Setting Goals

In college, it seemed easy to have my day scheduled out to make use of every minute to accomplish projects, assignments, and study for class. I had my goals set and stuck to them to get what I needed accomplished in the proper timeline.

At times, I tended to even take it to the extreme where I had only my plans scheduled for the day, and did not make room to include what the Lord may have for me that day. I thankfully had wise council to help me realize this downfall.

However, now that I have been out of college, and not had as consistent of a schedule, I find myself going back to not making the best use of my time or following a productive routine. I get frustrated as I want to include many good and even necessary things in my life, but don't take the time to actually schedule them in. Or I will promise myself to something and start out great, but die off after a bit (take this blog for instance... :)

I recently felt the rewards of setting a goal and accomplishing it. I set out to cross-stitch a pattern for a new-born with the goal of finishing by his two-week birthday. It felt great to have a date to work towards and I was reminded of my determination to accomplish a task I had put on myself with a specfic deadline.

So here goes. Inspired by my favorite blogger, Crystal Paine at moneysavingmom.com, I want to start setting weekly and daily goals to be a better manager of my time. I am reminding myself, however, not to attempt to accomplish all of my shortfalls in one week, but to start one step at a time. And, hey, if anyone does read this blog, I appreciate your keeping me accountable simply by reading.


Personal Goals

1. Do devotions at least 4 times this week. {I ashamedly but transparently admit that I still struggle with consistency in my devotions so I am starting small.}
2. Exercise at least 4 times this week.

Business Goals

1. Enter "Prime Contacts" every day after each school.
2. Write at least 2 postcards to students every day during the week.
3. Complete Stop By paperwork before getting to hotel.
4. Have all hotels booked for the following week by Friday.

Family Goals

1. Talk to at least one family member this week. {That sounds horrible, doesn't it?}

Ministry Goals

1. Pray for the students I have promised to pray for regarding their college decision.

A Year of Reflection

As we departed from Pensacola this morning, I couldn't help but be reflective on the journey we started a year ago.

Three hundred sixty-five days ago we set out on the same road with the same destination passing those same white cotton fields. But there are many things that are not the same...especially us. We have been stretched and molded, hurt and mended, encouraged and questioned; but most importantly, we have seen the Lord's work in our lives.

Through Pastors, Administrators, host and church families, and the Lord's divine appointments, we have gained valuable insight and learned invaluable life lessons. We may not have much more direction now then we did last year as to what our next step is, but, just as we counsel the high-schoolers to, we are trusting that the Lord will guide our next step.

As we passed those white cotton fields this morning, I was reminded of the challenge they presented to us last year. The challenge of the many lives that lie ahead of us. In the past year, the Lord allowed us to plant some more seeds for future harvest, water other seeds, and even harvest a few handfuls. With much excitement, we watched the harvest come in this past week as almost 1,300 freshman arrived on campus!! The thought of the spiritual growth that lies ahead of them encourages us to keep going strong as laborers of the Lord's harvest.

We covet your prayers as we start another year of adventure and especially as we seek the Lord for His leading after this year.

Coming Soon.....

An Update!!!

So we are still alive....AND I just finished my latest project SO updating the long-forgotten blog is next on the to-do list (right after taxes). So stay tuned....

By the way, if you are interested in my latest project...especially if you know an avid hunter...check out the website I was able to put together for my uncle's taxidermy business!

http://www.frostyhollowtaxidermy.com/

Somebody's Praying Us Through

This article recounts the many "divine appointments" and special blessings of November 7th to November 13th.

As I have already mentioned, our boss, Mr. Bryant, came to visit us to check up on our progress and to sharpen us more. This was the week that he visited us and it was really neat that he was able to experience most of this with us.

Sunday
Dale and I decided to attend the church of the school we were going to be at the next day for the morning service. When we arrived, we found that they had evangelist Ed Dunlop with them that week so we decided to attend both services at this church. Evangelist Dunlop is well known for his work with children ministries, but he brought forth some great truths that even as an adult, I needed to be reminded of. We also very much appreciated Evangelist Dunlop's reminder of how simply salvation is.

