Girls January 24, 2010

I can’t believe that I have yet to post a picture of our group but here it finally is.

Samm Poteat and I are leading this Bible study of six older leaders in our ministry. It has been such a joy and so easy to lead these women. They are so eager and excited to learn and give their lives away. This semester we are really focusing on evangelism as a group. We want to make sure that we are continuing to look outside ourselves and our ministry to reach other students at the U of MN. Please be praying for the semester that these women would continue to grow and get excited about discipleship and evangelism.

I have yet to get a picture of Matt’s guys but as soon as that happens we will get a picture up of them too.

Pigtails January 17, 2010

My snow angel

smelling the flowers

enjoying some warmth and green things that are actually alive

three monkeys

Link to Christmas Conference Talks! January 7, 2010

Follow this link to get to the talks. All you have to do is press play. You might have to copy and past the address.

http://www.cominneapolis.org/blog/mnyc-2009-media/

There are also some videos on the link. Matt did all the videos and Annie and all the babies are staring in one of the videos so it might be fun to check them out too!

Christmas in Charleston January 7, 2010

Well, we have arrived home after spending a couple weeks in Charleston for Christmas and then heading directly to Christmas conference in Milwaukee. It has been a crazy last couple of weeks so we are now looking forward to spending some time at home. Here are some of the fun things we were up to.

When you are married to Matt going to home to Charleston means fishing. So…in December, in the cold, we went out on the boat with our 1 year old and went fishing! Don’t worry, we were only out for probably a total of 30 minutes.

Annie got this really neat tea set from her Great Grandma. I didn’t think she would be old enough to really play with it yet, but she loved it! She poured and drank out of the little cups. She has a blast with it.

We played lots of games and had an oyster roast.

Annie giving kisses to her BB

Pajama party on Christmas Eve.

We all went out to watch “The Christmas Carol” in 3D. Well, Annie didn’t. She had to go to bed.

This is the first time that Annie has actually reached to grab our hands while we were walking. We went to a plantation and went to a little animal farm. It was fun besides getting chased around by an oversized turkey!

This is Annie’s first time using a spoon by herself. BB was feeding her and it took but a couple minutes for her to get her to bring a spoonful to her mouth. Now whenever she eats, she wants to eat by herself. I guess that is a good thing

Christmas morning at Nana Lisa’s house. Under the tree was FULL. Annie had such a good time opening presents.

Great time in Charleston for Christmas. It was nice to be able to get out of the snowy tundra to beautiful weather. The first couple days we were there it was in the mid 60’s. Such a great break! We might need another break in a couple weeks here since the high tomorrow is around 0!

Christmas conference was another great success. The theme was “Restless”. Matt gave a talk called “Resting among the restless”. His talk was amazing. We are working an including a link so that you can listen to any/ all of the talks including Matt’s.  Hopefully that will be up soon.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

What Annie has been up to in December… December 14, 2009

We got to go to Macy’s with Samm and Muddux to see their annual Christmas display. This year the display was “A day in the life of an elf.” It was really cute and would have been a great opportunity for some awesome pictures had my battery not run out The girls loved being able to run around and look at the amazing displays though.

This is Annie sitting on the computer. Annie has been sitting on everything lately, in her shoe drawer, on her toys, in little mixing bowls and many other things. But this day we were talking to Nana Lisa over skype when Annie insisted that we put the computer down so that she could sit on it while we were talking. I am not sure if she thought she was sitting on Nana or what but it was really funny.

Annie loves to put things around her neck and haul them around the house. This one was actually supposed to be put around her neck.

She spends a lot of time climbing all the way into the cupboard in order to dig out all of my pots, pans, and bowls. She is not very big so she easily fits all the way inside.

And this year, Annie got to help me put up some Christmas lights. I wasn’t sure if they were going to stay up because of Annie pulling the down but she has been really good at not tugging on them.

Well, tomorrow morning we head to SC for Christmas and then the end of the month we are in Milwaukee for Christmas conference. It will be a busy December.

Thanksgiving November 30, 2009

This is Annie playing in the little “pantry” that my sister and I played with when we were kids. My mom broke out all the great old toys that we had when we were kids. It was so fun to see Annie playing with them now.

