Grace Notes

Witnessing Stories

Courageous and Wisdom Teeth

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Tuesday afternoon our family went to see Courageous. It was fantastic.

As I was buying my ticket, I gave the girl at the booth an “animal card” – one of my new favorite tracts. They have amazing facts about animals with reference to the Creator and a Bible verse on the back. People really like them and they are so easy to give out.

Since no one else was in line at the moment and the movie hadn’t started yet, I decided to go back and talk with her. Our conversation went something like this.

“Hey, since no one is behind me here in line can I has you an interesting question?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“What’s your view on what happens when someone dies…like, do you have any spiritual beliefs about that?”
She wanted to talk about it right away and said, “Well my cousin died 7 years ago so it really made me think about it…” she explained. “He was only 25 and I couldn’t understand why…”
“Ah, like you had a hard time wondering why God allowed it to happen?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“So it was a tragic death?” I asked.
“Well, he had his wisdom teeth pulled and then developed an infection and that led to something else and he died…”
*internal gulp*
“I’m getting my wisdom teeth out on Friday,” I told her.

Maybe that wasn’t the best thing for me to hear at that moment. My little witnessing attempt became sort of…well…haha, I don’t know…it wasn’t exactly going as I expected! I tried to get to the gospel, mentioning how it’s not God’s fault there is evil in the world — it’s ours. And if God got rid of all of the evil in the world that would include us because each one of us has evil (sin) inside us. That’s why we need Jesus.

She agreed but I’m not sure if she understood. She needs to hear more.

Anyway, here I am three days later sitting with ice packs wrapped to my face, grateful that I like smoothies and yogurt!

And I’m also grateful for my friend Karen from church who just brought over 5 little miniture ice cream containers!

I’m thinking I should go back to see Harmony, the girl from the Theater to follow up. And to tell her I’m still alive. 🙂 If you think of it, pray for Harmony.

Miscellaneous/Thoughts

STARTING TODAY…want to join? :-)

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Sarah and Stephen are doing a special “project” this fall. Yesterday Sarah sent out an e-mail to the Bright Lights summer traveling team, inviting them to do the same.

Anyone interested in doing a “speed read” through the Bible with me? (I’m thinking of something like 15 chapters a day, starting tomorrow and finishing Dec. 31st.) It’s something I’ve been interested in doing for a while, and now that conference season is over, it seems like a good time! …For me personally, I know that the fall/winter is a season where I can spend extra time in personal study and disciplines…I think my plan is to read 9 chapters in the morning (starting in Genesis), 2 chapters at lunch (Psalms and Proverbs), and 4 chapters before bed (starting in Matthew). But I’m sure each day will vary. 🙂
Love,
Sarah

Although it’s great to slowly digest a chapter or do word studies, there is a special perspective and understanding you receive when you read through the Bible at a faster pace. It causes you to step back and see the whole picture at once. I’m not doing it this time, but I wanted to put the idea out there in case any of you would like to join! If you are doing it too we’d love to hear from you!

Family News/Miscellaneous

Hello Everybody

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The problem that arises when neglect my blog for so long is that I create such a “build up” of things to report I don’t know where to start!


First off, I want to say a big thank you to the Bright Lights summer interns: Jolynn, Emily, Anna, and Melodie. They worked so hard, and I don’t know how we could have done it all without them this summer. So many good memories!! The fellowship was very special. We love you guys!


Secondly, thank you to anyone who was praying for our team during the conferences. I had specifically requested prayer before the last conference (pictured above) and the Lord definitely provided and did some very encouraging things! We heard so many stories and good reports. And God gave us the energy and enthusiasm we needed to finish strong.
We have just one set of conferences left for this year. They will be held in Minneapolis on October 4-8. Click here for more information.


Thirdly, I want to thank you all for the encouraging feedback you gave as we were picking a new design for the Bright Lights binder. Wow–we appreciated everyone who commented! We had many discussions around the graphics computer (a frequent occurrence around here!) and we finally finished and ordered the binders. The picture above is Caitlyn, Jolynn and Nickie finishing up the project after Emily left (with Lois watching on the left :)).


On the home front, we are getting a new roof on both houses (our family’s house and the intern/guest house.) Some good friends, the Blooms, are staying with us and Mr. Bloom is helping with the roofing. We are having a little too much fun listening to their funny stories over meals.