Monday
After we arrived at our school on Monday morning, we went out to the van to get our equipment to set up and there beside our van was our lovely boss, Mr. Bryant. For some reason, it was different to see him outside of Pensacola, but at the same time, it was neat to have him with us.

While we were setting up, a gentleman and his son walked through the doors of the church. Whenever the administrator asked them how he could help, they said that they were there for the presentation. This father and son drove over an hour from Cape May to Absecon, NJ to meet with Dale and I! Dale had contacted the son a couple weeks before since he was a homeschooler in New Jersey. We had never had a homeschooler show up at a presentation and it was a great encouragement and wonderful opportunity!

Tuesday
On Tuesday, we visited Gloucester County Christian School where Evangelist Rich Tozour graduated from. This was a very large school which sometimes can hinder us getting to meet the students on a personal level. After the presentation, we joined the students for a class which turned into a study hall. I had a blast playing Dale and I's new game, Bananagrams, with some of the girls in the class! After the study hall, we sat in on the handbell class as they prepared for a state competition in the spring.

After we left the school, we stopped by to visit a family whose children attend PCC. This family owns one of the largest garden nurseries on the east coast! We were given a personal tour (by golf cart) of the enclosed facilities by another PCC alumnus that is working for the company. We had never seen such a big facility before or realized the process that goes into growing flowers year-round. We even got to see the poinsettias that were being grown to be sent to decorate the White House for Christmas!

Tuesday night we drove over to Newark, Delaware to once again see the Wessburgs as I spoke about in my last post. It was wonderful to be reunited with them within such a short period of time!

Wednesday
At our school on Wednesday, we met a girl that had already decided that she wanted to attend PCC for the nursing program! We were also able to talk to her mom as she was a teacher at the school. I am always so excited to help students (and parents) prepare to come to college!

We relocated Wednesday to be closer to our next school and ended up in a dinky little town. Dale and Mr. Bryant looked through the phonebook and computer for a church to attend that night and found one where two people from the church had applied to come to PCC.

When we pulled up to the church, it looked like a store front, and then when we pulled into the parking lot, everyone came out to see us. We walked in the door and were treated like celebrities! The pastor sat us down right away, gave us some pie, then one by one called the teenagers from the church over to meet us! When he called a young lady named Erika over while explaining that she was a recent PCC Alumnus, I turned around to look and saw Erika Rugenus, a friend I had met at college!! As Mr. Bryant put it, there was squeeling across the room. :-) It was such a surprise to see a familiar face at this small church!

The students that had already applied to PCC were not there at the time, so the Assistant Pastor's wife drove to pick them up since they usually came on the bus. We had a wonderful time after the service getting to chat with them and help them get ready to come to college in January!

Thursday
We visited a school and had a great lunch with Dr. Riddell afterwards. As we left the diner, we bid our farewell to Mr. Bryant and departed ways. Later in the afternoon, we returned back to the school so Dale could attend the boys basketball practice.

Friday
Since our school for Friday was not until later in the day, we had some time to stop by a few ministries in the morning. We noticed that there was a Christian school just a few miles from our hotel, so we decided to do a quick stop-by to give them some information. When we arrived, the guidance counselor informed us that they had a senior young lady that was very interested in applying to PCC and that she had recently returned from visiting the campus! She even went and got the young lady out of class so she could ask us any questions that she had!

After our school presentation, we drove from New Jersey to Reading, PA. As we were checking in at the Inn at Reading, the desk worker informed us that they were out of King bed rooms so we had been upgraded to a Executive Suite!! We said that would be fine and had relaxing weekend in a large, cozy room. :-)

Sunday
Throughout the last week, a young lady at a school in Collegeville, PA had been texting back and forth with me. She told me that the play they were practicing for when we were there was going to be performed this Sunday. It "just so happened" that we were staying only 40 minutes away from Collegeville! We were able to attend the play which was entitled "Cutting the Ties" and was about our need to not let anything stop us from the work the Lord has called us to do. They did a wonderful job and the play had a deep impact and needed message. The students couldn't believe that we came back to watch them perform! It was very neat to encourage them by attending but we were even more encouraged through the message.

While we were there, we were able to visit Isreal and Shalee again and remembered to take a picture this time!

