Montana - Our Summer Home

Saturday we drove from Butte to the Billings area to stay with Josh's parents for a few weeks.  We'll be serving at churches all over this area (and beyond).

Butte has such a unique kind of beauty!

We are all settled in at Josh's parents house.  We park our trailer in front of their house and enjoy the benefits of a shower we don't have to wear flip flops in and a full kitchen, while still sleeping in the comfort of our own beds.  Yay! :)

Friday evening and Sunday were busy days of ministry, connecting with three new churches.  God moved and blessed tremendously and we look forward to a longterm partnership with these churches!

  

 Look, I do participate at our events! :)  - We've enlisted Caden as our photographer.  He's learning quickly.  Now all we need is a real camera! ;)

 

We found a new family hobby - letterboxing!  We went on our first hunt last week and had so much fun! 

 (We found our first letter box before we even had a stamp, so Noah decided to draw the picture of the stamp in his book)

 Beautiful Montana!

  First bike ride with Grandpappy of the summer

Blogging is particularly difficult when we are here, because we do not have internet at the house.  Frequent visits to the library allow us to get online, but it definitely limits my computer time and I have to prioritize carefully how I spend that time. I'll do my best to post as often as I can.  In the meantime, "Happy Summer!"

Fun?!

I'm gonna be really honest with you.  Sometimes this life is hard.  I mean really, really hard!  I try to smile and nod whenever someone comments on how much "fun" our life must be, but it's not always easy to do.  Sometimes I have to literally bite my tongue when a comment like this is made to keep from blurting out the long list of things that happened in the past week that made us desperately wish for a more "normal" life.

Of course, living a "normal" life (the kind where you live in a house in one city and work 40 or so hours a week at the same job each day) has plenty of it's own troubles.... I suppose if I wanted to, I could make a list of "pros" and "cons", or a chart to compare the two.  You know, like when you're in middle school and trying to decide whether to spend your money on a bike or a trip to the amusement park - or maybe you're trying to figure out whether to go to church camp or volleyball camp...  (no, I never played volleyball). This is the kind of chart where you list all the advantages and disadvantages of each choice and then pick the one with more advantages.

We did not make a list like this when we were deciding whether to move out of our home and sell most of our belongings.  We didn't do it when Josh put in his notice to quit his job either. 

Why not? ....  Good question.  I was wondering that myself today, when Josh came in after another discouraging day of booking. 

It's so strange.  When we go to churches and share this ministry, people are so blessed!  We don't claim any of the credit.  It's all God, for sure!  But, people do love it!  We hear story after story of how God used the music and the testimonies to deeply challenge, encourage, and move people's hearts.  Pastors love it to!  Of the over 200 churches that we've been to in the past 2 years, only a handful have not asked us to come back. 

Here's the problem though.  Josh has to call about 50 churches for every 1 that actually invites us to come!  When you do the math, that's A LOT of hours on the phone and sending emails.  But what's more significant, is the amount of "No, thank you's" and "We're not interested's" that he has to listen to each day.  Throw in the occasional "This is a horrible thing that you're doing to your family." and "This cannot possibly be God's will for your life!" and you have a recipe for discouragement. That is hard on a man's spirit and as his wife, it breaks my heart because I can't fix it.

So, like I said, today I found myself wondering if we were sure this is what we should be doing.

Then I read this,
"What is my purpose in life?  If our goal in life is to be happy or accepted or loved, then anything that threatens our well-being will be an enemy - an obstacle to fulfilling our objective.  On the other hand, once we agree with God that we exist for His pleasure and His glory, we can accept whatever comes into our lives as part of His sovereign will and purpose.  We will not resent, resist, or reject the 'hard things', but embrace them as friends, sovereignly designed by God to make us like Jesus and to bring glory to Himself.  We will be able to look into His face and say, 'It's not about me.  It's about You.  If it pleases you, it pleases me.  All that matters is that You are glorified.'"  (Nancy Leigh DeMoss - Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free)

I asked Josh this afternoon, "Do you still believe this is what God has called us to - that we are in the center of His will, obeying and following Him?"
He answered, "Yes."
And so do I. 
No pros and cons list necessary.

*Visit my new blog location at www.StillLearningToFollow.com*

The Sunny Side of the Mountains ;)



Isn't our God amazing!?  One of the sweet blessings of this life is how often we get to see new displays of God's beautiful creation!  It never gets old!  Last Saturday we spent the afternoon at Farragut State Park.  We took a short little hike down to the lake front and let the kids play in the water!  It was a beautiful, peaceful afternoon and our boys enjoyed the gift of spashing in the lake with a friend! :)

 I couldn't resist the cuteness of this picture!  The four kids swinging are ages 8 - 16.  My Noah is the one not on the swing and he is the youngest of this group.  He's standing with his arms crossed, not because he's upset, but to show how close he can stand behind the swings without being afraid or getting clobbered! (not sure how to "type" an eye roll) He's such a boy!

 

 

Sunday we ministered at two new churches!  It was such a gift to connect with each of these churches and partner with them in ministry!  Both churches opened their doors to us because of references from pastors of other churches we've been to.  Praise God for these pastors, and others like them, who believe in our ministry and support us in this way.  We look forward to longstanding relationships with these new churches as well!  God is so gracious to include us in His work!

 

 

Yesterday, we shared at a homechurch that we have been to twice before.  What a sweet group of people.  Every time we minister there, we leave feeling ministered to - so very blessed and loved!  Tonight we'll be at a church that we haven't been to in two years.  It was one of the very first churches we went to after God led us out on this adventure.  Our ministry has changed dramatically since then and we look forward to sharing those changes with this group!

 

The weather has been absolutely beautiful and very toasty, so the boy's and I played "hooky" from schoolwork yesterday and went to the beach instead! :)  (This is one of my favorite reasons to homeschool "year round"!  We can skip whenever we want!)



 It was pretty crowded and the water was chilly, so it took a while for the boys to get the nerve to go in all the way.)

I however had no problem at all doing what I came to do...lay in the sun and soak up some Vitamin D! :)