AND we removed all the overgrown bushes from the front of the guest house. Actually, we didn’t do it–some other good friends from Nebraska (who hosted my parents during the NE Bright Lights conference this summer) came to visit for a day and asked if there was anything they could do to help. Anyone who knows our family very well knows we usually don’t turn down those kinds of offers. 🙂 Here’s Mr. Rothfuss with the chainsaw.


Thank you, Rothfuss family!


We have also been enjoying having Lois living with us (left) for a while. Her family has been serving with an orphanage and school in Thailand, and we’ve been friends with them for several years. Lois has been WONDERFUL to have around. I took this picture yesterday as we were eating a special Thai lunch that she and Jolynn made for us. Soooo good.


If you are an American and have never eaten homemade coconut cream icecream with peanuts and sweet corn, you are missing out!! (Seriously!)


Here was the little luncheon.

Well, I think that’s enough pictures for now!

One last comment: At the Bright Lights conferences this summer I announced that I would be posting some witnessing questionnaires here on the blog for people to use. I haven’t forgotten, and it will be coming soon! Thank you everyone for your patience.

Bright Lights Conferences

Locked Out.

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It was about 10pm Tuesday evening. The “Strong in the Lord Conference” had ended for the evening, and would be starting at 9am the following day. Since we were video taping, we really needed to practice some of our skits that night to refresh the camera crew, since they haven’t traveled with our team for a while. We had a lot to do and it was going to be a late night. But first everyone went to the kitchen to eat dinner. 🙂

Oh no! Upon arriving back to the auditorium after supper, we realized that the janitor had locked the doors to the auditorium while we were all eating. Then he had left to go home. Dawn, our hostess, tried calling several different people, but it was too late at night to get a hold of anyone. Now what?!

I just felt like laughing…hardly believing what was happening. The only time we have EVER been locked out of a church auditorium is the ONE time we need to be in there the most to practice for the video. It’s in situations like this where it is fun to sit back and watch “how God will fix this one.”

My dad called a prayer meeting.

The guys unsuccessfully attempted many various creative ways to well, pick the lock… (don’t tell anybody :)) and trigger the motion release.

Then they began to think of other even more creative options to get into the auditorium: the air vents! But after a little investigating, they decided that wasn’t a good idea. I think the next plan was to take the door off it’s hinges…

Everyone was getting pretty tired and a little silly…(surprise, surprise)… and we were all glad when we heard that Dawn got a hold of someone from the church who had the access code. But I wanted to see someone go through a vent! I was thinking. Okay, I guess it wasn’t the time to complain about that. We were grateful to be able to get in and do the practicing we needed to do before it got too late.

This was just one of the many answers to prayer we saw while recording the conference, so thank you to all who were praying!

Here Stephen is sharing with the group about one specific miracle that happened regarding the audio on Saturday afternoon. Another answer to prayer.

Hopefully, at some point in the future, Bright Lights groups will be able to do “Strong in the Lord” video conferences, just as they are already doing Radiant Purity video conferences. It would definitely be a way to reach more girls.

Miscellaneous

Please help us! :-)

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Emily and Jolynn have been working on some graphic design projects here in our office. The current project is updating the small Bright Lights binder.

Emily has come up with about 50 different versions 🙂 but we now have it narrowed down to two!

We need to order them really soon, but if you would leave a comment and tell us which one you like better, we would really appreciate the help. For reference, here is a picture of the old binder:

And here are the two new versions:

Cover A

Cover B

Which one do you like better between cover A and B?
(Also, if you have any additional suggestions or thoughts, feel free to share them.) Thanks!

Bright Lights Conferences/Strong in the Lord Conf.

Willoughby Hills, Ohio

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The Strong in the Lord Conference here in Willoughby Hills, Ohio ended Wednesday evening. Thank you to all who prayed for the video taping. There was a lot of joy among our group as we learned how well the taping went and as we heard about the little miracles that happened behind the scenes on the technical side of things. The conference itself went very well and we have been so encouraged by the feedback.

The Radiant Purity conference here starts in a few hours.

