Merry Christmas!

Up and Running Again

The good news is...my computer is back and working!

The bad news is...it came back with a re-imaged hard drive (meaning they wiped it clean)!

The good news is...we had backed everything up and saved it all before sending it in.

The bad news is...I have to reinstall all my programs and get everything back like I had it before.

The good news is...that will all get done eventually, and at least I have a computer!

We had a great weekend in Hope, AR at the Grace Baptist Church. We were able to spend some time visiting with our long-time friends Terry and Valerie Basham and their four children. We praise the Lord that we made it home safely. We were going to leave early on Tuesday morning, but we heard on Monday night that there was supposed to be some icy rain through the night, so we didn't leave quite as early as we were planning. When we made it to the Little Rock area there were some icy patches on the bridges, and traffic was crawling. After that we went through some fog and alot of rain. It was a very long trip home, but we are so thankful that the Lord protected us. We saw several cars in the ditches, and several accidents along the way.

Wednesday evening Josiah and Jonathan's preschool choir sang their Christmas presentation at church. They did a great job! If you would like to watch them, click on this link (Real Player required). They sing about 13 minutes into the service. Jonathan is in the second row from the front wearing a gray sweater vest. Josiah in in the back row, and he is wearing a green shirt and brown vest.

I think Jonathan needed a longer nap!

We are experiencing technical difficulties...Please stand by!

I thought I should post something to say that it may be a little while until I post again, due to the fact that my computer has to go in to be repaired. Then I realized that it has already been a while since I've posted, so maybe it wouldn't have been noticed! When we are at home, it seems that I get busy with getting other things done, and our daily home life doesn't seem like it would be too interesting for everyone else to read about, so I don't update the blog as much.

We have been working on making some arrangements that will facilitate our future departure. The three boys now all have valid passports! Their little mugshots are really cute! There is so much to be done in the next few months, and I get overwhelmed when I think of it all. We have been gathering information about documents, shipping containers, appliances, housing , etc. We want to follow the Lord and do only what He wants us to do. Please pray for us that we will have wisdom as we make decisions.

We are traveling to Arkansas this weekend. I'll update again as soon as we have things up and running again!

Thank You Lord

As I was thinking about Thanksgiving, and all the things that I am thankful for, the words to this song came to my mind. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with family and friends!

Thank You, Lord
- by the Inspirations

For making the sun to shine, putting the stars in the sky
For the flowers that bloom, the ocean so blue, thank you Lord
For every sparrow that sings, and makes sweet melody
For the River that flows, the rain and the snow, thank you Lord

I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord
For everything you've done for me thank you Lord
I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord
For making me whole, saving my soul thank you Lord

For my whole family, For the joy my children bring
For shoes on our feet, plenty to eat, thank you Lord
For the church where I worship and pray, For the freedom I have today
For your spirit I feel, presence so real, thank you Lord

I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord
For everything you've done for me thank you Lord
I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord
For making me whole, saving my soul, thank you Lord

For being a friend so dear, Giving my sad heart cheer
For holding my hand when I could not stand thank you Lord
For giving your life for me on a cross at calvary
For taking my place, mercy and grace, thank you Lord

I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord
For everything you've done for me thank you Lord
I just want to thank you Lord, I just want to thank you Lord
For making me whole, saving my soul, thank you Lord

Into Everything!

He may look sweet, but don't let him fool you!

Since we have been home from this last trip, Judson has really been enjoying his freedom...that is not being buckled into a seat, and being at home where he can roam mostly uninhibited. He is getting into everything. He seems to move from one thing that he's not supposed to have to another that he's not supposed to have. He has perfected the art of climbing, and there are few places left that he can't get to. Several times I had to get him off the kitchen table. I think he is getting practiced up for the terrible twos!

A Post by Josiah

(Josiah has been asking me to let him write on the blog, so I decided to give him the opportunity. The following post is written by Josiah, the picture was taken by him, and it is all his own original work! I helped with the typing only.)

