Cooking with Grandma

We are so glad that the kids have always enjoyed cooking, and one of the best ways to enjoy cooking is to do it with Grandma. Here the kids are making a homemade apple pie (they also made sweet potato, pumkin and cherry) with their Grandma.

Letcher County Roots

Some of you know that my Mom was born and raised in Letcher County, where we now live and serve. We had actually committed to coming here before we realized that her hometown of Jenkins was in Letcher County. So, in a manner of speaking, coming here was like coming home. We have been here now for 3 1/2 years and it is certainly home to us.

For Christmas, we were able to find a blanket for my Mom that depicts scenes from Letcher County. The top picture is the old Jenkins High School, where she graduated. The 3rd picture down the left side is Blackey Presbyterian Church, which is about two miles from the Campus and where the wedding in "Coal Miner's Daughter" was filmed. And, of course, Pine Mountain is right in the center. My Mom will be able to warm herself with scenes from her "home place". It just seemed like the perfect Christmas gift.

We wish you a Merry Christmas...

Hope you had a good one. Ours was great! On Christmas Eve the Robinsons invited us over for the traditional turkey/dressing dinner, along with the Weiss Family. The food was fantastic, but the fellowship was even better. The kids made the deserts and we sat and talked for hours. It was a great evening. After dinner we fed the herd (Rolex and Fred) and then did our traditional Christmas Evening with the Christmas Story from Luke 2, singing Christmas carols with just the tree lights on, and then the kids opened one present. It was a great evening.

Christmas Morning dawned as a beautiful day, and after opening presents and eating breakfast, we enjoyed spending the day with each other quietly at home. Our wish and prayer for you is that the coming year will be Christ-filled and the best year you have ever had. May God bless you richly!

A Shelter in the time of storm

As you may know, we have a couple of horses (actually - a horse, Rolex, and a pony, Fred) here on the Campus and hope to eventually have an Equestrian Ministry. Being able to offer riding lessons, trail rides from the Campus up into the mountains behind us, and special equestrian events, is something we are lookng forward to doing. While we are praying and working toward that goal, we still need to take care of the horses we already have. We have been needing a "run-in" shelter out in the pasture so that we don't have to put Rolex and Fred up in their stalls every time the weather turns bad. Casey and I have been working on that that this week, along with help from Gunner. We finished it yesterday afternoon, just in time for some cold, all-night rain. Austin came up and took some pictures of the finished product, although Casey said the only picture he wanted was one of the horses using it (after all that work!). :-)


A shelter in the time of storm... no wonder the psalmist used that illustration in describing our awesome and mighty God. He never promised that we wouldn't go through storms... just that He would shelter us and be with us through them, and that during the storm (and all other times) we could trust and rest in Him.

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
Psalm 91:1-2

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The last few days for us have been filled with wonderful Christmas-time activities. Heather and Rachael did some decorating, we got our tree up and decorated, the Christmas cards are getting taped up all over, the Nativity Scene is in place. We even played some Christmas music. What a joyous time of celebrating Christ's birth we have been having.

Last Saturday night, we enjoyed a great Christmas party at Joe and Olivia's house, and Free Indeed was even there to bless us with a few songs in addition to all the caroling we did. The food was fantastic! Many thanks to Joe and Olivia and all the folks that helped make it such a wonderful evening!


Monday afternoon a group of ladies came up from Southside Baptist in Spartanburg to do a Christmas party at our nursing home in Whitesburg. They did a wonderful job and everyone had a great time. We even caroled up and down the halls for all the residents who could not come to the party. These ladies then took us and the Robinsons out to eat at the Pine Mountian Grill. I have to admit I fully enjoyed my baby back ribs! Thanks ladies! After supper we headed back to the house and there we found out once again just how wonderful our God is and how wonderful His people are. Two Sunday School Classes from Southside "adopted" us and the Robinsons and lavished (and I do mean lavished!) us with food, gifts, gift cards and love! Our cup ran over! How blessed we are to have family like all the wonderful folks at Southside!