Great Company, Lasting Memories

Great Company

One of the great advantages to being in many different places is getting to see many people that we wouldn't on an ordinary basis. In the past two weeks, we have had several of these oppurtunities come across our paths and every time it was a wonderful blessing. It is hard to describe the feeling of seeing a familiar face when we are with different people on a day-to-day basis. We were greatly reminded in these past two weeks how thankful we are for great Christian friends.

The Tuesday after we left Harrisburg, we spent the day at Valley Forge Baptist Academy where we were personally escorted around by Israel Alejandro, a friend from college. It was wonderful to catch up on what he was doing since college and see the great miniustry he is involved in. His wife, Shalee, joined us and we headed out to Olive Garden for lunch. This was not my first lunch with Shalee, as we weekly had lunch together with our mutual friend (and bridesmaid) Gretchen at college. It's been awhile since we had lunch with a young married couple and we thoroughly enjoyed the great company!

Later that week, we had a couple schools scheduled around Lancaster, PA so we wanted to meet up with Travis Weyandt at Lancaster Bible College. It just so happened that the day that we were closest to him, he had a playoff game AND his mom was going to be there!!! We have tried several times to get together with the Weyandts when we were home, but we finally got to catch up...several hours away from home. :-D We had a wonderful time watching Lancaster Bible be victorious and catching up with each other. We extended our visit with dinner at Texas Roadhouse...a first for Dale and I.

 

(Side note: the kids are in their pj's since they were getting ready for a late night drive to Duncansville. Pictures of their home on wheels and more of the kiddos are posted under "Snapshots".)

After parting ways with the Weyandts, we headed to Carneys Point, New Jersey, just south of Philadelphia. That night we got a call from Pastor Wessburg letting us know that their family would be wrapping up services at a church just north of Philadelphia that Sunday. We made definite plans to be there and could not wait to be reunited with the Wessburgs and meet all of their adorable munchkins!

The hour drive Sunday morning was so worth it as we heard great preaching from Evangelist Rich Tozour and then spent the rest of the day catching up with Miss Candace and Pastor Mike. I had a front row seat watching a cute pregnant lady keep three young ones entertained in their traveling trailor while Dale helped Pastor Mike get the truck and trailor ready for departure. What a blessing to just be in the presence of the ones who greatly impacted us during the crucial times of our teenage years. Dale and I thank the Lord for such wonderful examples! Our time with the Wessburgs greatly impacted us in another way as they introduced us to bananagrams! We and our restaurant dining will never be the same. :-D

Well, I guess another person that can be listed under "Great Company" is the head of the Promotions department (aka our boss), Mr. Bryant, who came to spend the first four days of this week with us. Since we are newbies on our first semester, Mr. Bryant came to follow us around and encourage us in ways that we can improve. We truly were thankful for him taking the time to leave his family and come to New Jersey to help us better reach students. We learned a lot and definitely have some new perspectives.

As he was visiting with us we were able to go to another church service the Tozour/Wessburg Team was holding, but this time in Delaware. Dale and I thoroughly enjoyed getting more time with the Wessburg family, but we were even happier that Mr. Bryant and Bro. Tozour had the oppurtunity to catch up as they had been groomsmen in each other's weddings 20 years ago! This week was also a wonderful time of "divine appointments" that left us throughly amazed and thankful. Read more about these in the next post--"Somebody's Praying Us Through".

Lasting Memories

Another advantage of traveling is getting to see many places that we wouldn't have an oppurtunity to on a daily basis.

As I mentioned before, Dale and I spent a weekend just south of Philadelphia. On the Saturday of that weekend, we got up the courage to explore downtown Philly. For a couple from the little town of Duncansville, Philly is quite intimidating, starting with the parking! After getting situated on a random back street and putting everything half worth anything far out of sight, we set off to explore historic Philadelphia. We started at the Visitor's Center where we picked up our tickets to Independence Hall and asked where we can find the "Rocky Steps". We thought this was quite the random question, but the desk worker said it was more than common. What a historic country we live in! :-D We headed straight to Independence Hall for our tour and were amazed to be standing in the very room where our country's foundations were laid!

