Monday, May 21, 2007

Isaiah's First ABF and Beacon Homecoming


We've enjoyed lots of firsts with Isaiah. This weekend we added some NC activities to the list. On Friday Thomas, Isaiah and I flew up to NC after being invited to the Atkins Backyard Fellowship (ABF). Every since I can remember, my parents have hosted this backyard festivity before their church's anniversary. This year was no exception. I remember my dad saying in the past, "It's not an official ABF unless we have 35 people." Well, this year on Saturday they blew the top off that statement with a grand total of 79! Thankfully the weather was great, and the bugs were few. My mama really outdid herself with all the barbeque chicken to which my grandpa gave the finishing touches, potato salad, pulled pork, well the list is quite long, so I won't continue with that detail; except to say that we also enjoyed Southern Illinois style strawberry shortcake! Yum!!!!!!!!! Isaiah even got to have a taste of that, and yes, he did like it.

I was able to catch up with some friends.
Isaiah was able to get to know Adelyn Newton the daughter of one of my friends, Cherith Barkman Newton. I think that they liked each other!

I love the feeling of coming home. I think that it's a little piece of heaven, coming back to the place where I grew up and being accepted and loved. When we go to heaven, we'll have the ultimate feeling of coming home because we'll be as God created us to be, and we'll be with Him! We'll get to know and understand more and more about Him and be loved by Him and glorify Him the way that we only long to now.

Sunday we enjoyed worshiping at Beacon Baptist, the church where I grew up. For celebrating the 34th anniversary, Beacon invited Dr. Richard Belcher to come as a special guest. He preached the Sunday morning sermon. As a sacred concert, he recounted the life of Adoniram Judson through narrative and song. How humbled I was as I heard all that America's first foreign missionary suffered for Christ. I pray that as things are difficult for our family, whether on the mission field or back in the States, that God will help me to remember what kept Adoniram Judson going: Christ! Christ is worth anything that we might endure. Remembering Who Christ is and what He has done will strengthen us to continue to work for Him to accomplish the great commission that He has given us.

I was able to spend time with my wonderful friend Grace White Sunday afternoon. We had great fun drinking tea and talking about lots of different things. Hopefully we'll get to spend more time together again in June while we're visiting with my family.

Our last few hours with my parents and grandpa were nice and relaxing. Our flight home was on time at both legs and all 3 of our bags made it! We are always delighted when such things happen. Tomorrow we will spend most of the day in Jackson, finishing the day with picking up my mom at the airport. She'll be staying with us until we have our last big yard sale June 2. I'm so thankful that she will be here to help us get ready to go.

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