Central Baptist Church ...Revisited

It seems like lately we have been "revisiting" many of the churches we went to last year on deputation. We really enjoy it when we get to go somewhere where we know the people and have a good idea of what to expect. Central Baptist Church is no different. Last year we were only able to make it to one day of their mission conference because of a confusion in the conference dates. This year we were only able to make it to two services. Pastor Conley and his family really went out of their way to spend time with us. We were really blessed by the fellowship we had with them.

Pastor Conley and family
Mrs. Paula Joe was the lady with whom we stayed while we were in town. She was also a great blessing to us.
Allie's photography ...one of the pastor's daughters and her friend from the church.
After this meeting we had quite a drive ahead of us. We had to try to make it from New Hampshire to Tennessee in two days. This is a long trip, but even longer when you have three children and a newborn that likes to eat every three hours! The first day was a rather rough day. We tried to get over 10 hours of the trip done that day, and we succeeded. We were all VERY glad to be out of the van at the end of the day!

When we crossed over one bridge we saw this little lighthouse, which I thought was pretty neat as I've never seen a lighthouse before in person.
The Tappan Zee bridge was the bridge we crossed. We don't enjoy crossing big bridges, and we are always thankful to make it safe to the other side! :)
The second day of travel was quite a bit easier, and we even made it to our destination by 5:30 that evening. We had planned on not making it until about 8:00, so we were pleasantly surprised! We are enjoying another conference here in Tennessee and plan on being here until Wednesday. Pray for us that we can be a blessing to this church, and that we can see some fruit during these last few weeks of deputation.

The Candy Store

In between meetings in New Hampshire we stayed with the Schwanke family in Wilton, NH. We had a great time of relaxation. One afternoon we went on a little trip to the candy store. This little store is known for their homemade candy canes at Christmas time. We were told they had the "best" candy canes in the world! They hadn't started making them yet, so we didn't get to try them.

We did get the girls a treat though, and we let them pick out whatever they wanted...within reason.
They're ready to go inside!
Yummy...all kinds of choices!
Judah isn't concerned about anything.
So many choices ... Can have this? Can I have that?
Finally the decision is made ...chocolate lollipops!
We also bought some for the Schwanke kids for a "thank you" to them. They all had great fun eating them!

Purgatory

We had a meeting with our newest supporting church last Sunday in Rhode Island. We enjoyed the day with Narragansett Bay Baptist Church, and had fun getting to see our friends at the church. We were in their mission conference last year, and we were excited to hear that over a year later they were able to take us on for support. That church has an afternoon service, and that evening we were able to drop in at another church close by that was having a missions conference. We had a great time visiting with Tom and Christy Krampert, some friends from college. I wish I would have had pictures from our day, but it is taking me a while to get used to getting pictures everywhere we go again.

On our way back to where we were staying in New Hampshire on Monday morning we stopped by Purgatory Chasm State Park. We were very curious about it being that it had such a strange name. It is located in Sutton, Mass. and is famous for its 70 foot deep granite wall...the chasm. We didn't hike to the chasm, which was only a very short distance, we just looked at the pictures of it and went on our way.
We also took pictures of the kids (only Allie and Bethany) on some of the rocks in the park.

Pretty New England Foliage

I was so excited to find out we would be going to New England again during autumn. Last year the trees were simply breath taking! This year wasn't quite as brilliant as last year, but there were still some beautiful sights!

Video of Judah at 2 Months

Judah At Two Months Old

We are so thankful for our happy little boy! We all just can't get enough of him.

Emmanuel Baptist Church...Revisited

We were in the mission conference at this church last year. Pastor Maxwell invited us back to their conference again this year. We had a good time getting reacquainted with them, and we were able to spend a lot of time visiting with them. The Maxwell's took us in just like family. Allie and Lilla (their youngest daughter) became fast friends (even though Lilla is about 2 years older than Allie). They played and played and sat together in church, it's fun to see Allie starting to make friends with so many other little girls on deputation!
We also were with the Whetstones (director of our mission board) and the Grove family (also with our mission board) at the conference. Jeff Knudson, church planter to Staten Island, New York, was also there one night to report on what the Lord has been doing in his life and ministry.

The Grove family (plus our Judah...they held him almost the whole time!)
We also had a great time with Matt and Emily DeCosta. Anna was just a week old when we met her, what a cutie she is! One afternoon Emily and I went out to lunch with just our babies, a few people asked if they were twins. They were so cute sitting side by side in their little car seats. It's amazing to see how big Judah is compared to a newborn!
Last year when we were at this church we were supposed to stay with these folks. For some reason it didn't work out for us to stay with them. So this year they requested to have us stay with them. They had lots of toys for the girls to play with, and they even took them to the store and let them choose a special toy.
We enjoyed getting to see people we know and remembered from last year. We praise the Lord for the friends we have made on deputation!