Please pray that the Lord works in hearts and lives– that His kindness (Rom 2:4) leads many to make the decision to surrender entirely to Jesus. We’d appreciate prayer for the small group discussions, main sessions, singing, skits, and all the other behind the scenes details…

And thank you for all of you who have been praying for our team. In our team devotional time this morning, Sarah was mentioning to us how it was such a huge blessing that there has been such joy and love in the group even though many are quite tired by this time. It’s so refreshing to be in a group where the atmosphere is one of joy and praise to God vs complaining — and we definitely attribute this to God’s grace!

“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” (1 Thess 3:12-13)

Miscellaneous/Strong in the Lord Conf.

Please Pray

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The first conference here in Willoughby Hills, Ohio (near Cleveland) starts tonight.

Stephen flew in three good friends who are very experienced with video (Andrew Baskerville from our town and Daniel and Samuel Roberts from Alabama) to tape the conference.

We would appreciate prayer about this. It is a major effort to gather the crew, set up all the equipment, practice the skits with the video crew, work through lots of misc. details, and finally shoot the conference. And all kinds of things can go wrong – from lighting to sound to equipment failures to missed lines or sickness or crying babies!

Please pray for us, and for the video crew. It would be so exciting to have this available to reach more young ladies. We can’t go to more than six cities a year for live Bright Lights conferences but with video each Bright Lights group would be able to host their own small conference.

“Thy God hath commanded thy strength: strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us.” Psalm 68:28

Bright Lights Conferences

PA Conferences

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The conferences in Pennsylvania last week were very encouraging. The church was wonderful to work with, and we saw the Lord’s hand work in many lives.

It’s been wonderful having such a great team of leaders helping us. One of the highlights is the time of sharing from the Word and prayer that we have as a group. Here was one of our prayer times last week. It’s such a huge blessing to have so many girls lead the conferences who love the Lord so much.

Please join us in praying that the next two conferences here in Ohio go well. The Strong in the Lord conference starts tomorrow night and the Purity Conference is on the weekend.

Bright Lights Conferences/Creation Museum

On the Road Again!

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Here are the two vans in which we pretty much just spent the last couple of days. It is a long way from Iowa to Collegeville, Pennsylvania!

The van I was in left a day early and took a southern route so we could go to the Creation Museum. Part way into the trip, my dad remembered that we were supposed to pick up boxes of Bright Lights sets from our printer in Indiana to take to the conferences. So the girls found all kinds of interesting uses for the unexpected boxes…slept against them, named them, used the tops of them for storing food and clothes…

And even for transporting a turtle… 🙂 which we found in the middle of the road at the Creation Museum exit.

We had to let the turtle go, though, when we went into the Creation Museum, so it wouldn’t be in the hot van all day.

This is one of our family’s favorite quotes in the Creation Museum. 🙂

The museum is continuing to expand the petting zoo, and *personality* is something the animals don’t seem to lack! The animal on the left is an alpaca-llama cross. (Sort of like the “Zonkey” they own which is a zebra/donkey cross) Nice hair cut, huh? *smile*

I love Gomer’s expressions. Who’s going to ride me next?

Tada! (Go dad!)

Since half the group took a southern route to go to the Museum, we planned to meet up with the other van (and trailer) while driving through Pennsylvania on Sunday. We just weren’t expecting that the location of our rendezvous point would be on the side of the road with a flat trailer tire. But thanks to God’s provision, all was taken care of.

It added about 3 hours to the trip, but if a flat tire is the only thing that went wrong, I’d say we did pretty well. 🙂 We arrived at the church at about 10pm.

And even after that LONG day in the van, Mary is still smiling!

And thank you to Melodie for taking most of the pictures in this post.

“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him…” Revelation 19:7

Announcements/Bright Lights Conferences

Upcoming Bright Lights Conferences!

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August 9-10
Strong in the Lord Conference
Collegeville, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia area)
Young Ladies ages 8-14

August 12-13
Radiant Purity Conference
Collegeville, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia area)
Young Ladies ages 12-22+

August 16-17
Strong in the Lord Conference
Willoughby Hills, Ohio (Cleveland area)
Young Ladies ages 8-14

August 19-20
Radiant Purity Conference
Willoughby Hills, Ohio (Cleveland area)
Young Ladies ages 12-22+

Register online or at the door. See Upcoming Conference Page for more details.