I Don't Know What to Say...

This past week we went to Louisiana on a mission trip, you talk about a blessing. God has given me the most amazing joy I can' describe it. You know how the Bible tells us that He will give us a peace that surpasses all understanding, God has given me a joy that surpasses all understanding, or, at least mine and that is fine with me because He has changed my heart and I hope and pray that I never change. As we sang "Victory in Jesus" this morning in church I LITERALLY COULD NOT STAND STILL!!! I just kept moving vack and forth and tapping my feet. It was awesome!!!! I felt so victorious!!!! The Holy Spirit really spoke to me in the second verse.

I heard about His healing,
Of His cleansing pow'r revealing.
How He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see;
And then I cried, "Dear Jesus,
Come and heal my broken spirit,"
And somehow Jesus came and bro't
To me the victory.

Chorus
O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him,
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood.

After I sang it, I realized that the week before last, I was broken, I had broken myself away from God. So, He took me 500 miles away from home to bring me back to Him and jimany cricket, I don't ever want to leave Him again!!!!!

I hope that this has been encouraging and that it has helped you in some way!
May God make you joyful,
Leah-Joy.

PS. coming soon: a post of our trip to Louisiana!

Our Babies are Home!!!!

On our way!!!

Looking and waiting

First sighting

J. Man is a little card even after being up for twentytwo hours

Sweet Pea went straight to her Daddy!

Our babies are home!!! I am completely out of words. He has been so good to us. He provided everything we needed and continues to do so, He gave us safe travels, and brand family members. They are such beautiful, amazing, well mannered children. They are so obedient, so loving and so smart! More pictures to come!

God Bless,
Joy.

Louisiana Mission Trip, Part 2

This post is about Sunday and Monday. Sunday is always a really great day. Well, all of them are great days, but every Sunday is great because is the day that the Lord has set aside for rest! And boy do we take advantage of that! The Lord really blessed this trip, as he does all of them.

Sunday afternoon the church fed us an amazing lunch! Man, Louisiana folk know how to feed a crowd with their Cajun cooking!
We all have to wear our Carpenters For Christ shirts. They aren't the best looking things, but, we make a joke out of them.

A very sweet lady from their church offered to take out n the town. She took us to the Red River walk and the Board Walk (an outdoor mall that was like a little village). IT was GREAT!!!!!
And THEN...
We went to Bass Pro!!! It was so great! There was a Sonic inside the store AND it was HAPPY HOUR! All of their slushies are half off! It. was. so. great!!! Uncle JR. bought us all one.
THANKS Uncle JR.!!!

Monday morning all the guys and men the roof at 5:30 to beat the heat. They said that they were going to quite at about 10:30, but, needless to say, they finished at lunch! They did not want to stop until it was done!

These are the three stooge's and hair stylists.
Individually known as, Whit, Lil' Darlin' and Pooh Bear.

We all love putting up sheet rock! It so much fun and according to Chris, third from the left, claims that if there are three girls nailing up the sheet rock, six hammers fly by! We had a great time and love working with each other and for the Lord!

More to come...

God Bless,
Joy.

Louisiana Mission Trip 2009 part 1

This years trip was a milemarker for me. Thursday night we always have "awards ceremony." It is a time where we embarass everyone who is new and has done a little something embarassing. Well, after that we have communoin. Right before we had communion I stepped forward to give my life to the Lord and asked Him to save me from the firery depths of hell. I had been doubting my salvation since about May and, on Thursday, June 18th, I was able to nail it down! God has saved my soul and I am completely His!

He did so much for us on this trip, as he always does. He blessed us with strength and energy. It was an amazing trip and the church was so thankful for us to be there. I will tell you about the trip in a couple posts because there is no way that I could do it in one. So, I will start with Friday and Saturday.

Friday morning we left a local church here in our community at about seven.

Hit a local truck stop for biscuits and then hit the road.

As you can see these hard working young men are replacing a tire. Well, to summ it up, God really had his hand the van that all of us young people were on. We were probably about five hours away from our destination and come to find out, the tire on our rental van was warped!
So, thankfuly we had already planned on stopping at church we had worked on years back and while there, we discovered the spare was even in worse condition! So, a member of the church went and got another tire for us!
And, you know how Satan will throwe firey darts at you? Well, this next thing that happened to us was almost literaly a firey dart. As we were riding down the interstate, people were bushhogging on the side of the road. A piece of rubber got caught in one of the bushhoos and was blown out. It flew up and hit the end of the van. This peice of rubber put a dent in the van right above the back right tire.
God kept us so safe!

Then we settled in on Friday night and a yummy super was fed to us by the church memebers. Saturday moring we (us girls) started putting up insalation!!! YuKK!! But, we had something to do, so, that is always nice. While we did that,

the guys were on the roof! Glad that I wasn't up there. They worked so hard in the heat, but, thankfuly for a lot of the time it was overcast so that helped out a lot.

Saturday night a sweet little couple from their church invited us to their diner! It was so great!

Have you ever seen six girls sitting at one booth?

Think it won't work?

Well, we made it work! It was such a blast! The whole week was.