This is a castle. I made this all by myself. Daddy helped me a little bit, but I did most. Daddy thought this was the Taj Mahal. Daddy said the two tops, one on one side and one on the other side of it were coconut tops. That's all!

Amish Country

We had a good meeting in Dover, PA yesterday at the Lighthouse Baptist Church. The church provided us with some great meals and a beautiful hotel room to stay in. Jeremy taught the teen Sunday School class in the morning, and then talked to the kids in Children’s Church for a few minutes. In the evening service, I played an offertory and Jeremy preached. It was a good day, and we enjoyed our time meeting the people of the church and getting to know them and the pastor.

On the way to the York, PA area on Saturday we took a little side trip to Lancaster County, PA. Growing up I always enjoyed going to shop and look around in Amish country, so I thought the boys would enjoy it also. There are a lot of attractions in the Lancaster area, but we mainly just took in the scenery. We did go to a pretzel factory and watch them make pretzels. We even got to try twisting some dough ourselves! That is definitely an art that has to be perfected.

Then we meandered through the country to Strasburg. On the way we crossed a covered bridge. I think that was the first time I had ever been on a covered bridge! At least, I don’t remember seeing one in person before. Just before we came over this hill, all we could see was the top of it, and the boys thought there was a house in the middle of the road! The Amish farms are beautiful in a simplistic way. Josiah and Jonathan liked to see the buggies, and we saw a lot of them, but I didn't get any good pictures of them. I didn't want to look too "touristy!"

I always wonder what it would be like to be living your normal life and have tourists drive by and stop to look at you. Even try to take your picture. I was amused by a brochure I read that advertised a place where you could dress up in Amish clothing and have your picture taken…sort of like those Old Time photos you can get. I wonder how the Amish feel about that?

In Strasburg, we went to the Choo Choo Barn. The kids really enjoyed this place! They have a 1700 square foot model railroad display. The details in the scenery were amazing. There were about 20 trains running, and many of the scenes had moving objects. Every so often the lights in the room would go out, and the streetlamps and lights in all the buildings would light up like it was night. My personal favorite was the house that caught on fire and started smoking. The fire engine would come around the corner with sirens blaring and little firemen came out and sprayed real water on the house to put out the “fire.” Josiah was so excited about it all that he kept saying the same things over and over again. He could hardly contain himself! To top it all off we walked through the Thomas the Tank Engine gift shop which had all things Thomas.

I loved the little Sprite machine on the platform

Their hammers and saws were really moving!

At the end of the day they were all worn out, but we had a fun day and enjoyed one of the last warm afternoons of the year.

Lighthouse Point Park

Yesterday we went to New Haven, CT to Lighthouse Point Park. I really wanted to see a lighthouse while we were in New England. This wasn't a really big lighthouse and we didn't get to go inside it, but it was a nice park. There is a carousel, but it only runs during the summer. It was a beautiful day, although still cold. There was a playground there too, so the kids had fun running off some energy.

Josiah likes to take pictures, and does a pretty good job. He took this picture of Jonathan and Daddy.

Then Jonathan wanted to take a picture of Daddy and Josiah. He needs to work on his skill a little more!

Josiah can sniff out a book wherever we go!

At the playground they had a book stand (the yellow one you see in the picture) with books to read at the park. The boys found them, and then they didn't want to leave.

We had a fun time just spending some time together as a family and having a day without much of a schedule to keep! It was a nice break.

Connecticut

We were in Alabama and really enjoyed our time there, then we traveled to Connecticut, and just finished a great conference at Tri-State Baptist Church in Thompson, CT. This week we have a little down time, and we are looking forward to not having to take any "really long trips" (as the boys say) for a few days. We are going to try to do a little sight seeing while we are in New England. I have always wanted to go see a lighthouse in person. Maybe I'll be able to get some interesting pictures to post in the future!

Thankfully, we are all over the stomach bug (at least at this time!) and just battling some colds. We appreciate everyone who is praying for us!

Gas for $1.99!!!

This is a very welcoming sign when you spend alot of time on the road! I really thought we would never see it under $2.00 a gallon again. We were excited to see the sign in time to get off the exit and take advantage. Usually we buy gas and then two exits down the road it's 30 cents cheaper...or at least it seems that way sometimes. This is the cheapest we have seen it so far, and we have been from Alabama to Connecticut!