For Thanksgiving we had the Poteats, the Longergans, the Brooks, and Brittany Hayes come over to eat at my mom and dad’s house. That means, 3 babies and 1 pregnant lady We ran out of chairs to the babies got to have their Thanksgiving feast on the floor. It was really cute, they kept passing food around practicing “sharing”.

The best picture we could get. Annie was extremely tired so she was sucking her thumb all night.

The day after Thanksgiving every year my family drives to WI to take out my great grandma to lunch. She is now 100 years old! She still lives in her own house by herself and is as sharp as a tack.

The Reagans and the Poteats.

Pre-Thanksgiving November 25, 2009

Every year our good friends Samm and Paul put on a “Pre- Thanksgiving” dinner at their house. Each year all the students that are in their Bible studies are supposed to come and invite people that they are hanging out with. Since Samm and I are leading a Bible study together this year I got to attend with all of our girls.

We had a large number of students crammed into their house eating amazing food…it felt just like the holidays are supposed to. Here are a couple pictures.

Our choice of dinner conversation was gross foods. One of the top grossest things we could come up with, fried bologna! We also talked about the pumpkin shortage and how we should probably start stocking up if it not too late already

Thursday we head to my parents house for Thanksgiving dinner. Then in a couple weeks we get to head south to Charleston for Christmas! Wohoo.

After Christmas we head to Milwaukee for our yearly Christmas conference. Please be praying for students to come and that their hearts would be softened to the gospel of grace! We will keep you updated on the conference as it comes.

Time with The Reagpa! November 20, 2009

Well, Matt’s dad (Reagpa) came to visit last week. Brenda (BB) was supposed to come as well but came down with the flu the night before they were supposed to come. We were so bummed. We did get to spend some great time with Reagpa however. We went to the park for probably one of the last times this year before it gets to cold. We also went to Toy’s R Us to get a birthday present from BB and Reagpa. We got this really cool blow up gym that has little play balls in it. Annie really likes it. She continues to play with it everyday by “jumping” in through the holes. It is hilarious. We also got to go to the Children’s Museum. Every third Sunday it is free. Good idea…however it was extremely busy.

Well, Reagpa got to play with Annie and see first hand how much energy Annie really has. She is so funny, she goes non stop, getting into everything. As we discussed…just like her father did when he was 1.

 

 

Uphill Battle November 12, 2009

A word from my husband…

When viewed through a natural lens, the reality of ministry can be horribly discouraging. We, as ministers, are trying to find the boldness and love to reach students on the campus(and eventually the nations) for Christ. But we are often half-hearted people, feeling obligation where we should feel eagerness and fear where we should feel love. To make matters worse, the people to whom we minister often despise with all their hearts the very thing we are offering them to bring them life. And when you add the cultural stigma against Christianity and in favor of the privatization of faith and relativistic tolerance(”What’s true for you is true for you, so you are right to believe whatever you want”), the situation looks bleak. The phrase, “But God…”, which is so powerfully hope-giving in the scriptures, does the same thing in our situation.

I say in my discouragement, “They can’t even hear me!”, but God continues to make them respond. I cry, “I can’t love them enough!”, but God continues to use me in their lives. I groan, “Are these men even changing at all?”, but God keeps flipping switches in their hearts. We have one hope. It is not our wisdom or winsomeness or willpower. It is the unrelenting power of God in His gospel to change unchangeable hearts.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”- II Corinthians 4:7

This was a blog post that Matt put on the campus outreach website. Every week a different staff person puts a post on the blog. If you are interested in checking it out to keep up to date on campus ministry follow this link…

http://www.cominneapolis.org/blog/

Enjoy!

Fall in Minnesota November 5, 2009

Fall has been beautiful here. It got really cold and actually snowed a couple times but it has warmed up slightly and we are having a wonderful fall. Our tree in the front yard is the prettiest on the block. It covered our whole lawn when the leaves started falling. Annie and Maddux had a good time playing in the piles. 

We also had a little joined birthday party for Annie and Maddux last weekend. We had some of our neighbors and friends over to celebrate with the girls. The enjoyed a pumpkin cake that Samms mom made. The girls loved it! Here are a couple pictures from that as well. 

Our little pumpkin