached his first "church" sermon last week at Webster Gardens using the text of Ephesians 2:8,9 and 10 and John 3:30 with the theme "Saved to Serve". He made a cross and I spray painted it and wrote "saved" and serve" on it for him. (see?! It really is a joint ministry!) Matthew is in his teaching phase of the seminary. He is in a class called Pastor as Educator and he is currently teaching at CCLS (where our children go). He teaches 26 third graders every day for three weeks their religion class. He's been doing some very creative stuff with them and they LOVE him! Of course a lot of them know him from Kingdom Quest (Sunday School). He enjoys the teaching, hands on stuff. (get rid of all that reading and writing papers and studying for tests,..........)

Tomorrow night we have another Vicarage meeting. We must both be at this one and we will be taking a test. (yes, me too). This is a requirement for Matthew's vicarage interview to be set up. Pray for us, please, as we go through these steps. Also, lift Matthew up in prayer as he heads into the last two weeks of this quarter,...this is a stressful time. We love you all!!!

Here's Elissa and Sara with their Grandpa and Grandma. (Matt's parents)

Here's Matthew with his two girls in downtown Kirkwood, MO. Elissa is Hannah Montana and Sara is a rock star!

Our turtle,....ok - we didn't keep it. We set him/her free in the backyard. Sara was so excited!

Week of Oct. 8-14, 2007

This week Matthew had a test that he thought he was sure he did poorly on,......he got a 97%! That happens a lot with him. The Lord seems to pull him through every time! :)

We had two sets of friends from our home congregation call this week and say they were coming to St. Louis. Melissa and Jason came down from Schaumburg to spend a weekend with their family on vacation,...just happened to be St. Louis. They were in our small group when we lived in Schaumburg. Thomas and Jaime (who just returned from Panama on a year long mission trip) were also coming into St. Louis. Jaime was talking with a LWML group at a local church about her missionary experience. The two of them stayed at our house. Jaime was only here for one night - but Thomas stayed for two and he left for Alabama from here today. Please pray for safe travels and speedy learning for Thomas. He is attending an academy to get his pilot's license before entering Air Force Training. (which begins in Nov.) Thomas and Jaime were also in our small group back home,....it was just such a great feeling being with these friends/family again!!!

We went to the Magic House for a CCLS School event on Thursday night. It was great fun to see the girls running around with their friends. Friday night we drove to Jason and Jen's house in Collinsville, IL to visit and have PIZZA!!! :) (Jason is our friend that was in the hospital last week) Jason is doing well. He is back in classes at SIUE. He still has his arm in a sling, from his surgery and can't move that for a few more weeks.

We had the girls soccer games on Saturday morning. Elissa twisted her ankle and still has it wrapped in an ace bandage. Please pray for healing for her-she has a field trip tomorrow!

At church this morning, we took Thomas with us and I showed him around our fieldwork church. He and I got to watch Matt in action at Kingdom Quest. As usual, he did a great job. (he played Gideon in a skit) At one point it was Matt and I up front with microphones leading the kids in song and movements,....now there's a scary site! But we realized how fun we will have in the future doing kids ministry TOGETHER!

Week of Oct. 1-7, 2007

Just one I think one week is busy and crazy - the next one is even crazier!

We had dance classes as usual,...we had the girls each drop one class - we just can't afford for them to take two classes each, no matter how badly they want to. So this week they chose which class they wanted to stay in. Sara is staying in hip hop and Elissa is staying in Musical Theater. Girl scouts started this week - I am the co-leader for Sara's Daisy Troop. That was fun!

On Wednesday a friend of ours from our home congregation had his heart stop while in class at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He actually flatlined and was brought back by the help of a defibulator and a professsor and a students quick thinking with cpr. Dr's have said he shouldn't be here,....thank you Lord! Jason is 33 years old. They moved down this way the same time we did - and we were so blessed to be able to be there with them through this. We visited at the hospital every day. Matt even donned his "Pastor shirt" (collar) and brought a Communion kit and administered Communion to Jason (Jen and I) before his surgery. It's awesome to serve the Lord's people,...but even more awesome when you can serve a friend. Jason had a defibulator put into his body as a reassurance in the future - that if this happens again - he'll have a back up. Praise be to God that he put Jason where he was and had the right people and equipment all in line,....he surely knows what he's doing! :)

So much of our week was spent visiting them, but also on Friday afternoon, friends from back "home" (Schaumburg, IL) came down to visit for the weekend. Jessica and her daughter Natalie. Jessica and I went scrapbooking together on Friday night - I needed that! And on Saturday we went to Grant's Farm (a few minutes from our house) and on Sunday we went to church (I sang and Matt did the children's message) and we also drove an hour to Meramac Caverns. These are a series of caves - where Jesse James hid out! Oooooooooh. It was neat - the kids all experienced their first cave! We also took them twice to go see Jason (and Jen) while they were down here.

Matt just left for a meeting at church - he missed a few classes last week to be with Jason - so he has a lot of catching up to do. He very much feels that friends and family come first. Now he'll be busy this week, I'm sure.

Lord, thank you for your mercy. Thank you for bringing Jason back to us. Thank you for our church family and for their support and love through everything. We are so blessed by you, Lord. Most of all, thank you for your son, Jesus Christ - who gave his all. May we give our all to you in return.

This is us at Grant's Farm. Grant's Farm is owned and operated by Anheiser Busch. They have a tram ride through a safari style park and animal shows. And horses (the Clydesdales!). Here's Janet, Jessica, Sara, Natalie & Elissa

Here's the four of us at Meramac Caverns, MO. It's amazing to see the beauty that God created on this Earth. Can you imagine what's in store for us?!