An Announcement..

If you cannot read the words beneath all the slobber on little Joel's shirt it says "No one consulted me about this new baby thing!" That's right! Joel and I are expecting another little one to arrive around September 16th! We are so excited for this huge blessing and are praying for a healthy baby. Praise God!

Florida...

Joel and Ryan are in Fort Walton Beach, FL for 9 events in 3 days, tomorrow night Emily and I will be joining our husbands for 2 short days.. I will be leaving little Joel in Findlay with his Aunt Emily so hopefully he will adjust to her well. If you think of it, please pray for these upcoming days, pray that hundreds of students would attend the evening concerts and they would be receptive to the gospel! Here is a pic of a the assembly set up at Fort Walton Beach HS, in FWB, FL taken this morning.

Joel is Home!

Well,.. it was a long two weeks for me, but finally my husband is home! Joel and Ryan arrived safely at home on Sunday night after appx. 40 hours of driving each week! (this past week and last week)
We celebrated last night with pizza as we watched the Super Bowl. Oh.. Little Joel is home as well! He spent 3 nights in Cincy while I judged a meet this past weekend. It was super nice to have the house all to myself, but it felt weird, and I was happy to pick him up when Sunday came. While in Cincy, my parents took Joel and the other 3 grandkids to the Aquarium, here is a video of Joel looking at the fish:

http://blip.tv/file/3187456

And here is a video of a brief moment at the Aquarium, with two 2-year olds (Indy and Sydney), a 1-year old (Joel) and a 5-year old (Justin) my mom admitted that they definitely"bit off more than they could chew."

http://blip.tv/file/3187497

The pic above is from Joel's baby dedication in October.. I know it's old, but he just looks so cute and we have like 3 family pictures total so I had to include it.

Last time I wrote I promised to include some awesome student quotes.. rather than share with you quotes of Christian students or students who were easily convinced by Joel's gospel presentation, I have chosen to select some more controversial quotes.. the reason being, to show you the type of students who are at our Concerts and listening. Hopefully, these quotes will encourage you as you can see that we really are reaching the unchurched students who might actually want nothing to do with Christ.

-"I would like more of these events, I don't go to church, but I believe that God is with me even though I don't pray or go to church."

-"I am not convinced, if my "soul" is so important, I need to be persuaded that there is a God and that I need to believe in Him"

-"Your speech really opened my eyes. I am a jerk. I really need to quit being such a *&%#*, I talk about people behind their back and I shouldn't."

-"I have been an atheist for 3 years. It makes the most sense to me."

How encouraging.. seriously! All of these students, heard the gospel presentation as clear as day and stayed to fill out the comment cards. Please pray that the seed that was planted that night would grow.. that these students would be surrounded by other strong Christians, and would start to ask themselves questions and maybe even read the Bible!

Surviving..

Well, we are more than half-way finished with our long 2 weeks apart. I was able to see Joel

briefly Saturday night, Sunday night and part of Monday morning, so that helped.. Last week, the guys were encouraged by an awesome Comeback Concert in Madison Co., GA. Joel explained it as, "it was amazing, the crowd was excited at the right times, cheered at the right times, the presentation was one of the best we have done, and I could tell the students were really excited to be there." Also, we had some great Concerts at Eastwood, OH 2/1/10 (this week), Van Wert, OH, and Southmont, IN which were both earlier in January. Here is a pic from Eastwood this week. Next time I blog I promise to share a couple of student quotes with you from our evening Concerts, they are so uplifting and remind us why we do what we do.

Little Joel is going through a rough time lately. His attachment symptoms have increased drastically the past week or so and I can't help thinking that it might be because I have had to get lots of sitters and Joel has not been home. Sometimes when I just leave the room and he cannot see me his whole face turns red and he stops breathing for like 5 seconds because he thinks I'm gone and will never return (I guess?).However, I know that this age is usually the worst

of it, and I am hoping it will get better soon. We were all in Cincy this past weekend as I had a 2-day meet to judge, so of course, Gamma and PaPa had to throw a Birthday celebration for Joel and for his cousin Indy who turned 2 on Jan 23rd. Joel had an extremely fun time consuming his first ice cream cone and you can see a video of it here: http://blip.tv/file/3167762

Also we opened some more presents and one resulted in some seated dancing by Joel which was kinda cute, here is the video of that: http://blip.tv/file/3167684