Garden Camp is Next Week!

Dear Friends and Prayer Warriors,

Please take some time over the weekend and through next week to pray for our upcoming Garden Camp.  We've got just over 30 kids ages 5-12 signed up to participate. Right now, we're in the last stages of getting ready.  I'm working on getting the garden cleaned up, finalizing lessons, and trying to get all the details in place for the kids to have a great time! The kids will be learning biblical lessons about Creation care, soil types, and reaping what you sow, while simultaneously getting to build some soil, pull some weeds, pick some veggies, and prep their own lunches from fresh fruits and veggies.  We've got a great group of  volunteers lined up, including a couple of guys trekking in all the way from Denton, TX to help out! Please pray the Lord gives us an incredibly "fruitful" week! Over the course of the week, I'll be posting pictures of camp over on the Garden Facebook page. 

A couple of weeks ago our local newspaper, the Herald&Tribune, did a really nice article on the Garden and ran it on the front page.  You can read the full article online here.
http://www.heraldandtribune.com/community-news/church-garden-continues-message-hope/

The Lord has already blessed us with a great month at West Hills. We've had visitors every single Sunday in July!  We are truly thankful! 

Thank you for your prayers and support! We couldn't be here without you! 

This week we put rock in the pathways to stop the weeds and eliminate the mud.

We're almost all cleaned up for Garden Camp.

The extra rock piles go into the center of the cinder blocks to secure them together.

Our sunflower field in front of the church is almost to its peak, and almost every day folks stop by to take pictures!

My two helpers are doing a great job! And they love riding in the wheelbarrow. 

MidSummer Update! I somehow missed a couple of months...

There are lots of pictures! This might take a while to load!

Dear Friends and Prayer Warriors!  

Sorry the blog has been quiet the last couple of months.  The last time I missed two months we has just had our second child.  In this case, I simply haven't made time to sit at my desk...so please forgive me.  We do want to keep you updated on all the wonderful things going on in our lives and ministry!

There are also updates, including video updates, on the Garden's Facebook page and in our Until the Nets are Full Facebook group.  Please check out those as well :)

At the end of April we wrapped the year with our homeschool coop.  We're so thankful to have these encouraging families in our lives!

Hosea FINALLY potty trained.  Me: Why are you peeing in the yard? H: Because the potty was too far and I had to go pee. At least we're out of diapers. We're still working on not peeing in the yard ;)

Lily lost another tooth, while eating spinach she had just picked from our garden!

We typically take our family vacation in early May, before the busiest days of summer.  This year, we took the kids to Disney World! They had a blast!

At "Enchanted Tales with Belle", Lily was chosen to play the role of "Beast"!

We stayed all the way through to see the light show on Cinderella's Castle and the fireworks!

The Garden of Hope had our kickoff on Mother's Day weekend.  We have 7 families growing with us this year!

Starting our garden tour.

For our Spring Planting Festival, our friends with Outside the Camp came in to feed us lunch.

Mary, Mona, and Dorothy, serving at lunch! 

We had a great turnout!

My little helpers mixing up the mud!

Hosea was helping plant veggies...

The wildflowers are starting to bloom!

And so are the sunflowers!

The flowers are bringing in pollinators, like this super cool tiny bee.

Meredith and I celebrated 10 years of marriage on May 19th with a fun dinner date!

Lily is very into giving presents, so this time she decided to give us herself. :)

I had the privilege of doing the premarital counseling and wedding ceremony for Dylan and Catherine McCoy.

The kids had lots of fun at the McCoy wedding!

Our garden is now growing!

These are some of the plots families have planted.

This is progress!

Last week our local paper, the Herald and Tribune, came out and toured the garden. They're doing an article in Wednesday's paper.  We're thankful for the positive exposure.

We've had a few construction delays because of planting time and volunteer availability, but July is going to be a productive month.

The first week in August, a group from Denton Bible will be coming to help us host a "Garden Camp, where kids from the community will learn about sustainable growing practices, biodiversity, and much more.  We covet your prayers as we prep for and promote that over the next month!

When the kids have worn her out, Eloise can sleep anywhere.

But let's be honest, she prefers the couch. :) 

Drop us a note and let us know how you're spending your summer! We love hearing from you!

Watch our Garden Grow!

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Our two little artists painting birdhouses on Daddy's birthday!  Spring is here!

Dear Friends and Prayer Warriors,

I want to thank you for praying and show you how God is answering.  We've prayed the Lord would provide the materials for the Garden.  This month, the block to build the raised beds were donated (14 pallets worth)!  Praise the Lord!  Several businesses agreed to provide thousands of dollars worth of materials at their cost, which is incredible! Praise the Lord!  Last Saturday, over 20 volunteers from three different churches and the BCM at ETSU came and blessed us as they volunteered.  Some laid block, some knocked on doors. All served well!  Praise the Lord!  The Garden is starting to take shape, and people in our community are beginning to hear about it! 

