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.