I just realized!!!

Wow... I just realized that I haven't blogged in forever and a half! Once again... my apologies. God has been rocking my world, ministry, and life. He has challenged me and humbled me all while being used by Him. Sometimes I feel like Paul when he talks about being an example of God's patience, grace, and mercy! Aren't we all... aren't we all. So much has happened in my life this past month... it seems like it has been longer than a month.

My brother and his family have moved into town and gotten all suddled in. They are now official Okies! They are absolutely loving it. Also, my good friend Ricky moved down with them to have a new start in life. They are amazed and excited by all that God is doing here.

My parents had a contract on a house, but found out through further inspection that the foundation was all busted so they had to pull out. That was hard for them, especially my mom. They were already invisioning their life there. So they are back to square one. We have now moved south of town by the lake which has thrown a cool little twist on the search. We are getting closer and closer. Pray that God opens a sweet door of opportunity for them. They sure do deserve it. I love them so much and want the very best for them.

The children's ministry here at Journey Church has been overwhelming in a good challenging way. We turned the power boosters on super high and held on for dear life. It all has happened so quickly. Most of this everybody already knows, but I'll update you just in case. Like I said before, Ms. Donna is on staff now as our Preschool director. We have now established a leadership team underneath her. Kimberly Isaac is our team leader over PraisePlace. Nova Horton is our team leader over ToddleTown. Rhonda Merrill is our team leader over InfantreeLane. They are all so super awesome and a huge help in elevating that area of ministry to the next level. We have our Elementary Team Leaders, too. Kim Copeland, Paul Chapa, and Dawn Bartholomew. We just started our Mix56 team which is a discipleship/drama team consisting of 5th and 6th graders. My sister Angie is over that. We recently have been donated 10,000 sq. ft. of playhouse equipment. WOW!!! We had a big spring cleaning work day to get ready for the NEXT Generation Children's Ministers Conference, which went amazingly great by the way. We also had a Kid's Rally that same weekend called KidCraze. The weekend following we had our HUGE city wide easter egg hunt. Here are the stats on all those events.

Next Generation Conference
We had 10 different churches attend this conference. All of them completely blown away by what God is doing here. (It came out to almost 30 different registered guests) That is a great number for only promoting it for 1.5 months. They were blown away by the servanthood, willingness, and energy of our children ministry teams… all the way from birth to 5th grade. Way to represent team!!!
Kid Craze!!!
We had a count of 215 kids, 141 adults, and 72 salvations!!! WOW!!! Those numbers blew away our expectations. It sure was an amazing night!!!
Easter Sunday Services
We had a record attendance all the way across the board! We had a total of 614 people walk through our doors Easter Sunday! 160 of those people were in the care of JourneyKIDS!!! We had a whopping 86 kids just in Mainstreet. Last week we had a record number of 70 kids and we completely blew that out of the water this week! (keep in mind both these dates were during spring break) We are beginning to head towards the 100 mark. That is not to mention the fact that we have been having 40+ kids during our Wed. night TeamKID!! Is that not awesome!!! Our Preschool classes all had an awesome craft that they took home. I had parents commenting on how great they were.
Easter Egg Hunt
It was flawless!!! There were so many hands involved in making it great! We had people doing everything from stuffing eggs, organizing prizes, making signs, setting up, tearing down, and creating an environment during the event. We had nearly 500 kids there and an estimated 2,000 people total at the football field that day. There wasn’t a single kid who left that field unhappy. We kept the energy high and had it all done within 30 min. We began to tear down and had everything back at the church by 3:30. Is that not awesome or what!!!

Anyways... these are some of the things that have been going on lately. I am going to work hard at making sure I blog at least once a week to avoid super huge blogs like this. I just don't want you guys to miss a thing.

Until next time, have fun being CRAZY for Jesus!!!