Ministry and Job news.

I knew it'd be hard to keep up with the updates once things started getting busy and it sure has! We've got something going on almost every day.  Tuesday nights and Sunday afternoons Steve and I are a part of a couple small groups.  Tuesday is a video study through Love and Respect, which most people have heard of the book.  Sunday afternoon is a fun group where we fellowship and play games.  Steve goes to a men's group on Wednesday mornings and I go to the women's group on Friday mornings and we are going through the Beth Moore's Esther study.  I'm really excited to be a part of that because I got the work book from my grandmother a couple years ago and held on to it, hoping the Beth Moore study that goes on at Calvary would eventually go through the Esther book.  Well it may not be at Calvary but at least it's happening.  Another really cool thing that I feel God is doing through that study is the friends I'm making.  I had prayed that God would bring women into my life that would influence me in a positive way and that I would have women here that mean as much to me as the women in Utah did.  After only 2 weeks being in this group, it's obvious that God put me right where I needed to be.  There is also MOPS every other Tuesday morning.  Then on Thursday nights we are going to Celebrate Recovery! I'm so happy to be back in meetings! 

We've been preparing for the launch of the Northstar satellite campus that will be launching on Easter, we attended the first meeting and decided to sign up to serve on the production team.  Actually I was sent there because I told the worship leader that I'm a photographer and that where he told me to go.  We'll see how that plays out, I'm really feeling like they have a bigger need in Children's ministry and I'm capable of doing that.  Sara's keeps mentioning the worship team to me, but I'm just not ready for that.  

Some other great ministry news is that Sara and I met with the director of Bethel Village, which is a women's rehab facility in the area.  The women that live there go to Celebrate Recovery on Thursday nights, so we've been able to meet them and get to know them a little.  It's amazing to see how God's orchestrates things, it's beautiful really! After talking to her for a while, it looks like Sara and I will have the opportunity to go to Bethel Village on Monday nights and teach the women.  We have another meeting in a couple weeks, and we'll meet some of the other volunteers and then probably begin serving there after that.  I'm so excited to be able to do this but also very scared because I've never really done anything like this before.  I'm stepping out in an area that is unfamiliar and I'll only be able to do it with God's guidance, so please pray for us in that area.  Also I want to mention that as we begin serving and getting involved in more and more ministry work, Satan is attacking.  Please pray for us in that area also.  

So there is also very good news, Steve got a job! He went in to fill out the paper work, they tested him on forklift the same day, then they sent him to get a UA, the results came back to them yesterday so he was in today filling out paper work and doing more testing.  They start him on Monday! 

As you can see there is a lot going on right now.  I have uploaded some more pictures to the shutterfly page though. 

Pictures from my phone are here: http://hendricksinflorida.shutterfly.com/pictures/610

I took my camera out on Thursday so that I could take some fun pictures of the fog, and you can see those here: http://hendricksinflorida.shutterfly.com/pictures/641

today I took my camera out to this little pier that is behind an empty house we go over to sometimes.  It's down the block from our house and it's in a completely secluded area, but the house is vacant and has been for quite some time and we like to go there and let the kids play and hang out in the sang for a while, you can see those pictures here: http://hendricksinflorida.shutterfly.com/pictures/670

Am I my husband’s best friend?

This is my beloved and this is my friend (SOS 5:16)

Sunday the 19th, I walked into the church and headed toward the Childen’s ministry area, but on my way I could hear Pastor Marty, sharing his message and was reminded that he’s starting his series on marriage and relationships.  This is something I never leave the subject without feeling convicted about something.  So after serving in a very hectic, very rambunctious hang out room with 20 kids and only 2 of us to watch them, I was ready to sit down for service.  I was pretty surprised when the service started with the video of Jeff Bethke and his spoken word called Sex, Marriage and Fairytales, inspired by Mark and Grace Driscol’s book called Real Marriage, which I just began reading. (view the video here) This week he continued that message by going even further into the importance of being your spouse’s best friend.  It’s easy to say “sure he’s my best friend; he’s been around me for the last 7 years almost every single day”.  Isn’t that what it takes to bff’s?  Put up with each other every day, no matter what.  Not only is it false, but at times I have feel more of an enemy than a friend.  I’ve shared a little about my struggle as a wife in a previous post (Our Move to Florida).  I can honestly say that as much as I believe in the power of all the key principles to having a Godly marriage, and as much as I always wanted that for my marriage, I have spent the last 5 years damaging my marriage far more than I’ve built it up.  A while ago I was riding in the car with Sara after listening to her explain the concept that in a struggling marriage, it takes one person who is willing to put up with the other to keep the marriage from just falling apart (well that’s the short version anyway).  I had always had the perspective of myself as the one who had been putting up with Steve, but in that moment God made it clear to me and I realized that Steve was in fact, the one putting up with me.  In the months since then, I been trying to shift my perspective toward my husband and I’ve began to desire to make changes that are needed to repair the damage.  I won’t lie, there have been times in the last 6 months that I have completely retracted  and time that I have failed in my efforts (which is exactly why it failed – because it’s my efforts when I should be relying on God to work in His timing).  Sometimes living in the moment it’s hard to see how far we’ve come.  I forget that a year ago things were a little different.  I want to be clear that I do still make mistakes, daily even.   It’s definitely God’s timing that he began this work in our marriage at the time he did.  Moving thousands of miles away from where we are comfortable, putting us in a church that is just starting a marriage series, we are going to a small group teaching Love and Respect and I’ve had almost daily reminders about the importance of following God’s plans for marriage from other various outside sources.  All coming together in God’s perfect timing to refine our marriage and draw us closer to Him.