VBS Week aka I'm EXHAUSTED!!!

So this week was VBS week at our church.  My job is to run the refreshment department and we feed the children snacks all week and all of the staff and any parents who wish to stay for some refreshments.  These numbers translate to 420 children, 170 workers and who knows how many parents but I'd number them at least 75 myself.  So, this was a huge job.  Of course I still had my regular work, my horseback riding and my home to take care of so at this point, I'm laying on my living room couch with my feet up nursing a light headache and being ready to go to sleep right about... now!  Hubby and the kids are all up at church for the VBS fair which is where the kids "spend" the tickets they earned during the week on games, rides and fun.  It's been a glorious week but oh so exhausting!!  But we had many decisions for Christ, gathered hundreds of items of school supplies for a local ministry and will be able to help 20 students to be able to pay the $400 it costs for a bus to go to middle/high school from the dumps where they live in Nicaragua where we have a mission work.  Praise God!!  Here are some pictures someone just e-mailed me of our department and some of the food we prepared.  Oh, the last picture was taken today after most of our work was done so the kitchen is pretty quiet and some of us were having our OWN refreshment!

My menu plan for the week in the state I'm in

I'm officially shot.  We had SUCH a busy weekend and I'm finding I have no motivation for today.  So my plan, if I had my wishes today would look like this:

Monday:  Chinese
Tuesday:  Greek
Wednesday:  Mexican
Thursday:  Pizza
Friday:  Burgers/fries
Saturday:  great big salad from the salad bar at the supermarket
Sunday:  whatever hubby wants to cook

LOL.  Well, I'm going to get my wish for Monday. We're planning right now.  My 7 year old had three teeth pulled today (she had an abcess where she had loose teeth and new teeth coming in so the dentist pulled them all) and she'll have vegetable lo mein and egg drop soup.  We're going to have beef with broccoli and lemon chicken along with, of course, rice.  :)  I love my hubby. 

Our church is having twins!!

So, for a number of years, our church has had a vision of planting a new church further out east on Long Island but it just never was the right time. Last year in August, my husband felt called to take on the new church plant and we've been moving forward with a start date of September 12 to have our first services. We'll be about 30 minutes away from our home church and have a good team of about 25 who will be going with us to get the church off the ground. It's exciting to see what God is doing there and I know His hand is in this endeavor.

Shortly after signing the contract with the hotel where the new church will be meeting, we got a call from a small Baptist church in a town on the north shore of Long Island - about 30 minutes away from the home church and 25 minutes or so north of the new church. They were a dying church with only 5 attendees on a Sunday and they wanted to approach us with an offer of giving us their church in it's entirety. The lawyers have met, the deal is done, they had their last church service and the church is now ours. It's an adorable little New England style church and our prayer is that we can also open that church in the fall. I'm still not sure who will be the lead pastor there but I'm guessing we'll find out this Sunday (and I have a sneaking suspicion I know who it is and he'll be awesome out there). 

So God is amazing. We're being faithful in following His call and He's given us a bounty! It's not going to be easy work but I do believe that we're equipped to be able to bring two new churches to an Island that sorely needs the Gospel. We've met with the area churches and we have their blessing on the future. 

I'd like to share with you the new church building. Our plan is to make the Sunday School building (the brick addition on the left) facade match the style of the church. Our missions pastor is formerly a construction guy and he's excited about this new project. I know the church facility is in the most expert of hands.