Grace and Glory

Musings from the Threshold

Category Archives: Activities

A flurry

You know you’ve been a bad blogger when you have to go look and see what you talked about in your last few posts. I’ll try to do a little catching up tonight.

It was a joy to have the Emmaus Bible College Ensemble in concert in our area in mid-March. The music and memories were a blessing, and I also met a wonderful EBC mom who was such an encouragement to me as a home teaching mom who still feels like the journey has just begun.

Jonathan spent most of a day in late March wrestling with a rented front-tine tiller to get our garden tilled. It was hard work, and I was/am so proud and thankful! This shot was taken when he was not quite halfway done.

March 27th was our chapel talent night – lots of fun! The evening included acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, hammered dulcimer, solo and group singing, a hobby presentation, and more. And when the joyful noise died down, we had a great game of Canasta. Pardon the poor quality of the pictures, please.






Pictures!

I have at last uploaded some pictures from December to my Picasa albums. Click on the slideshows to see them individually, etc.

The Byrd Visit:

The Bloom Visit – did I even mention this?!? It was such a treat to have John and Ruth in town for a couple days! We ate together and played Rage at the chapel on Saturday night Dec. 20th, then on Sunday John shared about Immanuel Mission as well as sharing a very challenging and encouraging message about being a Refresher. They joined us for lunch on Sunday and visited some more before heading in to St. Louis. We were so blessed to have them with us – they have been such an important part of our lives over the years, and they are refreshing people!

Christmas Day:

And New Year’s Eve at Believers Bible Chapel:

The Byrd Visit

When we abruptly went off line in mid-December, some of our favorite Byrds had just gotten into town. Actually, Beka and The Cousins were on their way to Kansas City for a visit with family there. We enjoyed having Papa and Mama with us on Thursday and Friday, and Beka and the kids got back to our area on Saturday evening. We treasured every moment until they left on Tuesday morning!

Saturday night, we had seafood chowder for dinner, at the special request of Beka and Ethan. Seafood chowder became something of a hobby (obsession?) for Jonathan and I this last year, and Beka and Ethan were eager to taste the fruits of our experimentation. I think they liked it! I’m working on cutting down the recipe to a reasonable size so that I can post it on Love You Can Eat. For now, here’s a teaser…

Sunday morning at chapel we got to show off Beka and The Cousins; then Sunday evening we also got to show off Papa and Mama (they went to meeting in St. Louis in the morning). We don’t usually have a Sunday evening meeting, but Dec. 14th was our Christmas Supper and Program. It was neat to have some of the Byrds with us for this special evening. One of the highlights from the Christmas program (at what would generally be considered a pretty conservative church) was the Henkel twins playing their electric guitars. They played their own arrangement of a couple of Christmas classics. I couldn’t get the video upload to work, or I would share it with you.

As always, it was such a joy to see our kiddos enjoying their time with their cousins. The deep down, soul-satisfying kind of joy. My brother and I didn’t have cousins our ages with whom we could really fellowship, and it is a delight to my heart to see my children play with Ethan, Isaiah, Abigail, and Chloe.

I haven’t done a good job of capturing the “little moments” in this post, but I’m so thankful that Papa and Mama came to visit, and that Beka decided to come as well with The Cousins. I wish Eric could have pulled away from work and come, but we are all so thankful for the time we had together. And I’m thankful that they didn’t let the possibility (which turned into the reality) of them getting sick from our leftover germs keep them from coming!

Here are some more pictures (you can click on the slideshow to get to the pictures individually/download the full sized files, etc):

The Joys of Motherhood

~ The adoration in your 18 month old’s eyes as he flies across the room to your arms.

~ The hilarity of listening to your 7 year old read knock knock jokes to you that she doesn’t understand.
~ Sharing moments of genuine companionship with your 11 year old.
~ Enjoying the affection of your still-huggy 9 year old son.
~ Girl talk with your 10 year old.
~ The beauty of your 5 year old’s heart shaped face – and of her lovely heart.
~ Enjoying a good laugh with your 12 year old.
Please note:  Cleaning up vomit is not on the list.  If you have a means of communicating this to my children’s digestive systems, please let me know!

