UPCI Annual Deaf Conference

What a great week this has been! The Annual Deaf Conference for the UPCI met right here in our backyard this year, and we took advantage of it! It started out with a picnic in the park. Natalie, Amanda and I went and met so many wonderful people.


Luther and Gail are some of the most precious people I think I have ever met in my life! Everyone enjoyed Luther's funny antics.




Monday night started the conference, and we took a van load of people from our church. It was beautiful to see Dawn beaming in church, surrounded by old friends and a host of capable interpreters. The service was in her language, and I enjoyed watching how much she enjoyed it.



The Deaf Mass Choir sang Wednesday night, and brought the house down! What an awesome presence of God came in when Deaf saints of God from all over this country came together to lift up His name! It was an honor to have Bro. Haney as the night speaker on Wednesday.

It was, for me, a brand new experience, one I will never forget. I have truly fallen in love with this language and culture.


Tuesday through Thursday were day classes, and Tiffani, Amanda and I soaked up as much information as we could. We were challenged, motivated and inspired. The Holy Ghost really moved on us in Thursday's class, and we bought the DVD.




These are the people that received the Holy Ghost Friday morning (most of them deaf). Faith was so high in the sanctuary! I think the total count for the week was 9 people!

The girl in the front center is the daughter of one of the Deaf leaders. They have prayed for their wayward daughter for a long time, and God has heard their prayers. Praise God!




My faithful mother flew in with Grandma to stay with Jeremi and Bethani while Tiffani and I spent the days away. Morgan, my only niece, was here with them, and they enjoyed each other's company.

I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of all of this. I feel God doing a work through me. I want to do my part to educate myself in order to have the ability to work for Him with excellence.

VBS

This week has been VBS at our church. Bethani was the only child young enough to register, but the SALT (Student Action Leadership Training) team worked with the adults to make it a smashing success. There were about 120 children registered, and I believe 10 children received the Holy Ghost. In our family, however, the most exciting thing was how SALT transformed my teens. They were forced to rise to the occasion, and rise they did!

The second day into VBS, after the children went home, the SALT team had practice from 3:30-5:00. Jeremi called me around 4:30 and said that they had started with prayer before practicing, and they were still praying!! They hadn't yet gotten around to practice. He was so fired up about how God was moving and ministering to him and his peers. When they got home, Tiffani was bubbling over with how God had used the Gifts of the Spirit to speak a specific word to them, and it was the teens who were operating in the Gifts!


The week continued in this same way everyday this week. God used Tiffani in the Gifts of the Spirit. I encouraged her not to seek after the Gift of the Spirit, but to seek after the Fruit of the Spirit, and the Gifts will naturally follow. It is awesome to see their enthusiasm and love for the Lord.

Sunday night, the entire youth group rallied around one another, and it was a beautiful thing to watch them pray and support each other. For a while, they set aside their differences, and worked together for a common goal. They asked Jeremi to stand and tell what he felt about the week. He talked about unity and working together to achieve a common goal. I saw the man he is becoming, envisioned the minister he will be, and I felt so proud of him.


Raising Godly fruit can be a long and tedious process. It seems that the fruit will never grow, and then when it does, it seems it will never ripen. I have to confess that there have been many occasions recently where I have wondered if any of what I have been trying to teach is actually getting through to my children. It has at times truly felt FRUITLESS! However, it is the times like this week that I am so thankful that I have not given up. "For in due season, we SHALL reap if we faint not." Thank you Jesus for giving us a hopeful peek into our children's future.

Our Family

Support!

I have wonderful parents. They have believed in me all of my life in whatever endeavor I happened to take up. I am now taking up ASL, and here they are, at my school and in my class. Thank you mom and dad for supporting me in everything I do. I love you!

Happy Birthday Jeremi!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Well, it finally happened! I am now officially a mother of teens (in the plural). Yesterday Jeremi turned the monumental 13 and was thrust along with millions of other young men and women into the Sea of Turbulent Teen Years. Now, don't get me wrong, the change didn't happen overnight. Oh no, my friend, we have been witnessing many changes over the past 6 months. When he answers the phone, it sounds like a grown man on the other end of the line. When I take off my church heels, he stands just a bit taller than me, and (Shhhhhh he has shaved his upper lip once.) Well, needless to say, there are a lot of emotional highs and lows around here, but with the grace of God, we are plowing through it all. His sweet spirit comes shining through from time to time reminding me that underneath the dark clouds called hormones my sweet little boy/man is still intact.

Nana and Papa flew in to help celebrate this birthday mile-marker, and they helped to make his day very special. From lunch at the Grand Luxe, to ice skating at the Galleria, to ice cream from the Marble Slab, to a rodeo in Mesquite with the youth group, his day was filled with all the things he loves most.

Happy birthday Jeremi. I am so proud of the man you are becoming. Always know that you are special to dad and me. We love you so much

The Mound (Part II)

May



July