January '08

Tim and I have been in Beaufort for seven months now and the beauty of the area still takes our breath away. God is an amazing artist. We are so blessed to be in such a remarkable area with remarkable people.

After the holidays we thought things would slow down a little. Of course we were wrong. Tim's parents and his grandmother, Winnie, came to visit. This was a very exciting weekend. We enjoyed having family around and especially seeing Winnie. Tim's dad cooked breakfast for us on Monday. We had trout and oyster stew. It looked delicious which is why I made myself an egg biscuit. The weekend flew by and before we knew it they were leaving again.

Tim and I planned a ski trip for our teenagers at church. We took nine teens and headed up to Virginia. Bethel Baptist Church (my home church) let us stay in their gym while we were there. The best part was that I got to see my family in the middle of all the activities. Early Monday morning we went to the Wintergreen Resort. Most of our teens had never been skiing before, and we could tell when they went down for the first time. They had a lot of fun but were extremely tired when we went back to Bethel. Scott (our brother-in-law) is now the youth pastor there so he planned a big youth activity for the evening. It was a lot of fun mingling with another youth group.

The month wasn't over yet. Our friends Robbie and Amy Roscoe brought their family to visit for the weekend. We had a great time catching up with them and seeing the kids. Kaitlyn and Kayla are now five years old. They were reading and writing up storm all weekend. Little Blake (6 months old) had a great time watching our cats and his sisters run around the house. He laughed and laughed. We hated to see them leave.

.
Looking back over this month, we have been so blessed. God is working so much in our church. We have several new families attending regularly. Liz's Bible study for the ladies is going very well. For this month’s meeting we had 23 ladies attend. What a blessing! We also had a very special service January 20th. This was the anniversary service for the church. New Hope has been established for three years now. How exciting it is to be involved in a church that is growing and following God!!