Same Blog, Simplified :-)

Okay, so the "Happy New Year" blog background was just annoying me, so sorry if it's been annoying you. I really liked it at first. I LOVE red! I just made things look too busy. Well, I've calmed things down a bit, so I hope you like it. :-)

I hope you also like the pics of our wonderful, little dog, Bailey. The girls have just been thrilled to have her in our home (me too!). She was an unexpected Christmas blessing from my sister-in-law's neighbor. We were GIVEN Bailey while we were on Christmas vacation in CO! She is NOT some mutt either. She is a beautiful, miniature yorkshire terrier, who is in wonderful physical condition and has been fully trained. What a blessing! Her adjustment to being with us has gone so well. Traveling from CO to CA was no problem at all for her, and she has just adapted and fit right in with us. We're so thankful for her (and Daddy's saying "Yes"). :-)

Works of God Monday

Today, I am thankful that God is patient with me. Don't you wish we would struggle with something just once, learn from it, and then never have the same problem again? Hah! Wouldn't we become too self-sufficient though and stop depending on God? I don't want to go it alone in this life! God's ways are always the best. I look at the verse above, under the title of our blog, and I am convicted once again--stop looking at the circumstances that don't make sense, are tough, unwanted even, etc. and get my mind stayed on God! Oh that I would see our faithful, unchanging Rock and rest peacefully in His sovereign will. This is what needs to happen in the everyday, mundane stuff of life--a homeschool day not going according to plan, stiff/painful muscles that don't want to move well, running out of time to do something fun, or whatever it is that just isn't going my way!

Do we really see God in the "small" things? He is there. He is using it all for our good and His glory. It matters to Him. Romans 8:26-39 Oh Lord, conform us to your Son, and give us the grace and strength through Him!

Thankful for Mom Stephens

Today marks nine years since my mother-in-law went home to be with Jesus. She was an amazing woman who was such a great example to me of a wife (a pastor's wife at that :-) ), mother, and servant for the Lord. I so wish that my girls could have known her, that I could have gotten to know her better, and that Kris still had his mom, but I know God's ways are always best. He makes no mistake! I would have never wanted her to continue suffering in her battle with cancer. We were fortunate to have her for over 3 more yrs. after her cancer diagnosis. What we do have are pictures, stories to tell, and even some video to remind us of her and share who she was with our girls. Our girls have a godly heritage that we desire to pass on. While I write this post through tears, I am reminded that we don't grieve as others who have no hope. I Thessalonians 4:13-14. Mom is with her Lord and Savior. We are not sad for her. We get sad for us because we don't have her here anymore, but who would want to take her from the presence of the Almighty to this sinful world again? I look forward to the time when we will worship God purely with her one day around the throne.

God is good, ALL the time!

Here are some pictures of Mom that Karmen posted on facebook today.

Works of God Monday

Sorry it's taken a while to update anything. God is definitely at work, and we are thankful for Who He is! Amazingly, today marks 6 months from the day we "pulled into town" here in CA. It is hard to believe in a lot of ways that we've already lived out here for half of a year, but in other ways, it seems like we've been gone from MI for a lot longer. I would like to write more of what is going on here, but I'll just share a few thoughts about things I've thanked God for in the last couple of weeks.

First of all, we had ANOTHER earthquake since we have been in CA. This one was much closer to us, and although it was a 4.5 instead of a 5.4, it was louder, longer, and a bit more concerning to me! Kris and I were watching football. I heard this rumbling sound and looked up toward the ceiling. The girls were playing in one of the bedrooms above us. For a split second I thought, "What are they DOING?" Then it "hit" me! Kris and I literally got jolted a bit on the couch, which is against an exterior wall. It sounded and felt like something hit the house. Our CD tower began to sway and the CDs were rattling. The grandfather clock was shaking too. I said, "OH NO! Kris, get the girls!!!" The girls were already on their way down those stairs and "wimpering" a bit. The really cool thing is that the earthquake was already subsiding and Kris said, "Girls, what's our Bible verse for this week?" We had started memorizing Isaiah 41:10 as a family just 4 days before! It says, "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous, right hand." What wonderful timing God had in drawing us to this particular verse that we had been meditating on and discussing together all week.

Second of all, we did have a visitor come two Sundays ago as a result of getting one of our door hangers. She is an elderly woman who lives close by, and we had a good time of talking with her. She was not able to come back yesterday, but we hope to have more contact with her soon. Unfortunately we did not have any other visitors yesterday, but we are getting 5,000 more door hangers soon and will continue going through the area with those. Thank you for your prayers for these efforts and our need for God's leading in the ministry here. I can't tell you what a phone call, quick comment on the blog or facebook, a card or email has meant to us to know you are praying. God is good, ALL the time! We need to remember that tomorrow (and everyday) when "the wrong seems oft so strong," as the song "This Is My Father's World" reminds us. God IS the ruler yet!!!

The Beautiful End to 2008

We were able to go to Zion National Park in Utah on our way home from Colorado. We stayed in Springdale, UT. Our plan was to get there a lot earlier than we did, but travel across the Rocky Mtns. was VERY slow. It wasn't because of the weather--that was amazing and perfect for travel. We just were in major ski traffic from just north of Denver, all the way to Vail! It was Mon., and the last week of vacation for everyone. The mountains had gotten dumped on the week of Christmas, but the week after was a little warmer with clear, sunny skis. We saw tons of skiers! Anyway, it made us get to our hotel in UT at about 10:30 PM. I could tell by the last 30 mins. of our drive that we were probably in some beautiful area, based on the climbing and curving we were doing. We just couldn't SEE the beauty at the time. Well, here is the view we woke up to out our hotel room window the next morning:

I did nothing to enhance the photo, change the color, or anything. Isn't this amazing?!? We were just in awe the whole day as we drove and explored the national park. The beauty of God's creation all around us was breathtaking! We had such a wonderful time as a family, and Kris and I were excited to talk of God's power and majesty with our girls. For additional pictures of what we saw and experienced in the park, you can go to my facebook album by clicking here. Enjoy!