We had a great time at our Mission Conference. It was tremendously encouraging and also challenging. James Zenker was the speaker, and he brought some great messages. Josiah and Jonathan did a great job singing in the choir. We were able to be in the parade of nations representing the country of Brazil. This picture shows Josiah with a few of the other children who were part of the parade of nations. It was neat to see the many nationalities in our church.

We left our conference and headed to New Hampshire. We arrived there Thursday evening after a very long trip. We enjoyed being a part of the conference at Victory Baptist Church in Londonderry, NH. The church people were very kind to us and we enjoyed seeing some friends we hadn't seen in a long time, and also making new friends.

We were supposed to leave there early Monday morning and travel about 12 hours. Late Sunday night Judson got sick, and we were up most of the night with him. We still left pretty early, and our 12 hour trip became somewhat longer, but we made it. We had a meeting in Illinois, so we stopped by to spend the night with my parents. It was nice to see them even for just a short time. Unfortunately, we seem to have shared our germs with them, so they are still recovering from our visit. (Sorry Mom and Dad-Hope you are feeling better.)

We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow for a conference in Alabama, but decided it would be better to wait until we are all healthy. If we are able, we will go on Monday instead.

I leave you with a video clip of the boys' choir singing in church. Jonathan is right in the front row. Josiah is up and to the right of Jonathan in the row second from the top.

I've Been Tagged

Shannon tagged me, so here are seven random things about me!

1. My middle name is Noel, but not because I was born near Christmas (I was born in July). My dad’s middle name is Leon. Noel is Leon backwards!

2. I am notorious as a vicious hide and seek player. (There are two stories that go with this.)

My grandpa lived in an apartment above my dad’s store. When my mom went to work with my dad, I would go upstairs and stay with Grandpa. I was probably about three years old at the time, we would play hide and seek. I always giggled and easily gave myself away. One day, however I remained very quiet and still and my Grandpa couldn’t find me anywhere. He called and called, but I didn’t give up! He began to panic and went downstairs to get my parents. They finally found me, and Grandpa was not too happy with me. I don’t think we played that game anymore!

When I was a little older I was playing outside at our house with my brother and two of my cousins (who were all about 4 years older than me). It was my turn to “seek” so the boys all went and hid. I then decided I would go inside and have a piece of pie. Quite some time later, when I never found them, they finally came looking for me and found me inside having a great time. They probably didn’t let me play with them again.

3. On the first day of first grade, my teacher put me on the wrong school bus to go home. I wondered why I didn’t recognize anyone, and why they were only dropping kids off in town, when I lived out in the country. The driver didn’t realize it until he had finished his route, and there I sat! By that time my brother and sister had gotten off the bus at home without me, and my mother was frantically trying to figure out where I was! Several calls were made and I arrived home safe and sound.

4. In college, some girls in my dorm gave me a fish as a present. We named him Zebedee. We weren’t supposed to have pets, but my fish was nice and quiet, and he lived in my room for a year, and no one knew he was there! (Shhh…don’t tell on me!)

5. I met Jeremy while we were both playing in the orchestra during college. I didn’t even bring my flute to college with me, but Mr. Yingling found out that I played, and “strongly encouraged” me to have my mom send it to me. The rest is history!

6. Jeremy and I took a trip to Brazil to visit his parents the summer before we got married, and he proposed while we were there, but it almost didn’t happen! When we arrived in Brazil, two of our suitcases didn’t arrive with us. One of them came a few days later, and thankfully that is the one that had the ring in it, because the other suitcase never came and was never located!

7. On our first anniversary we spent a few days at a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN. We went tubing for the first time, and I got sunburned so badly that I got physically ill, and couldn’t hardly move. I was out of work for a week, but I did not enjoy my week off!

An Update on our Busy Life!

Since our last post, we had a meeting at Faithway Baptist Church in Leesburg, VA which just began in March of this year. Jeremy spent time helping the pastor back in February before they had their first service. It was great to see some of the people he invited then, still faithfully attending the church. It's exciting to be around a new and growing work.