After a DELICIOUS supper of fried catfish, AMAZING hushpuppies, fries, slaw and cake, there was pickin' and grinnin'!

The evening was ended with Amazing Grace.

Philippians 4:6-7
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

God bless!

Your new sister in Christ,

Joy.

If...

If this was your last night, where would you spend you eternity?

The last night we were in Louisiana this question struck me. The story behind is to come soon.

Thank you

• Going to church
• Blowing bubbles with a little one
• Going on a Mission for God in Louisisana
• Being with my family
• Having reunions
• Blogging whatever I want
• Shopping
• Fishing with my little brother's
• Spending a day in the kitchen
• A night on the town with my sister's
• Watching a movie with my family
• Driving my Daddy's Ford

This list could go on and on. What is the list for you ask? It is things that I know that I do and don't even think about them. Today I have thought a lot about them and why we CAN do them. We CAN do them because of what I and my brothers and sisters and mama witnessed this morning. The homecoming of a fallen soldier. This brave, 21 year old Sargeant left his home and family to go fight for you and me. Not knowing at all what the future held. Sure, none of us know what our future holds, but he was going to a land where he was hated and going to be shot at WITHOUT MERCY. A land where his brother's are dying for others who don't even care anymore. You and I are safe, here in our homeland, the motherland. He left his young wife and newborn son. A couple weeks ago I was at the docters office with my grandmother. As we left I saw an older gentlemen, nicley dressed witha cap on that said, "Veteran of Vietnom." AS we left, I hesitated and then thanked him for his service to our country. After I told him thank you, he thanked me for thanking him. Mama and Daddy have taught me and my siblings to thank these men and obviously, they don't get thanked enough. I not to brag or anything, I just want to give you something to think about. Thank a soldier when you see one. As I write this I wonder if Sgt. Jordan was ever thanked; I hope that he was. I haven't cried like I did this morning at the airport in a long time. I kept thinking of his familiy, his young wife and 1 year old son who's birthday is the day that his life was taken. June 4th. I also kept think of the "This is just a dream" by Carrie Underwood . How I wish that had been a dream, but it wasn't. It was real. IT IS REAL! Please keep his family in your prayers. Please for all of our troops.

Thank you for taking time to read, and, if you take the time to thank a soldier,

Thank you again.

A Blessing!

Sorry that it has been a while! :( But, before I got to bed I wanted to drop a note and share with you the story of a blessing that God gave me today! He is always blessing me and sometimes I don't see it or He does it so much I don't even realize what He has sent me but, anyway, on with the story! This morning I was able to sleep late and then wonder down stairs in my pj's. I then started working in the kitchen (one of my favorite things to do). As I was working our Uncle JR. came by. As we stood talking he said that he need to talk to me. As I walked towards him I thought that I was in trouble. Well, he puts his hands on my shoulders (what he always does when he very serious about something) and says,

"Would you like a camcorder?"

Me, "Yes sir!"

You see, he had bought this camera to take pictures with on all the mission trips he goes on but he claimed that it was to complicated for him so he gave it to me! I am still so excited! Now I just have to figure out how to work it! See, hear lately I have been thinking that it would be really cool if I could somehow save up and get a camera. But, God knew what I was thinking and GAVE me one nicer then I ever could of bought! And now maybe with this new fangled thing we will have more "picture perfect" posts!

Thank you Lord for being such an awesome and gracious God! Thank you for this time of the year where we can reflect on all that you have given us and blessed us with!
MAY YOU NAME BE FOREVER PRAISED!

Post 101!!!!

Ahh, does time fly? It seems like only yesterday, me, a great friend Emily, and one of my awesome first cousin's, Cody were out to eat in Louisiana with Carpenters for Christ!

A Very Blessed Louisiana Mission Trip

"Smiley", our wonderful driver and comedian!

The work the Lord had ready for us to do!

It is so awesome to see everyone pitching in to get all that was needed done!
Mrs. W. wasn't about to let anyone out do her!

Hope sharpening her own pencil!

(a lil' scary!)

In these pictures it may look like all we did was play but we did get a lot of work done because of God's awesome power!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!

Me and my "big brother."

Mrs. W. taught us all how to jitterbug!!

Smiley found himself a buddy who was always willing to help do ANYTHING!!

Hope keeping her ice cream from Smiley.

As He always does, the Lord blessed us with an AWESOME Carpenters For Christ Mission Trip! It's AMAZING the energy, patience, endurance, strength and much more that He gives us!!! Knowing that God is giving you that energy at right around 3:00 when you really just wanna go take a nap then you just take a little break and you FEEL like you have taken a nap is AMAZING!!

The church there was wonderful to us, they fed us three meals a day, people from their church came and worked with us and you could just feel the love that they had for the Lord and for us who were working!! It was so awesome!!

But if you feel led, please pray for that church because the sanctuary was hit by a tornado and it still has a ways to go but Lord willing, with the help of their insurance it will be fully prepared and ready for worship in two weeks!!

Thank you for praying for us while we were gone on the mission that God had laid out for us to go and do!!

Blessings,
Joy.