Our hope and prayer is that you are enjoying this season of celebration and reflection. How blessed we are to be recipients of God's lavish grace! Merry, merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Heather!

Yes, our "little girl" is growing up. Quite the young lady, she turned 14 last week amid joyous celebration. Monday night we took her our for dinner at Applebees and a movie. She knew what most of her presents were (she helped pick them out), but we did get to surprise her a little bit. By the way, her choice and delight was to make and decorate her own cake. As our "artsy-craftsy" girl, we think she did a great job. She got a lot of that gene from her Grandma (Jan Heath), whose birthday was the next day. Happy Birthday to you, too, Grandma!

Dad and Son time

OK, OK, I know it's been a couple of weeks since I "blogged". Things get kinda busy sometimes, you know? The day after I bloggged last, Casey and I went over to Lynch for a ministry training seminar. That night we finished packing, I took a nap and then about 1 AM Austin and I headed out for a week of deer hunting and spending father/son time in Alabama. Doug Crouse and Doug Kenerly were generous in letting us spend a week hunting at the hunting club I used to be a member of with them. Doug Crouse was very gracious in letting Austin and I stay in his camper on the hunting club property all week. Austin was not able to get his first deer, but we still had a great time together. Staying busy with ministry and travel and school, we don't often get that opportunity. It was a good week. Thanks to the hospitality of Rachael's parents, Earl and Jan Heath, Austin and I were able to run into town for showers during the week and a good night's sleep the night before we left.

Ealy Sunday morning Austin and I headed to Pelham, GA to First Baptist Church. Our good friend and former police chaplain in Montgomery, Kim Grueser, has been pastoring this church for 7 years. He and his wife Diane have accepted a call for him to pastor Pittsburg, PA Baptist Church, which will put him back "home". This was his last service at 1st Pelham and they honored him Sunday with a dinner and clebration of his ministry. It was a privilege and honor for us to participate in this celebration. We wish Kim and Diane godspeed and God's richest blessings in their new ministry adventure.

We got back home in plenty of time for a joyous celebration of Heather's 14th birthday (can you believe it?!?), but more about that in another post. Time to go help decorate the tree. :-)

Family pictures, wind, fuel pump, etc...

Yesterday afternoon the Robinsons asked if we would take a family picture for them today before we all headed out to church. Of course we said yes, but then this morning, with everyone in their Sunday best, the weather decided not to cooperate and sent one of the windiest days we have seen. Needless to say, the girls' hair just did not want to cooperate. We still managed to get a few pictures made and hopefully they found one they could use. In the meantime, we decided to give it a try ourselves, and they snapped one of us during one of the brief moments of less wind.

This week was a busy one, again. No rest for the weary, they say. Casey and I headed down to GA for a funeral on Wednesday. The 14 year old son of a member of one of our very supportive mission teams was killed in a hunting accident over Thanksgiving weekend and the service was on Wednesday. We wanted to go down to show our support for him and the rest of the church. Our plan was to come back that same evening, but the fuel pump on our car decided to quit on us and left us "stranded" in GA. We were hardly stranded, though. Our friends at that church took great care of us... feeding us, putting us up for the night, and a mechanic in the church even replaced the fuel pump at no charge! Wow!

Although the circumstances that neccessitated our trip were horrible, it was a great time of fellowship and seeing God's provision once again in our lives. Speaking of God's provision, on Saturday we all travelled over to Lynch, KY, where a mission team from Union County, SC had prepared a wonderful time of celebrating Christ's birth. They brought food and games for the kids, and each family there was "adopted" by a church or family from SC. They brought presents and we got to "have Christmas" with a wonderful couple from SC. Ricky and Nikki are now our dear friends and brother and sister in Christ. We were excited to see how God is working in their lives and so overwhelmed by how they blessed us in this way.

This next week looks to be another busy one, with ministry training for me and Casey, and a deer hunting trip for me and Austin. Hope you have a great week.