church // "God's Big Backyard" VBS

We were so blessed last week to have Christ United Methodist Church in Covington, Va choose our ministry with GCM to be their missions focus for their Vacation Bible School! The theme of their VBS this year was "God's Big Backyard", which taught the kids in attendance about how God wants us to care for, reach out to, and serve our family, our friends and neighbors, people in our communities, in our country, as well as throughout the world. The kids at the VBS raised money all week to "reach beyond their backyard" in a kids-serving-other-kids approach. The money will be used to help support the work we will be doing in Honduras, and we loved getting an opportunity to share with these kids how the ministry we will be doing will be specifically impacting the children of Danli, Honduras. The kids were so excited to have well surpassed the goal they had set for the week!

Because we were unable to be at Christ UMC for the week of their VBS, we recorded a series of videos to be able talk to the kids all week. This was a first for us! Definitely something we had never tried before. Lesley was the behind-the-scenes videographer and recruited Jamey to be the handsome narrator. Because he's just really adorable, please enjoy watching this video from the first day of VBS. :)

church // best things about our trip to blacksburg and some [nlcf] love.

Us sharing at the 11am service. 

As we said in our last post, we were in Blacksburg, VA two weekends ago and it was such a refreshing weekend for us!  As every Hokie knows, there's just something about that town that makes you feel right at home and warms your heart no matter how long it's been since you've been there.  It was so great for us as it had been almost 6 months since we were there last! Here are a few lovable things about Blacksburg that we got to experience this weekend:


1.) the beautiful campus of Virginia Tech
2.) New Life Christian Fellowship [nlcf].  Period.
3.) that one-of-a-kind small town feel
4.) visiting wonderful friends and feeling like you're picking up right where you left off
5.) meeting a new tiny addition to our Blacksburg family
6.) shamlessly wearing so much Orange and Maroon
7.) the joyous feeling you get when you see Exit 118B
8.) overlooking the amount of people in Gillie's to enjoy the best breakfast in town (even if it is vegetarian)
9.) breathing in a crisp, cool spring morning in the mountains
10.) the feeling you get when walking by places that mean a lot to you personally

Friends and staff praying over us during the 707 service. 

During the trip, we also were given the opportunity to speak at our sending church, New Life Christian Fellowship [nlcf].  It was great to get to share how Lesley and I's desire to enter into international missions started separately before we even met and how they have now blended as our vision together. We enjoyed being able to share with the congregation how [nlcf] is involved in our ministry and how our time at [nlcf] allowed us to grow tremendously in our faith and relationship with Jesus.  I also encouraged them to to go on one of [nlcf]'s missions trips.  I have never seen anyone come back from one of them and not be changed in some way.  I think God does incredible things in people's hearts when they go on mission trips. This was also Lesley's first time speaking with me at a church service and it was really encouraging to me to have her up there beside me. I'm so thankful for her! This was such a rejuvenating time for us to connect with the staff members and the congregation.  The staff and members also took time to pray for us and "send us out" during the service which was really awesome to experience!  We also had some of our very close friends pray with them, as they also invited those in the service who knew us personally to come forward, who have watched this calling unfold in our lives over the past few years.  It meant so much to us to have them be there and pray over us.  We love our church family so much and thank them for all of the encouragement and discipleship during our time at Tech.


Jamey

bump into us // Covington, Va

Let me introduce to you the "Bump Into Us" post, well, because though it will always be short and might even seem silly, I'm actually really excited about it! Here's why: we want people to know where we are headed each weekend so that you can literally bump into us! If you know anything about Jamey and I, you know that we love people -- like really love people -- and we just feel so blessed and energized when we get some face-to-face contact time with people who are really excited about our ministry. We never get tired of it! So we'll posting regularly about where our travels are taking us, and we hope that you take us up on the offer that we want to see you. And with these posts, please be praying for safe travels, encouraging meetings, and that God will continue to prepare our hearts for everything that is to come along with this journey!

This weekend we will be travelling back to Covington, VA (Jamey's hometown for anyone who is wondering!) since we haven't been back in almost a month. And the really exciting news is that we will be speaking at Bethesda Temple of Praise in White Sulphur Springs this Sunday, March 10. We'll be at both services if you're hoping to catch us! We are very grateful for this opportunity to share about our ministry to another great church.