This one is for Sara....

I need to expand the variety of recipes I cook. I think God was trying to tell me this on my 25th birthday. I received 2 cookbooks from different people plus a subscription to Cooking Light. (Although I'm taking all of the recipes as a sign, I'm ignoring the insinuation behind the "Light" portion of that magazine title.)

For some reason, I have trouble with using recipes, but I'm not sure of any other way to learn. Either I don't like something that is in the recipe, I don't have all of the ingredients, or I don't want to invest the amount of time it takes to prepare the food. I am realizing now just how much time my mom must have put into feeding our family. She prepared almost every meal for us...breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Typically, I just have cereal/bananas for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and something simple for dinner. I also seem to cook like 2 big meals each week that we eat for dinner over several evenings.

With a full time (demanding) job and Remnant stuff, I'm already struggling to keep up with all of the household work. How do other women with full time jobs, outside interests, and kids make this all happen and learn to cook new meals? Any tips, advice, or quick/tasty recipes?

Learning...

I am learning what an amazing privelege it is to be humble and express my love for Jesus openly to other people....and then invite them to know Him too. I feel like it is Christianity 101...why am I just now getting it?

This one is for Ruby....

Sorry to all of my loyal blog readers...I had a crazy busy week and failed you all by not posting much. I am traveling for about an entire month straight, and truthfully, I'm kind of bummed about it. I don't like being away from David. Talking on the phone isn't the same. I am not able to really contribute to Remnant like I want when I am away because I can't invite people. Work piles up, blah, blah, blah. You get the point. A lot of negatives.

However, I am blessed with a really good job in an economy where so many people don't have work. I am choosing to focus on the positives of travel for work in this blog.

I love:

People watching in airports.

Fresh towels every day that I don't wash.

Eating off of a menu for every meal that I don't have to cook.

Watching TV in bed.

Lots of pillows on the bed.

Eating ice cream in bed while I watch TV propped up by lots of pillows.

Workout facilities just a few floors below me. (Usually used by me after the ice cream...)

Going to amazing cities--I've seen more than most people will in their entire lives.

Feeling professional.

Drinking Starbucks every day because it is bound to be a few blocks from where ever I am.

Coming home after being away.

Ruby, I promise I will try really hard to blog more consistently. It motivates me to know at least one person is reading :)

P.S. The pic is from some work travel with Ruby in Seattle. Seattle has the best people ever. And, Ruby has mad photo-taking skills. Really random I know, but it kind of fits my mood.

My birthday!

Happy 25th birthday to me! I'm a quarter of a century young today. No gray hair or wrinkles yet....So, I thought that it would be fun to think about some of my favorite birthday moments from past years.

4th birthday--(Let's be honest, I can't remember any birthday before this...) My family went to Disney World for the first time. I got a figure skater Barbie and adored her.

6th birthday--roller skating birthday party. My mom made some amazing cupcakes with home made chocolate icing and pink lettering.

10th birthday--I got my ears pierced.

all birthdays in the early teen years--sleep overs with by girls. I'm pretty sure I had amazing sleepover parties. Mom always made chocolate chip pancakes for us in the morning.

16th birthday--my friends threw a surprise party for me. My two best friends at the time made me a gift package of all of my favorite things.

19th birthday--there was an extreme blizzard in Bloomington, and my friends' cars could not even make it out of the stadium parking lot to go to dinner. So, we suited up and played in the snow at night. It turned out to be amazingly fun...

23rd birthday--All of my favorite people assembled at Casa Brava for a birthday dinner to celebrate with me

24th birthday--David and I were engaged at 1am on February 16th (although we celebrate our engagement on the 15th now). On my birthday, I got to announce to everyone that we were engaged. We had a great party at my apartment with all of our friends to announce the engagement.

What are your favorite birthday moments?

Sweet 16

All I can say is God is good. On Sunday, February 8, Remnant Church had our official launch. Our attendance goal was 100, and we had 93 people come! It was truly a day I'll never forget. Before I tell you what happened, let me tell you about the week leading up to our launch.

Over the course of the week before the launch, we:

• Gave out about 5,500 door hangers letting people know about Remnant Church. Our team covered neighborhoods and apartment complexes at all hours of the day and night, in the sun and pouring rain, and through some areas that might not have exactly been considered safe.
• Staffed a table at the mall for 1.5 days handing out information about Remnant Church
• Bought crazy amounts of sound equipment that none of us really knew how to operate
• Planned creative media and a set that churches 10 times our size might use
• Found a worship band
• Made the worship experience run from start to finish with 7 volunteers and 7 Remnant staff members--may not sound like a big accomplishment, but you try running a portable church with this many people, and then you'll understand
• Began small groups for men, women, and couples

I am sure that I'm probably forgetting some things, but that is just a sampling of the kind of hours the team put in last week. I'm so proud to be a part of Remnant Church. There is no substitute for a group of people who are totally head over heals in love with Jesus AND driven by a compelling mission. Our mission is, "So people far from God fall in love with Jesus." Every minute we worked last week was focused to see our mission accomplished.

