We're Home! Thanks Ron and Faith!

We've moved and we're settled! Praise God! It's been a busy weekend but a good weekend. We have some great friends in Ron and Faith Kingston, who gave up their Friday to help us pack up, move and unpack. We owe them huge. They were the only ones who showed up to help us. Needless to say, Jason and Ron are both feeling the pains of all the heavy furniture, boxes and my piano. I had to work Friday till noon and they all packed up 2 horse trailers, trucks. Faith cleaned the rest of the house I didn't get to. She then helped me organize my kitchen while the guys set up beds and furniture.
Our house feels like ours, like a home should feel. Pictures to come hopefully. It's so cute but does need a little bit of cosmetic work. New lights, trim, doors, tear down wallpaper and paint. Stuff we can do room by room. Tucker loves his new fenced backyard. There is a squirrel that plays in the trees and he sits there and waits for it to probably try and pounce on it one day. I think he may be a bit confused about the house because he follows us everywhere we go or he lays on his blanket in our room. He is a great dog though. He hardly barks unlike every other dog in town and our neighbor's little "kick me" dog who won't shut up when we're outside. We can hear the emergency alarm for the ambulance, firetrucks etc and it's quite funny to hear the neighborhood dogs start howling to the siren. It reminds me of 101 Dalmations.

September has flown by for us. It's hard to believe but this Friday we move into our first home of our own! I can't wait till everything is there and ready and I can start decorating and painting.

As far as chruch is going, it's honestly been a struggle for us both to do the worship. Last night was talked to Pastor Tim about it. He's also noticed that we've been struggling. This is the 3rd time that Jason has tried to lead others in worship for different pastors and it's always been a struggle. We know that we are both supposed to be in music because we've both been given words about music and worship but we've been thinking that maybe it's not supposed to be a corporate thing. Tim talked to Pastor Roger from Victory this week about us and they both want us to find where our ministries are at and not to go in circles. Tim has released us from the worship so we can find where we each fit, whether it be at Victory or New Life. My heart still pulls me to Victory because it's family and it's been home for the past 4 years. We're not looking for a perfect church because there is no such thing and both have their struggles right now. Moving to Powell now makes sense to go to New Life but we're not sure. Tim needs more mature Christians to help him because New Life has a lot of baby Christians. So I don't know what our future holds in this area of our lives. Prayers are always welcomed.

What A Weekend! It's a novel!

I don't even know where to start with this one. Thursday was our 4th anniversary! Where has the time gone? We went to the Rib and Chop House and stuffed ourselves with steak and a delicious dessert.

The reason this weekend was so busy was that Jason had invited, a while ago, a man by the name of Ray Hughes to come and speak to our new church New Life in Powell and Victory Fellowship in Cody where we used to go.
Ray has been on a Summer of love tour this summer with about 300 young people, traveling from Nashville to San Francisco. They stopped in other places to play and minister and take back from the spirit rhealm, what took place 40 years ago during the hippie summer of love. There's a whole lot more to it than that but anyways, he is really gifted in music, has a music school in Nashville, prophetic and brought a phenominal band with him. We hosted all 12 of them friday night for a barbecue and had one of the guys stay with us. He and Jason just hit it right off. His name was Brad Tretola. Phenomenal guitar player. He would blow us away. This is him. Super nice guy. We became quick friends.

These guys and girls were a lot of fun. But you wouldn't know unless you talked to them that alot of them have played or toured with some big Christian music artists. For example, Rebecca St.James, Salvador, and Jeff Deyo . The girl playing banjo is Ricky Skaggs' daughter Molly.

We had them in Powell and the worship they brought was awesome. Fresh songs for us and prophetic encouraging words for the region. They had kind of a blue grass feel or sound but it was really a mix. Ray is from Kentucky so he speaks with a drawl and is a so funny. He told us his testimony of becoming saved and saving almost his whole high school during the Jesus movement. It was really great. They packed up and we moved to Cody, only to have communication fall apart in the group and the arguments started. We stuck around because we had to take Brad back to our place. They finally got their differences resolved around 1am and proceeded to do their sound check for Sunday morning.