Block for building raised beds being delivered.

A great first day of building beds!

Things you can be praying for this month.

1. Pray that the Lord would direct lost and non-churched people to come and grow with us.  We want to see people come to know the Lord through this ministry.

2. Pray we get the garden assembled over the next month.  We've got more groups scheduled to come, and it will take a huge community effort to finish the assembly.

3. Please continue to pray that the Lord would bring us a children's minister.  Until the Lord does, we shall persist in prayer for it!

***Denton Friends....Look for info on the short-term trip to come this summer! We'd love to have you come!

One more praise!  As a church, we've been praying and giving towards a new playset to serve the children of our church as well as the community.  Last week, I got a call from the Tennessee Baptist Foundation telling us they were going to grant us the rest of the money we need to purchase a commercial playset for the church. Praise the Lord! It should be installed in time for summer :)

New playset for the church is in the works!

This month I turned 38, and got to have a delightful date with my beautiful wife!

Lily got to go on a mommy/daughter date and get a pedicure for the first time! She loved it!

As a true sign of spring, the local snoballs place reopened for the season! Whohoo!

As a reminder that babies don't keep, Hosea posed for one last picture with his crib before we took it down! Mama may have cried.

He was finally ready for his big-boy bed! He did great with the transition!

With the bed transitions, Lily got a REAL princess bed! She was stoked!

Thanks for reading to the end! God bless you for praying with us!

 

Prayer Requests for the next month...

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One of my favorite pics from our TX trip was with this guy sitting on a tractor!

Dear Friends and Prayer Warriors,

Get your kneepads ready! Our tiny church is praying for the Spirit of God to move mightily in the next six months, and we're imploring you to pray with us.

Our time in Texas was a blessing, a shot in the arm of being connected and engaged in the Body of Christ.  Honestly, the DBC Missions Conference for me feels and awful lot like slingshot. They bring you in, draw you back, ministry pauses, we are clearly reminded of our objective (target) and realined (aimed), and finally we're launched back out into the field at a breakneck pace aiming clearly at the target God has called us to!

Right now the Lord has called us to help revitalize West Hills.  He's given us a vision for an outreach strategy in the Garden of Hope. He's provided materials and funding. Now is the time when all of the planning starts to come together!

Now more than ever, we need you to pray, and we'd like you to join us in asking God for some very specific things!

1. A children's minister. We have young children. As people come to church because of the outreach we're doing, we desperately need someone with a heart for children's ministry to come and serve alongside of us and minister to their kids.

2. Families.  We need a few more families who are willing to sacrifice the programs and conveniences offered by a big church to come serve as missionaries with us for a season, to help us gain some critical mass through this season of outreach.

3. Volunteers. Over the next three months, we're going to be building 100 raised beds and finishing the garden infrastructure.  We also need to knock on 1000 doors of our closest neighbors and invite them to participate in the Garden of Hope and to come and grow with us. Pray the Lord would raise up local volunteers to help us knock on doors and get the word out.

4. Endurance.  Farmers know that life is all about seasons. They rest in the winter, because spring, summer, and fall are filled with long days.  As we enter the season of long days, pray the Lord grants us endurance to honor him in all our activities.

 I had some wonderful meetings with some other local pastors this week, including our REV Brothers group. A lot of encouragement. A lot of good verbiage about partnership and practical helps.  Now we're praying for follow through!

In the coming months, I'll be trying to post shorter bits on information more regularly over on our facebook group, and this blog will continue to be a monthly newsletter.  Here are some of the highlights from the last month.

On the Friday night of the DBC mission's conference, I got share a little more about what the Lord is doing in East Tennessee.

At the same time, they put Lily on the spot and asked her to share with the other kids what life is like in East Tennessee. She got up and talked to them without missing a beat. :)

Family pic in front of our family pic on the DBC wall of missionaries!

The kids did amazing on the 15 hour ride home.  They're natural travelers. They even got to meet the king of rock and roll on our stop in Memphis.

All dressed up for our daddy/daughter date!

She's growing up so fast!

Mommy and Lily had a mommy/daughter date this month too hosted by Lily's American Heritage Girls troup!

This child loves to craft!

This boy is going to be a heartbreaker one day. Lord help us guide him!

Meredith's LuLaRoe business is doing really well.  So, after nine years of working as a PA, she turned in her resignation this month! The 28th is her last day, and then she'll be home full-time!

Eloise says you should go take a nap.  You've earned it.