Works of God Monday

I am so excited to share with you some wonderful blessings that happened yesterday. I mentioned to you in my previous post that we were going to be going out into area neighborhoods to pass out door hangers. You can see a picture of what they look like here in this post. I also mentioned that Tim Lovegrove's church, Grace Bible Church, in Menifee was going to be involved in helping us hang these. Well, the Lord knew that Kris and I needed some extra encouragement, and He certainly did exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask or think. Isn't that just like our great God? There was quite a group that showed up from Grace--8 families represented, I was told! Pastor Tim even brought stacks of tracts with our church information on it, which was a special surprise to us.

Kris was looking forward to the first Sunday of the new year and being able to present our theme of knowing our God. He preached from Phil. 3. The new SS study I mentioned last post was starting yesterday too. Well, we were down in numbers dramatically yesterday for SS and church--12 of us. Some were still out of town, and we had no visitors show up. That was somewhat discouraging. We also had a potluck planned for after the service. Only the Fox family and our family were able to stay for the lunch, but we had a wonderful time. Between us and the group from Grace, all 1,000 door hangers were distributed in the Grand Terrace community near our church. Praise the Lord! I've not been on that side of the church much at all. We live the other direction and do most everything further into Riverside. It is an amazing community nearby. I've driven near there on the freeways. I just had not been IN the neighborhoods. Our goal was just to go from door to door hanging the information on a knob and then move on to the next house. There was some interaction with people that I heard about afterward, and one man was able to be given the Gospel. Please pray that people will come visit in the weeks ahead as a result of yesterday's efforts. Thank you so much!

OK, bear with me, 'cause I know I can write long posts. . . .One other special thing that happened last night was that we took the girls to the Mission Inn's Festival of Lights final evening. We had only driven by previously. The girls knew that there were these beautifully decorated "Cinderella" horse-drawn carriages that went around downtown. Emma asked if we were going to be able to do that. :-) The answer was "no" because of the cost. She asked how much it would cost, and Kris told her that it didn't matter. We just weren't going to be able to do it. After walking around and through the beautiful inn, we were about ready to leave. We saw two horse and carriages left, and Emma went running to go see them. An older gentleman was there, and she asked him how much it cost. "$35" was the reply! We were approaching when Emma turned around, and in a half shocked sound, half laugh said, "OOOHHHHH, NO WAY!!! Daddy will definitely not do THAT!" and told us the price. The man was listening, and Emma then turned to him and asked with this sweet voice, "How much would it be for just TWO people?" The man asked then where we were parked. We told him and thought he was going to give us a ride to the van. It was actually better than that! He told Kris that they were "closing up shop" for the night and taking the horses and carriages to a parking lot pretty far from where we were. He offered to give the girls and me a ride there for FREE if Kris would drive over and pick us up!!! It was so awesome to see the girls' excited faces and hear their squeals. :-) Emma was especially excited! We were the last ride of the season. We shared with her on the way home that God had done special things for us that day that weren't even really important, but that He takes joy in His children and gives those extra blessings sometimes. Emma actually cried a bit at being overjoyed, and we ended our day thankful to God for the extra encouragement that He gave us.

Happy New Year 2009!!!

It's hard to believe that nearly a decade has gone by since everyone was freaking out about Y2K. Remember those days? LOL It's just hard to believe that we are 9 yrs. into this century, you know? But, here we are again. It's another new year, and for us, we are in a new place this time. We never seem to have a dull moment in life. I'm sure you can agree and relate yourself. Who would want "dull" anyway? Sometimes a little stability and/or consistency would be nice for a while. Unfortunately we, or at least I'll speak for myself, become less dependent on God when everything is just going along the same way. I don't want that! In fact, I want to depend whole-heartedly on God and desire to know Him better each passing year. I want to learn through the sovereignly planned circumstances He brings into my life. This is done only by His grace! II Cor. 12:9-10

Kris is excited to present a new theme to our church tomorrow--"Know your God!" We are going to be going through A.W. Tozer's book The Knowledge of the Holy, which teaches on the attributes of our God--a great book! Pray for us as we desire to see the ministry here in CA grow. Yes, we would like to see more people come to our church, but we mostly we want to see people grow--in knowledge of and a relationship with God as well as in building relationships and serving others. Love God and love people--Matthew 22:37-40! We will be going out tomorrow afternoon to place our church door hangers in area neighborhoods. Tim Lovegrove's church people are coming to help us with this. Please pray for us in this effort to reach the community for Christ. We also are supposed to have a neighborhood Bible study called Explaining Christianity that Kris found through Pastor Mark Dever's church website. We are supposed to be starting this Thurs., but we've received no phone calls from interested people--just one prank call. :-( We are trusting God for the people to come or for Him to show us another direction to go with this type of outreach. We also have a lead on a possible outreach to college students in the area. These are all things we would ask you to please pray about as we seek to serve God and serve people here in SoCal. Thank you so much!

Well, I've started to get my pictures together and posted a bunch on Facebook. It had been quite a while since I had done that. I usually post a slideshow here on my blog, but you can see the pics by clicking here.

We are excited about the year ahead and look forward to what God has for us. I pray you are off to a good start in 2009 and that you too will see God do great and mighty things in your life. Please keep in touch and share with us how things are going and how we can pray for you too!