Chrstmas is the Best Time of the Year!

Mary
me

 This weekend was very, very busy. We had an outreach at our church. We were giving away toys and salvation. That's right. The people that came through for toys had to go through a check out point. Once they had gone through, they were sent to the next station. I'll call it the Salvation station. Several people were there to pray with the people and share the salvation message with them. Over one hundred people accepted Christ through that alone. There's more.



The wisemen bring an offering.

  On Sunday, we had a special service. We had a guest speaker, giveaways, special activities for the kids, and lunch afterward. Our dance team also performed a human video to "This is Christmas" by Kutless.  The lyrics of the song asked have we lost the reason for Christmas. The first verse showed a couple dealing with the pressure of a modern day Christmas. The second showed the Christmas story. In the end the angels, couple, signers, and wisemen recognize Jesus as the reason for the season.




Glorifying the Lord.

After that, Riley Stephenson, with Kenneth Copeland Ministries, spoke and asked anyone who wanted to accept the Lord to come to the front. Now, I had worked at the Salvation station, so I had spoken to a couple of people I knew I wanted to go forward. One of them didn't, but another was sitting there and I walked over and asked if she would come up. And (Thank you Jesus!!!) she came up with me. Riley was done leading everyone in the praye,r so I got to pray with her. It blessed me so much!! And I think she was blessed, too. That was the best part of the whole weekend fo me!

I thank the Lor dfor what He has done this week in the hearts of His people. He is so, so faithful. Remember that.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!!

Jesus truly is the reason for the season.

Teen for the Lord





What's going on.

Last night we preformed a 1940's Homecoming. It went really well! We have another performance tomorrow. It's been a great experience and I've gotten to know some more people at my church. ( Yeah, almost two years and I'm still getting to know people! It's a big church!)
Now I start getting ready for Teen Talent. I'm excited about that! (Teen Talent is a national contest through PCG (Pentecostal Church of God). It starts at District, goes to Regionals, and then Nationals. I've only done it one year, but it is a lot of fun! But, more on that later.)

The next week is going to be BUSY! We have a lot of stuff going on, so I may not get a chance to post anything for a little while. 

Well, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

Emily   :)

Decorating the Tree Tradition

~~~~SIGH~~~~~
Christmas. It's finally here!! It really is my favorite time of the year.

We put up our tree last night and opened the first doors in our Advent book. I told my mom it's almost like magic opening those doors. They hold so many memories of past Christmases. So does decorating our tree. 

At our house, everyone receives a yearly ornament. My parents started this tradition long before any of us kids were born, so we have lots of ornaments. This is how it works. (tentatively)

First we unpack the ornaments. Then, we categorize them by year with varied difficulty, depending on whether we have the list telling us which ones belong in which year. We often make homemade cocoa during this process. Another unofficial tradition, of which, we have many. Then we gather the whole family and decorate the tree.

They start in 1983, when my dad gave my mom a tinsel wire shaped to say "I Love you" in cursive. It's falling apart, the letters are crooked and stretched out, but it is the first ornament that is officially placed on our tree each year. Then, come several years worth of ornaments representing the different events of each year. We kids are supposed to be quiet until we are "born", but with Mom telling us the stories behind each ornament, and the excitement of decorating the tree, you can just imagine how well that tradition gets followed.

Next my big brother is born, my Grandma Barb gets cancer and my family can't go because they are all sick, so on goes the pocket-sized Kleenex tissue. No really, it's a package of Kleenex!

Then, I was born!!! And the world rejoiced, for---- okay, so nothing could have prepared them for me.  Two years later, my little brother is born and my Grandma dies. Two more years later, my little sister is born. For the next couple of years, we live in the country, then move to town to be closer to my dad's work. The next big thing that happened was we moved back to Carthage, our hometown. Back to our friends and our Grandma Judy. We live in Carthage for a couple more years, then move to where we are now.

The year was 2009 and my little brother and my sister and I all had strep throat. Our mom was sick, too. We kids got medicine and were fine, but my mom was just getting worse. The day we took her to the emergency room she looked like zombie. She had phenemomia, and we kids thought she was going to die. Dad had to make Christmas that year. It was a hard for us all. Then, we received the best Christmas gift ever; Mom came home on Christmas Eve. She was on medication, and she didn't look good, but that probably was one of the best Christmas Eves ever. It's right up there with Grandma Judy breaking her nose! But that's not part of this story. Our ornaments for that year varied, but the most memorable is my mom's hospital bracelet.

The next year was the Paper Route. My dad was in Kansas City working, and my mom, my little siblings, and I had to run a paper route for all of December. Amazingly we all survived, although at times we didn't think we could. Our ornaments for that year are, rubber bands with our names on them for us kids, a Mingo card for my brother, and the Christmas newspaper for my Mom and Dad's.

2011 was a year of change. The Joplin tornado hit, and our lives changed drastically spiritually and physically. We changed churches, my dad changed jobs, we housed hundreds of volunteers, and a lot more. Our ornaments were homemade out of Scrabble pieces. Each of us kid's spelled our names and my parents' read BLESSED.

This year we added a snowman for each person.

This is one of my very favorite traditions. One I will carry on to my family.

Merry Christmas!

Teen for the Lord