After our tour, we jaunted across traffic to view the "Grave of the Unknown Soldier" and then onto the Liberty Bell. I think we did the quickest tour of the Liberty Bell as we realized in line that our parking time was ending before we even reached the door. So we quickly walked through the display building until we found the Liberty Bell, had a security guard snap our picture, than ran to find our parking spot before our time expired.

We then braved some more Philly traffic as we made our way to the Philadelphia Art Musuem to see those monumental stairs and take a picture with the Rocky statue. As we did so, we learned a very valuable way to get out of leaving a tip for a service we did not ask for -- hope that the police show up. As I was taking a picture of Dale with the Rocky statue, a man that was hanging out there insisted that I get my picture with Dale and the staute...at no cost, of course, Well, as he was finishing our oh-so-lovely (and blurry) picture session, he had just enough time to mention that he appreciates tips before the police pulled up and he booked it out of there. We were quite happy with the timing. Dale also took the plunge and ran up the Art Musuem steps in Rocky fashion.

The week after our Philly weekend, we visited some great schools, starting with an all-Mennonite one in Reading, PA. It had been 8 years since someone had come to this school to present the college AND we are the only college that they allow in to present, so we had a captivated and excited audience. After the presentation, we stayed and chatted with the juniors and seniors for almost a half hour after they were suppose to be in class. This school started our week out on a great foot and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing their dreams and aspirations.

We visited many other friendly schools that week, but unfortunately my lasting memory of the week was of the inside of our hotel room as I was knocked flat with a cold. Thankfully, our schedule had been worked out perfectly where I was able to get some extra rest while Dale went ahead and did all of the work. I was greatly appreciative that week of a sensitive husband who has great compassion.

We moved that week from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and spent the weekend outside Atlantic City. We pretty much only went downtown for dinner which was atrocious in itself. It was neat to see the bright lights and building size advertisements but it was crazy to realize how much people waste at the casinos and other sin-filled recreation that is there. That Sunday we visited the church of the school that we were going to be at the next day and found that they had Evangelist Ed Dunlop holding meetings there. It was great to see an example of a man that has a heart for young people and children. We ended up attending both services at the church and were encouraged by their ministry.

Stay tuned for an update on an exciting week of no coincidences!

Meeting a Role Model

Don't you just love how the Lord puts things together to give us an extra special blessing? I thoroughly experienced this this weekend as I had the wonderful oppurtunity to meet a lady that I consider a role model. For most of you that know me pretty well, you know that one thing I am very much interested in is saving money, getting coupons and freebies and everything along those lines. Crystal Paine is the author of the blog moneysavingmom.com in which I have diligently followed and learned greatly from for several years now.

Dale and I were originally planning to spend the weekend in Gettysburg since it was close to our school on Monday, but the hotel prices were outrageous. So we decided to stay another weekend in Harrisburg. While I was catching up on Crystal's blog on Friday I found out that she was speaking at a conference in Harrisburg at the Sheraton -- right across the road from where we were staying!!! Imagine my complete surprise as I found out that this great Christian lady from Kansas was in the same place that we were and then my further surprise when we were able to meet up today!

Let's just say it was an unexpected surprise that I still can't believe but am so thankful for the amazing oppurtunity!

You can check out Crystal's blog and be inspired to save more in order to give more at http://www.moneysavingmom.com/.

Two Weeks At A Glance

Dale and I kicked it into high gear as we finished out West Virginia last week and moved up to Pennsylvania in a rather quick fashion.Here are the highlights from the last two weeks:

Weekend in Charleston

Dale and I enjoyed a great weekend in Charleston. We decided we needed a little exercise especially with the beautiful weather on Saturday so we headed out to Coonskin Park. We enjoyed a wonderful hike on some very narrow, but natural, trails that led us to a couple of caves.

After our hike we drove around the park and were very impressed with how well kept and beautiful it was. My favorite part was a pond surrounded by beautifully covered trees and geese. One of the pictures I snapped here is at the top of this post.

That weekend we also drove to Fellowship Baptist Church in Vienna, WV. We had quite the time getting there--almost running out of gas, going to the old location--but we made it and were able to do a presentation in the youth Sunday School and setting up a table in the atrium for after the service. We also enjoyed a wonderful lunch with the pastor--Pastor Jonathon Landis--and his family.