We took Brad for breakfast and went to church. The power of God was in that place. The worship was better than the night before. Things had changed for the better in the group giving them a better ability to minister and worship. It was so awesome! They were singing and giving phophetic words as they sang. Ray gave some words for this church and the region again which was so encouraging to many. Things being broken and new life coming, men rising up into new positions of authority. What was really overwhelming for us, Joel one of the guys, had a prophetic word about worship for us that just blew us away because we've been struggling with it, but he didn't know it. Jason had only told Brad and he was with us all the time. We both just were crying and can't wait to see what's going to happen. Then to top it off, Brad gave Jason his Martin guitar. Jason has always wanted one and loved playing Ray's that Brad had with him. But Brad had his own as well and gave it to Jason. He told me with tears in his eyes what had just happened. We were so blessed today! God is so awesome! Words can't even describe how we're feeling or what really happened.
God Showed Himself to Many today.

One step closer

The owner's of the cute little house we fell in love with, has accepted our offer of buying it! We're very excited and hopeful that this deal won't fall through like the last one. Sunday after church, we drove around the area and really liked it. There is an elementary school on the other side of the hospital, which the new wing i think will be right in front of the house and a park near by as well, so there is lots of room for Tucker to run and play fetch. The area is really nice and quiet and we're only 2 blocks away from our pastor and his family. Jason is wanting to get some bikes and tootle around town. What's nice is Powell is a flat town unlike hilly Cody. People from Winkler know what i'm talking about. Biking will definitely be easier. Hopefully telling this news won't "jinx" the deal.

The Newest House!

Well, we've had quite a first time experience dealing in real estate. As you've all heard, we've been patiently waiting for our first home to go to closing. Well, as of yesterday it won't. If you might recall, the owner was behind on her mortgage and her bank was about to forclose on her. We gave her an extension to get her money together. She didn't and we gave her bank time to decide what they were going to do with her and the house. Well, some how she came up with the $3700 she needed to close with and has decided that she is not going to sell, now that she's caught up I guess. Even with our broker, her broker and realtor telling her she shouldn't since she is under contract, she hasn't budged. Jason called me yesterday after work and said we needed to go to Powell right away. We were both rather paturbed and getting a little "miffed" at the woman, but remembered a story we had heard recently about a man who was up for a promotion and didn't get it on the account that he was black. Instead of getting angry and bitter, he was going to congratulate the man and bless him. In return, the Lord blessed him with 5 fold in a new promotion and salary. We decided to take the same approach, not to get mad and even but bless her.

So we travelled to Powell yesterday and frantically looked at 6 homes. The first 2 were kind of trashy. The third was small, had a huge yard but was in the industrial part of town. Went on to a nicer one but it still needed work. Looked at a more expensive, nicer home with a yard and then we came upon this little ditty.This house may be 400 sq ft smaller but it has 3 times the ammenities we would have had to put into the other house. It is only 1000sq ft. with 2 bdrms and 1 bath, but it has a dishwasher, hard wood floors, sun room, side and back patio, lawn and trees, nice quiet neighborhood across from the new hospital, central air, new windows and doors. It is sooooooo cute and the best part is we both love it (something we prayed on the way to Powell) and are extremely excited right now to move in. The other house we were losing out excitement already since we found some things that we'd have to fix. This one is ready to move into. It was put on the market 2 days prior and we put in a full offer because it is even cheaper than the one we were going to pay for. PRAISE GOD! So we're hoping closing is going to go through this time and we can close on the 21st of September!

Weekend Wedding

Here's some pics from Lisa Regier (Unrau) wedding from Sunday. The reception and alot of pics were done on their yard. Jason was a horse and donkey wrangler so they could take some pics with her beloved animals. Lisa was so beautiful. The wedding was in Winkler, Manitoba.

I need more summer!

I can't believe that school starts on Wednesday. I have to go to meetings tomorrow and meet the boy I'm going to be working with one on one. So this is my last day of summer vacation! I can't remember a whole lot of what I did but I need more time! I guess that's life. It's hard to believe that summer will be over next month and hunting season is on us once again.
Here's the latest update on our house situation. Last we were told the seller owed $2000 on the title yet. Well, that was actually $3700. She had $2000 but spent it on some bills that came in. She has been behind on payments for 3 months and the bank is going to foreclose on her. Our broker is talking to her bank today to see if they would put up the $3700 so we can close and they can deal with her. This is where we stand as of now. Our broker Eric goes to our church and said that he is going to talk to them today and hopefully will know something by the end of the day. He used to be a banker so he can talk their lingo.
This week is a busy week for us. I start work tomorrow, Jason is working, we're not sure if we're going to close this week, we're planning to leave thursday after school to drive to Canada for a friend's wedding which I said I would play at. Wedding is on Sunday and we'll drive back monday to go to work on Tuesday. What a weekend we'll have. I need more summer holidays!!!!!!