We had a great time this last weekend in southern Georgia. We spent Sunday evening in Thomasville, GA at the Victory Baptist Church. We were made to feel very welcome and enjoyed visiting the church.

Now we are looking forward to being a part of our mission conference here at our home church which begins with our mission banquet on Saturday. We are praying that the Lord will give us a very special meeting. On Monday evening (10/20), the preschool choir will be singing in the service. Josiah and and Jonathan are both singing in that choir. Jonathan is very excited about it as this will be his first time to sing in "big church." The services will be broadcast live on templebaptistchurch.com so if you can, tune in and watch them sing! The service will begin at 7:30 pm Eastern time, and the choirs usually sing near the beginning of the service. It's always fun to watch them sing. You never know what's going to happen!

Washington DC

This is definitely the longest post in the history of this blog, but please bear with me! There is much to share!

Last week while we were in Woodbridge, we stayed with a church family, the Waldschmidts, and Mr. Waldschmidt was kind enough to take us into Washington D.C. on Saturday and give us a tour. We never would have found our way around if we hadn't had such a good tour guide!

The Capital Building

Library of Congress

The Supreme Court Building

We parked and walked to the Lincoln Memorial and from there around the war memorials. Josiah and I counted the steps from the top of the Lincoln Memorial down to the reflecting pool...87 in all!

Another benefit to a personal tour guide was that we all got to be in the pictures!

Josiah found a friend

Jeremy got creative with his photography while we were at the Vietnam Wall. In this first picture he was just taking pictures of the names, but after we left I was looking at the pictures and realized that right in the center is the name Ronald R King. For those of you who don't know, my dad's name is Ronald King! Of course this is not him, although he did serve in the army during the Vietnam War, but never was sent overseas. I thought it was kind of neat that this name happened to end up in the picture!








I really enjoyed visiting the World War II Memorial. This was not here the last time that I was in Washington DC many years ago. It was moving to see some older gentlemen there and know that they probably served in WWII, or were very close to some who did.

This is looking at the memorial from the top of the Washington Monument

There was a pillar like this with each state inscribed to honor

the soldiers who served from that state. My grandfather served
in WWII and he was from Illinois.

This large column represents the battles fought in the Pacific.
There is also one for the Atlantic. Under these columns specific
areas where battles where fought are inscribed.

There are 4000 stars like these to represent the more
than 400,000 Americans who died in WWII.

The Korean War Memorial has a wall similar to the Vietnam wall, but it is much smaller and instead of names it has the faces of soldiers who died in the war. There are also some statues of soldiers.





Thursday we had a free day and wanted to do something fun as a family, so we decided to go back into Washington DC. We felt like we knew our way around enough to brave it on our own!
We started at the Washington Monument. We wanted to go up to the top, but we didn't have the time earlier. It was very cold and windy as we waited in line, but we really enjoyed it. The monument is 555 feet tall. The elevator ride to the top takes only 70 seconds.

The view from the top is spectacular!

After that we went to the National Archives. It's hard to believe you are looking at the actual Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. You can't get many good pictures inside because you can't use a flash.




OK, I know this isn't a really good picture, but I wanted to try to get a picture of this portrait of the signers of the Constitution. There is a plaque that tells you who each person is. The man to George Washington's left in the forefront is Rufus King! I must be related! You can see him a little better in the second picture. He is the only bald man in the picture, so he must be a part of my family!



Next we visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The boys liked looking at all the animals. We didn't have alot of time to spend here, so we didn't see it all. I was a little disappointed that everything I read promoted evolution (although I probably should have expected that.)

I think this was the boys' favorite thing. They picked out Nemo and Dory right away!

And this was my favorite thing!! The Hope Diamond...over 45 carats....WOW!

It was a full day, but we enjoyed it and the kids did great. We definitely got our exercise! I am convinced that you could easily spend a week or more going through all the museums and seeing everything. I hope that someday when the kids are bigger we will have another opportunity to visit again.