"Meeting Those People"

Our last week in West Virginia was definitely busy and crazy. The whole week was packed with our largest schools yet. Dale was daily giving presentations to around 100+ students and sometimes giving two presentations. It's been wonderful to see him so comfortable speaking in front of a large group of students, especially when I know that it is so out of his normal comfort zone. Although the schools were big, we were able to spend some one-on-one time with students that were truly interested and meet some great teachers that really care about the future of their students. The extra time at the larger schools mixed with visiting churches and longer travel times made for an extremely exhausting week, but it wasn't over...

Teen Harvest Rally, Morgantown, PA

After two presentations at a school in Ravenswood, West Virginia, we hit the road for the 7 1/2 hour trip to Philadelphia to pick up the Proclaim Ministry Team for the Teen Harvest Rally. It was very difficult as we reached the Turnpike entrance in Bedford to keep going east instead of taking that usual route to Duncansville. We got settled into our hotel 30 minutes away from the airport, made a quick run to Wal-Mart, then set out to navigate the Philadelphia airport. It was crazy windy and we were crazy confused as we picked up the rental car then picked up our 5 member team sometime after midnight. We didn't get back to the hotel until after 1am and were up and ready to go by 6:45am!

We had such a wonderful time with our group at the Teen Harvest Rally.It started a little hectic getting in the display tent and trying to keep our display upright against the constant wind, but we made it all work a had a a blast meeting each teen that came into the tent. The Lord also allowed us to get our first application while at the Rally!! It was also our year to do the special music for the rally, so our team sang at the beginning of each service and were greatly welcomed. Evangelist Tom Ferril was the guest speaker this year and it was a great encouragement to see many teenagers come forward for salvation and dedication. Our team and us had the wonderful oppurtunity to counsel some of the teenagers as they came forward!

There was over 950 teenagers in attendance. The Rally was also filled with many activities such as sumo wrestling, mechanical bull riding, youth group team competitions, giant blow-ups, and lots more activities. I've posted pictures of all the different events on my facebook. All-in-all the rally was a tremendous success and we were so thankful to be a part of it and have a wonderful group to help us out!

After the rally we took the group to one of our favorite restaurants--Longhorn Steakhouse--and then headed back to the hotel to crash. The group had to be at the airport by 7:30 the next morning, so we were up early again to make the 30 min treck to the airport to drop off the team and the rental vehicle. We really enjoyed having 5 college students with us for the weekend and are looking forward to the times we will travel with a team.

Back in Pennsylvania

Since we worked for 6 days straight, our weekend was Sunday and Monday which we spent in Harrisburg. Sunday we were able to get in touch with one of my friends from college--Emily Fortney. We met up with her at her church and then joined her and her friends at the "Soda Jerk" for dinner and milkshakes after church! We definitely had a blast!

On our Monday off, after spending half of the day working, Dale and I took Emily's advice and went to City Island in Harrisburg for some fresh air and a place to test out our new frisbee. This was one of those times in our marriage that I wa so reminded how alike and simple we are. It literally took a soccer field and a frisbee to keep us entertained and laughing for almost an hour! After our breath of fresh air, we found a restaurant in downtown Harrisburg for dinner, then headed to Emily's house for a night of laughter and tackling our laundry. We were so thankful to the Fortney family for allowing us to do our laundry there since the laundry machines at our hotel were out of sevice.

This week was definitely a slower pace than the week before. We started our week on Tuesday with a college fair in Harrisburg. There was a great turnout of colleges and students. We met a lot of solid students with some great questions about college.

Our college tables were placed alphabetically by school name, so we were neighbors with Penn State. :-D What a contrast! We had time at the end of the fair to chat with the Penn State rep and he was totally amazed at our tuition, facilities, and free year of college offer! It was neat to get to brag on the Lord for His great blessing to us!

This week was a slower pace than last week. We toured beautiful PA from Hershey to Philly and even spent Friday in Hagerstown, MD. It was a big contrast compared to last week as we only had one school presentation this week! Next week will pick up pace again. We are staying the weekend in Harrisburg again and then start Monday in Hanover and Gettysburg!

I apologize for the mass of information but I appreciate you following us even in my inconsistency! We are truly thankful for your prayers as we travel. The Lord truly is protecting us!

God Bless!!