New Life is Amazing!

I will never forget the day my children were at their cousins farm and the horse gave birth. They had heard all about the upcoming event, however we lived 500 miles away.  when we went to Ohio for our annual summer trip, they spent the night with their cousins.  It happened to be that night that the horse gave birth!  They were so excited that the timing worked out perfect & they were there to be part of it.  We at Hope Church get to be part of a new birth!  I feel a bit like my kids when the colt was born, amazed at the timing, and that I actually get to be part of it.  New birth is always a miracle, an event so grand it is beyond us.  Of course there is a lot of hard work, endless sleepless nights, and overwhelming responsibility, just to mention a few things that go along with the care of a new infant... But that is all going to be thought about another day... for now I am going to live in the moment and enjoy new life!  

from "I can't" to "How can I?"

Wow! the week is over and it went great.  How fun to do an outreach before we even launch Hope Church!  Lately, instead of saying "I can't do that"- (we have no facilities or church volunteers) the Lord has been challenging me to rephrase my language to "How can we do that?"  We serve a creative God who can easily answer that question!  And boy did He!  With the use of about 30 volunteers in town for the A/G Youth Convention & Fine Arts competition, I had plenty of volunteers, then the theater management was willing to let us use the facilities! Then a sponsor came along for the finances!  Goals were set up on the back parking lot, snacks brought in, fun openings and the camp began.  Before we knew it we had 60 kids learning basketball skills & cheerleading and praying during small groups all at the movie theater.  Each child was taught daily about determination and that God was determined to love them! The kids were all from lower income households, we also had several foster care kids.  What blessed me most was to know that most of these boys and girls would not have been able to attend a sports camp this summer without a program like this. Thank you Lord for letting me be  a part of giving "Hope" to the Charlotte community!