Pune, India

Thanks so much for continuing to check our blog! We have been very busy around here - we enjoyed a wonderful summer visiting family and friends, spending time together, and resting from a busy year! Lisa and the children started back to school a couple of weeks ago, and David is busy with church ministry. More importantly, God has been continuing to show us His plan for our family to go overseas. We are currently preparing to go to Pune, India (about 80 miles from Mumbai/Bombay) sometime in 2011. The last few weeks have been SO amazing! God has connected us with people and situations that we could have never even imagined ourselves! Please pray for us as we work out details and prepare to go - we are all very excited about this new opportunity to serve Him! Stay tuned for more updates!

Need a time-saving meal?

Happy late New Year, happy groundhog day, happy everything! We have been very busy around here beginning a new year, getting back into our home school routine, and just living life! Our days seem so busy with home school, David's schoolwork and church work, basketball games, band practices, ........ you get the idea! Since I know that I CAN'T be the only one with a busy schedule, I thought I would pass along one of my favorite time-saving recipes. It is prepared in a crock-pot - I LOVE a good crock pot! My mother-in-law gave me a massive 7 quart crock pot for Christmas - it even has a timer on it! Yippee! Anyway, here is one of our favorite recipes:

Chicken Soft Tacos

1 - 1 1/2 lbs. frozen, boneless, skinless chicken breasts
14 1/2 oz. can low-sodium diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 envelope taco seasoning

Place chicken breasts in crock pot. Mix tomatoes and taco seasoning; pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 6 - 8 hours. Shred chicken with two forks, and use a cup to take out some of the extra liquid. Serve on flour tortillas with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, etc.


Hope you enjoy!

Thank you, Forest Hill Baptist Church!

This weekend, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Maryville, TN and speak at my (Lisa's) home church, Forest Hill Baptist Church. While there, we shared about our trip to Thailand, and about what God is doing in our lives, as well as around the world. David was also given the opportunity to preach from Psalm 67. Thank you, Forest Hill, for the blessing of allowing us to come and share! While in TN, we were also able to spend Christmas with my family. We had such a great time visiting and catching up, having sleep-overs with cousins, and eating too much! Thanks for a great weekend, family! We miss you!

Great last minute gift idea!

Need an idea for a cute, inexpensive Christmas gift? Go here: http://www.thefrugalgirls.com/2009/12/how-to-make-decorated-clipboards.html.
For our clipboards, I let the kids pick out their own paper from the scrapbook section at the craft store, but didn't tell them what it was for! I spent $0.97 each for the clipboards at Wal-Mart, the paper was about 50 cents per sheet, and I used a 40% off coupon at Michael's for the Modge Podge. Since we home school, I think the kids will get a lot of use out of their clipboards! A very practical, but fun, gift for kids. I think it would be perfect for a teacher gift, too!

Getting Ready for Christmas...

I can't believe that Christmas is only 2 weeks away! We have been busy with Christmas band concerts (Andy has been playing the trumpet!), special Christmas ballet dances, and making Christmas treats. I held a dessert/coffee for the ladies on our street this past Sunday afternoon. It was a lot of fun! Eight ladies came, most of whom had not met one another before. On Saturday, Maggie will dance with her ballet company in the Christmas Parade. Today, the kids and I made treats for their Sunday School teachers. We melted white candy melts, mixed in chopped Oreos, and poured them into snowman molds. Yum! We will give those to their teachers, along with some homemade hot chocolate mix. Here is the recipe:

Hot Cocoa Mix
Instant Powdered Milk (enough to make 8 quarts)
16 oz. Nestle Quik powder
11 oz. regular coffee creamer
1 box powdered sugar
Mix all ingredients in large bowl (it makes a lot!). Add 1/2 cup mix to 1 cup boiling water.

It is so yummy, and is great to give to teachers, neighbors, etc.

We are still here!

Don't you just hate it when you check on a blog....and it NEVER CHANGES! Sorry about the lack of updates! Things are normal/busy around here - school has started back, and David is now serving as the Children's Pastor at our church. He is really enjoying the opportunity to serve in this capacity, and it has been a real blessing! The kids' activities are also back in full swing - sports, music, etc.

Check back again soon - I will try to update on a regular basis!
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Ministry in Thailand...

Words cannot express the experience that Lisa and I had this past July as we served the Lord in Asia. Thailand is a welcoming place, and ironically, we found these non-believing Buddhists to be more accommodating than most of the Christians in America. Nonetheless, it is a spiritually dark place where the majority of the population does not experience the peace of God and there is no hope beyond this physical life. Buddhists in general believe that they must continue living in numerous cycles of life until they eventually are “good enough” to reach the path of enlightenment, and ultimately a state of nothingness, or Nirvana. Above, a woman is worshipping the Buddha (although they claim it’s not worship) with a Lotus flower in her palms. She is most likely seeking a blessing of fertility through this ritual of prayer and meditation. How sad that the God of the universe desires to fellowship with her, and bless her womb, yet she is praying to idols for hope in this life.

We encountered these young monks at “monk chat”, where we were allowed to engage them in conversation about spiritual matters. Although we learned much about the principles of Buddhism, more importantly we shared our faith in Christ and the hope we have that cannot be found in Buddhism. The monks were amazed at the joy we have in Christ; however, witnessing to them was challenging since the Thai people in general do not see problems with contradictions between Buddhism and the way reality works.

These young boys dressed in “Hill Tribe” clothing outside of the famous Doi Suthep temple were quite intrigued with the Thai Gospel tract that we gave them. They were almost fighting over the privilege to hold and read it.

We visited an Islamic Chinese mosque where the Imman (man with glasses and beard) shared with us about the Muslim faith. We asked some challenging questions to both learn about and expose the fallacies of Islam. Dr. Robinson (in the black shirt) scheduled a personal appointment with the Imman the next day so that he could speak with him about what the Qur’an and the Bible say about who Jesus is and what He came to do.

One day while we were out witnessing we encountered a Christian business owner who invited us to her church on Sunday. We visited this church plant, which meets in a hotel, and what a blessing we received as we worshipped with Thai believers. Also, Pastor Art (to my right in the picture) encouraged us by sharing with our team the way he and his church members disciple others to grow in their faith and service to the Lord. It was amazing how the Lord connected us with this church (Hope for Chiang Mai Church) so that as we encountered people on the street in witnessing situations we were able to invite them to visit the church and the bible study that takes place in the Christian business. In fact, three people made professions of faith at this service, and one was a lady we encountered on the street a couple of days earlier who we invited to church.

In a similar manner, the Lord connected us with the Campus Crusade Director at Payap University. We were just out witnessing one day on campus when “Reuben” was put in our pathway. As we witnessed to Thai students on campus, we were able to direct them to a ministry that could further explain the Gospel in their heart language and encourage them on to faith in Christ. We saw and felt the Lord work in so many other ways. Personally, it was a huge blessing to have Lisa by my side in ministry and I was overwhelmed by seeing her heart for ministry and passion to share the Gospel with the Thai women. Praise God for all He did in us and through us on this mission. May He continue this work He has begun in us and use us in similar ways to reach those in our own community. Thanks also to all those who prayed and supported us so that we could experience God work in these ways.