These pictures are from during our period of leaving Illinois:

Missions Night After-Party and our near empty house

Senior girls getting their gifts from us

Aaron's last Summer Wednesday, they celebrated by beating him up!

Out to eat with our Hensley girls

the amazing volunteers who came and helped us with our last minute cleaning up and repairs and then they loaded our truck for us! Thanks guys!

On our way to Mississippi.  Sad and exciting. 

I love these pictures. I'll put up some more later so stay tuned!

Changes

As I type this I am surrounded by equal parts empty space and boxes.  We are packing up life in Illinois and though the accumulation of six years and 2 kids later will fill the U-Haul, we find that we are leaving much behind of ourselves with the people of Central Bible Church with whom we have loved and invested ourselves.

Six years ago, after much prayer and waiting, God called us to Illinois to be on staff at Central Bible Church for Aaron to fill the position of Youth Pastor.  Much has happened since then, barely a month after we arrived the Senior Pastor, Ken Weddle, was diagnosed with cancer and died a mere 2 months later.  Around that time we discovered we were pregnant with our first child.  We grew in our ministry, our marriage, as individuals and in so many other ways as we learned ministry while the church grieved and was refined through the pastor search process.  One more son and senior pastor later, we were watching our first class of 7th graders in their Senior year when the Lord began to tug on Aaron and mine's hearts individually toward our next step in His will for our lives.

Again, with much prayer, we are responding to His call on our lives to serve Him at the ministry of Friends of Alcoholics in Jackson, Mississippi.  This is, of course, the ministry where we both grew up, our parents serving at F.O.A.  While as Youth Pastor, Aaron led his youth group in two missions trips to the ministry of F.O.A., and last year had the privilege of leading a teaching conference there as well.  Though F.O.A. has always been so much a part of our hearts, we were not expecting to be called there to serve and while we are sad to leave the people at Central Bible Church, we are delighted to be able to see God's clear direction for our lives and to be walking in that.

Please pray for us when you think of us-we anticipate moving very soon.  The drive, the settling in, the selling of our current house all need prayer.

Please pray for CBC as they search for a new Youth Pastor.

Also for our family as we adjust to our new life/ministry in Mississippi. 

Please visit F.O.A.'s website at www.friendsofalcoholics.blogspot.com and explore and acquaint yourself with it's amazing ministry!

Thank you!

Brittany (for all of us)

P.S.-Also, we will be needed a new blog name-any suggestions?!

A few pics at the MuuMuu

Luke's Birthday

We woke up and had PANCAKES! yummy.

Joel didn't eat pancakes, but he liked his breakfast too.

Then we opened a few presents right away:

(no, no, not him...)

Luke is so happy he did it!

...what? don't you usually get your hair cut on your birthday?

A few more gifts (yes, there are even MORE)

Joel wants to read the bee book too

Veggie Tales! ALOT of Veggie Tales

Joel after his bath

And then we went to church and had a little "party" there too!

Ice cream cones and Lightning McQueen!

Lots of friends and church family came

Luke may be shorter, but he feels right at home

Some people surprised us with presents!

And he got a balloon!

The sticker book was pretty exciting for him-he had to show it off

Luke also got a wiffle ball set

complete with a helmet

how cool is he now?

Luke's sticker artwork (he's so proud)

Luke had a very Happy Birthday-thank you all for the cards, gifts and thoughts. THE BIG 3! I hope to get a video or two up soon as well-come back soon.

New Pastor

Click here to meet our new pastor!

Our Thanksgiving

We went to our church's Annual Thanksgiving Breakfast. The men of the church make alot of the food there and set it up (nice!) and the women show up later with some other food items from home and the children (haha). Then we eat, fellowship, sing songs and give thanks together. It was a good time.

Then we enjoyed Thanksgiving with our nearest "relatives", the Scarbrough family! (I'll have to tell you sometime, if you don't already know, about this special relationship)

We enjoyed the entire day of relaxed hanging out, and sweet tea, and food.

Kim made amazing food, and Michael did a great job cutting the turkey.
Take special note of his *very* eager assistant

(Ron and Betty-these are for you!)

Luke, Caleb and Rachel waiting.


The folks and the food (minus Aaron b/c he is taking the picture)

And on the day after Christmas I took my girls from Bible Study to the mall *gasp*
that was fun,
and then our family had a second Thanksgiving at the Mulligan's house

Here is a pic of me and Luke being not so mannerly and sitting on the kitchen counter.