May 16, 2007

Happy Wednesday,

Just wanted to give you all a little update and praise the Lord a little. :-) He blessed us and looked after us this past "crazy" weekend. We left Friday about 7 p.m. for Maryland. We pulled a trailer that Scott borrowed from a friend and started out for "what was suppose to be a 8-9 hour trip" and arrived in Bowie, MD at 5:30 a.m. Yep, you do the math...10 1/2 hours!! Wow! I sat on an ice pack for most of the trip while Scott had the air conditioner cracked up on HIGH!! Did I mention that the air doesn't work very well on the drivers side but VERY WELL on the passenger side. (It has always been like this, which we noticed one time when I was driving and cracked it up and froze Scott out, up to this time Scott had called me a whimp for getting cold too fast.) ha ha Well, we were doing anything to stay awake and alert so the air was up...but being on an ice pack made it even worse for me. I had two blankets on and was still frozen. I loved our couple of stops for gas just to be able to get out and warm up from the outside.

Our trip there was such a huge blessing. Scott's sister, Cindy, had a BBQ for us and had invited her pastor and his wife, Lew and Nancy, and the mission's direction, Chris, and mission team members over to be able to meet us. The turn out was overwhelming and we were so honored. Their church had already voted to support us for 2 years and at that time will review our case, but meeting them in a relaxed atmosphere was great! We were soooo tired that we felt we could hardly keep up with the conversations but we did our best and felt God was in it. The next morning we decided to post-pone leaving early and went ahead and visited their church, early service. It was a great time and the message was on Patients. The people there were very friendly and I love their motto..."Where Friends Become Family". You could really see it too. They have 2 services and are growing in leaps. They are only 3 years old. Wow. Very cool. The pastor, Lew, spoke to Scott before we left and told him that he was excited about this new relationship with us and felt it was the beginning of a LONG relationship. They said they couldn't wait to come and visit us in Ohio and loved doing mission trips. Very cool. God is so good.

After church we came back to Cindy's for lunch and to load the trailer. Cindy and Mike gave us 2 twin mattresses for Nathaniel and Jeremiah's bunk beds and an armoire for my livingroom and (drum roll please)...a 1984 Honda Nighthawk motorcycle for Scott. (Mike charged the boys and I $1.00 for the bike for daddy for his birthday/father's day, a quarter per child.) ha ha This is so Scott can ride it in Ohio to the hangar and back, which will be much cheaper on gas for our new budget.

The ride home was smooth and LONG....ER... it took us we left there around 1 p.m. and arrived home at 3 a.m. 14 hours long!!!! We took a different route home to save on toll fees and for a different view of scenery, which Cindy told us would add an hour or so, but due to construction and pulling weight, the hours added up. We were so tired come Monday. We had to unload once we got home since we didn't want to leave everything outside for the rest of the night. We just sat back and laughed at how much harder it was to make a trip like this at 40 than it was at 20. We used to do this sort of thing all the time and thought nothing of it. Wow, it is so different now.

My back was much worse during the trip and riding for the long periods was very difficult, but the Lord was faithful and helped me through it all. Thank you all for your prayers. I felt them.

This week is going pretty well. No major events to speak of. We are suppose to speak at a church in Dearborn Heights this coming Sunday morning, so please be in prayer about that. They want us to sing and Scott is not up for that again, so the boys and I have worked up a song and Shaughn is going to play the bass on it. Nathaniel is helping sing back up and Matthew is too plus doing a solo on the 2nd verse. Scott will play drums. What a Kodak moment. :-)

Well, I pray that you will have a very blessed week and all is well with you. Ed is scheduled for surgery on June 6th. He will be in the hospital for a week or so and then lots of recovery time. Please be in prayer for him and Stephanie. Thanks.

God bless and love ya all,
Lela and boyz~