Barn Dance

Recently our dear friends Alan and Sue hosted their annual fall barn dance. It is always a great time of fellowship and good wholesome fun, and this year was no exception!

Though it was disappointing to not be able to dance (still not quite recovered from surgery at that point), I had a wonderful time and took lots of pictures. Please excuse the spots… our camera doesn’t seem to like cooler work conditions.

We stayed late visiting after the dance (of course!) and Stephen and Gracie T. had nice time playing and reading together. Aren’t they cute?!

Do you see what they have in common when it comes to reading?

Saturday Work Progress

I’m a bit belated with my updates. But such is life!

Saturday morning, Jonathan met Cary at the store to get building supplies. As sometimes happens, our perception of the required time for the task didn’t match up with the reality of the needed time. Eventually, however, they got over to the house with windows, a door, lumber, sheetrock, and other fun stuff.

Meanwhile, some friends showed up at the house around 10.30 to help load stuff that was ready to go. They made a box brigade out the front door and to the Henkel’s van – great idea!


Once that first load was ready, I headed over to the new house to direct deliveries. I’ve realized that the process of moving is one area in which my “picky” tendencies tend to show themselves. I truly want boxes to be deposited in the rooms in which they belong! Deliveries on Saturday went quite well, and I was a happy girl.

Once things were unloaded, I headed back to our current house to see how things were coming along. While I had been gone, Mama Byrd and Mom Smith had baked cookies and helped organize/pack, and Sue had led a big yard-clean-up effort and sorted out all the children’s shoes (wow!!). It was so encouraging to see all they had done in my absence.

Since most of what we had hoped to take over on Saturday had been taken already, we loaded up the chili and the assorted children and headed over to the new house for lunch.

Stephen and I rode with Mama and ended up being quite a bit behind Sue (who took most of her children and mine). A while after we got to the new house (as friends and family wondered at my amazing slowness) I realized that our refrigerator and pantry were full! Our chapel family gave us a truckload of food, and our friends/landlords added a bunch of meat from their favorite butcher. It was such an amazing show of love… I was pretty much speechless.

The construction crew got quite a bit done by the end of the day, especially considering all the delays. Jonathan made a good bit of progress on the electric stuff, but I didn’t crawl down into the crawl space to take pictures of him. Here are a couple shots of the garage project progress:


Double Date!

We were blessed to go see Fireproof on Oct. 7 with our friends Alan and Sue.  There were plans to meet for supper, which fell through due to a sick babysitter.  Jonathan and I went ahead and went to eat and then to the movie.  And a few minutes before the movie started, in walked Alan and Sue!  Yay!  They had managed to line up another babysitter at the last minute.

After the movie, which was amazing, we headed over to Applebee’s for some coffee, tea, and visiting.  Aren’t we sweet?


BBC Family Camp

Our chapel (Believers Bible Chapel) had our first Family Camp this last weekend; we rented Dayspring Bible Camp.  Though Papa spoke at Dayspring when I was younger, he didn’t take Mama, Eric, and I because it was so primitive back then!  So this was the first time there for all of our family.  

It was a special weekend of fellowship for our chapel family.  John Jimo from Emmaus Bible College came and shared with us from God’s Word.  He was obviously led by the Lord as his messages were very much what we needed, both as a body of believers and as individuals (at least it was for this individual!).
Jonathan and I both were drawn to Dayspring, and I expect that you’ll be hearing more about it from me in the future.  As many of you know, Kansas Bible Camp is home to us, and I don’t think that will ever change, no matter where the Lord leads us in the future.  I found myself surprised by the tug on my heart toward the camp itself.  I don’t mean the grounds, but the Dayspring staff and the feel that I got about the camp and the way the Lord is at work there.  Hard to describe…
I’ve posted pictures in a couple of Picasa Albums – One for pictures from the weekend that include People, and one for pictures that are of the beautiful grounds and Scenery.

Here’s one of my favorite pictures from the weekend, just for a teaser…