I haven’t posted for a while but that hasn’t been because of lack of action around here. 🙂 Good friends from China visited us for 12 days and left last week. We had a great time with them and made so many special memories.
We decided to take advantage of having so many energetic helpers around! Here Mary, Charity, and Loice are punching butterflies and flowers in preparation for crafts at the upcoming Bright Lights Conferences. Sarah and Nickie also kept them busy writing and recording testimonies for Bright Lights (in which they did a fantastic job), shrink-wrapping materials for our booktable and online store, sorting and labeling shipments of books, sharpening boxes of colored pencils, entering registrations for the upcoming conferences, etc.
Priscilla and Melody
Lunchtime! (After being around a family of 12, having a family of 5 seems very small…!)
Is Stephen really that funny, Priscilla?!
Listening to my dad tell stories around the fire…
One very special part of their visit was when Mary came with me to the hospital. (I take my little harp and play room to room for patients on the oncology / neurology floor every other week or so.) I usually take calligraphy Bible verse cards for the patients I talk with, many of whom don’t have very much longer to live. Mary had spent several hours coloring the cards for me, so I began to think about how great it would be if she could come along to help deliver them. I called the hospital to see if Mary could come. To my surprise and delight, the hospital gave special permission for Mary to accompany me – even though she wasn’t an official “volunteer”. This was an answer to prayer, and I realized that God must have a special reason for Mary to come.
The patients just loved Mary, and having her along helped to open more doors to talk with people. I wish I could report all the stories, but here’s one of them: The lady pictured above and her daughter and granddaughter were very open to talking about spiritual things so we were able to sit down, open our Bibles, and explain way of salvation to them. When we explained that eternal life was a free gift—not something you have to earn—the mom and her daughter looked at each other like it finally “clicked”. Her daughter told me, “I’ve been wanting to join a Bible study. In fact, just yesterday I was telling my mom about how I was looking for some sort of Bible study to join.” We are planning to meet up again to study the Bible together soon. Isn’t it exciting to see God arrange these things?
Hi Grace! how have you been? It’s good to see your posts again! 🙂 Just wondering, did you receive an email I sent to you just a few days ago? Thanks!
God bless and In His Love,
Deb
Grace,
Looks like you had such an enjoyable, yet productive time together!
I am so looking forward to the upcoming Radiant Purity conference in Cedar Rapids!
Thanks for sharing~~I always enjoy reading your updates!
Joyfully in Jesus,
Elizabeth
P.S. We are missing you at the NICHE conference today! Hopefully you may be able to come next year? I hope so! 🙂
Is that the Morrison family? I just saw Hannah and Victoria in Nashville, TN.
Neat! Sometime the best and most eager helpers are the youngest people around! We just had VBS this week, and it went well- the younger kids really helped us out with little things!
I look forward to hearing about the Cedar Rapids conferences and wish I could come myself. 🙁 boohoo. Miss you!
So glad your enjoyed your time with the Morrison’s!
It’s so great to see pictures of you guys and the Morrisons together! They’re always encouraging to be with. 🙂 What a great story about you and Mary.
(And it’s different to see Charity and Melody with glasses!)
Thanks for your post, Grace! We really enjoyed the visit with you all! And it was SO GOOD to see old friends again…you guys, and Laura & her kids, Nickie, Faith C., Jarmons. 🙂 Thanks for making our visit special and keeping us busy!
Praying for you all with the upcoming conferences. We are telling people here in Iowa about them. Maybe some people from here will end up attending the Cedar Rapids ones. That would be cool! 🙂
Oh, and it was really special to watch that video from eight years ago…everybody was so cute! 🙂
Miss you all!
Hannah
Hey Grace! Thanks for your post! It’s fun to see the pictures and remember the time there. Thanks for making our visit special and for keeping us busy. Thanks for taking time to spend with us even though I know you all had a lot to do.
It was so good to see you all and so many other old friends. I enjoyed all the times we had of sharing and also praying together.
Miss you all! and praying for the conferences in August.
Hannah
Oops. My first comment it said there was an arror and it wouldn’t show, so I did another one…and then I saw the both came up…oh well… 🙂 I guess I’m not as much of a computer whiz as Stephen.
🙂 No problem, thanks Hannah
What a neat ministry opportunity! That is so amazing how the Lord just worked that out. Praise the Lord!