Song of the South: Love Your Neighbor

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Love Your Neighbor

I took a week off last week. Truth be told...I was really emotional & upset over the tornado in Joplin. I hugged my kids tighter every night & I held Bferg closer every chance I got. Next to Jesus, my family is the most important thing in my life.

And because we are not guaranteed tomorrow; I am so thankful & blessed by my "today's". Loving my family, serving my neighbors & pursuing my God is what matters when I lay my head on my pillow each night.

Bferg & I had the opportunity to go into Joplin on Thursday night. We spent the first part of the week collecting clothing & personal care items from friends. We had a contact in Joplin & dropped our load (which was our entire SUV:) at Forest Park Baptist Church. Words cannot describe what we saw in Joplin. The tireless volunteers serving free food, AT&T trucks lined up as phone charging stations, pallets & stacks of bottled water, American flags everywhere & then the devastation. Complete devastation. I openly wept as we drove through.

Pray, pray, pray for the people & churches of Joplin. Go & help if you are able. The next step is uncertain for so many & we are called to be the hands & feet of Christ!

We had a fun filled Memorial Day weekend. We had friends over Friday night for an Official Start of Summer BBQ. We had a blast! 9 kids + 1 newborn + 8 adults = FUN! The weather turned out to be nice & we stayed outside until all the kids melted down. (It was a slow progression...one by one. :)

Sunday after church we headed over to Tulsa with some friends to visit the Aquarium. It was really neat! Aubrie & Bferg got hands on & touched star fish, a shark of some sort & stingrays. I was happy behind the camera...no need to touch things for Mommy! Lily was cracking me up because she would just splash the water & think that she had "touched" each creature. I think she really just liked using the automated Purell stations that were scattered about!

Collin & Aubrie pointing out their favorite fish.

I never did get a pic where all 4 kids were looking at the camera!

We made it to the Lake on Monday but didn't exactly make it out of our dock. We had some boat trouble which equaled (big time) tears from Aubrie but we quickly remedied the situation by heading to our neighborhood pool. The water was freezing!!! But they didn't seem to mind!