Now for the Sunday worship experience:

We all arrived with the U-Haul pre-loaded at the movie theater by 7:00am. We immediately started unloading the truck and setting everything up. By 8:40am almost everything was set up, and we started our volunteer huddles. God was so present as we casted vision about the launch and prayed for the people coming to our worship experience and all of the details to go right. I had the privilege of honoring Remnant's first volunteer of the month, Maria, during the huddle.

At 9:15am, we started our dry run to rehearse all of the volunteer's roles and everything that would be happening up on stage with the worship band, announcements, the message, etc. By 9:30am, all of the volunteers were in place ready for our guests. We were all believing that God was going to bring the people. At 9:40am, no one was there. Then five minutes later, our first new guests began to arrive. On the inside, I was doing back handsprings or something. At least we had one new family. From there, the people just kept coming. At 9:57am, we opened the doors to the worship experience and seated everyone. Children were checked into BIG, our children's ministry. The worship band started playing, David did the welcome and announcements, and the worship band finished their set. Pastor Mark got up to preach. You can listen to the message here: http://www.remnantloves.me/pod/. I wasn't able to come into the worship experience until about half way through the message because I was busy greeting late guests, re-arranging our lobby set up, and a million other details. However when I came in, the entire theater was totally captivated as Pastor Mark preached the Word of God. It was really powerful. When he invited people to give their lives to Jesus, we knew that some people raised their hands, but none of us on staff were really able to see the entire crowd to count.

When the worship experience was over at 11:00am, we gave away free movie tickets to everyone who came. It was such a great way to bless the community, especially because I know that some of those people couldn't afford to take their families out to the movies. As the kids came out of BIG, you could tell they had a blast. They were all smiling and excited. I heard all kinds of comments like, "I'll be back next week," and "I'm bringing one of my friends next week!" Finally, we did a crazy-fast tear down because we have to be out of the theater by 11:30am.

David is the Plug-In Pastor at Remnant, so he connects with every new guest. When we got home, we looked through the connection cards and found that SIXTEEN people had checked the box on the connection card that they gave their life to Christ. 16!!!!!!!! This is so significant because all week, our focus had been, "So people far from God fall in love with Jesus." And they did.

I am so amazed and honored to be a part of Remnant Church. Thank you to everyone who has prayed, given, and supported us. Your reward is eternal.

Cleaning the Bathroom

The dreaded chore....I know everyone has (at least) one of them. Cleaning the bathroom is mine. Intellectually, I know that it does not take very long to do. I can complete the task in just about 20 minutes or 25 if I'm mopping the floor. For some reason though, I avoid doing it like I'm avoiding the plague.

Reasons I think I don't like it:

1. The smell of the cleaners

2. It makes me feel dirty, so then I end up taking a shower even if I was clean when I started

3. I now live with a guy (my husband of course)--his clippings from shaving end up everywhere making everything crustier and messier than it was when I lived alone

What is your dreaded chore?

P.S. This picture just made me laugh.....that's not me!

LAUNCH

Next Sunday is the big day. Remnant Church will be officially launched on February 8. We are believing God that 100 people will be there to experience His presence and be WOW'd by church like they've never seen it before. It is crazy and amazing to have been part of Remnant from the very beginning because I understand how much impact we are going to have on this region. It is a privilege and an honor that God has chosen me (and Pastor Mark, Amanda, David, Gadi, and Ruby!) to serve in this way.

A few notes about church planting as I look back over the past year or so....
If you have never planted a church, count the cost before you do. It is a lot of work. We all knew it would take work, but now we understand what that work looks and feels like. If you want to live like the Bible says to live (go ye), there is more sacrifice involved than you can ever imagine until you've been through it. I appreciate so much the Remnant team. We have all put our entire lives into seeing people far from God fall in love with Jesus. It has been an amazing, challenging, life changing journey...and we haven't even officially launched yet. Please pray for Remnant this week: That 100 people come--we've sown a lot of seeds. That they experience the love and presence of God. That all of the logistics (worship band, volunteers, technology, etc) work out fine. That lives are changed for eternity.