A Walk down Memory Lane

Our family moved to Brent, AL to pastor the Bible Methodist Church when I was 7 years old. We moved away when I was 14. Consequently many of my childhood, growing up memories were made in Brent and in Stanton, where I attended Christian School.

Marc, the boys and I drove to Brent yesterday to see the house where we lived and the church my dad pastored.

We ate lunch at Twix and Tween - one of a kind barbecue joint. It is lip smacking good with it's own signature sauce - I couldn't resist and bought a bottle of it!

We also drove around town a little and looked at lots of things I remembered. We stopped by the nursing home to visit Sis. Virginia Vernon. We had such a good time visiting with her and her daughter, Rosalind. Cameron played his guitar and we sang for her, chatted awhile and had prayer together. Sis. Vernon has prayed for many years for Bible Methodist Missions and the pastors and people in Mexico. She knew us almost right away as "the people from Mexico" and called Logan by name, asking how he was doing. It was so good to see her again. We love you, Sis. Vernon!

In Stanton, we drove to the spot where the building stood in which I attended school from 3rd to 9th grades. It was so sad to see it gone.

We also visited the Ebenezer Cemetery where my great grandparents, Jesse B. and Effie Davis are buried. It was so special to show my boys their great great grandparents' graves. This would be the parents of my Granny, Ruby Mae Davis Agan.

Missions Services in Active and Stanton

We had 2 great midweek missions services - on Tuesday night, our service was at the Active BMC and last night at the Stanton BMC. Thank you to Pastors Consley and Ingram and people for wonderful accommodations, meals, love offerings and support. We love you all!

Here's our boys in front of the Active church and Cameron and Logan enjoying the bikes that Keaton brought over for them to ride in Stanton.

Our boys having fun with Keaton Smith and a friend.

Oh, by the way, Logan has officially started 4th grade. Here are the boys doing school at the beautiful fellowship building in Stanton where we stayed.

Karen Harrison Smith and I - old friends from Stanton Christian School.

Such an exciting thing happened at our missions service in Stanton - someone got saved during the call to surrender at the close of the service! This makes it worth it all!

Sunday Services and time with "Uncle" John

We had 2 wonderful missions services on Sunday in Manchester, TN and Chattanooga, TN. Thank you so much to Pastors Watkins and Hutchison for the wonderful meals and accomodations and to churches and pastors for the generous love offerings and support.

It was great to meet some new friends and to get reacquainted with some "old" friends, as well. The last time I personally attended some of these churches was as a teenager so my brain is scrambling to remember faces and names at times...thanks for being patient, everyone!

"Uncle" John Parker attended our evening service in Chattanooga - it was so good to see him again! On Monday, he took us to Cracker Barrel for lunch - delicious! Thanks for taking time to be with us, Bro. Parker, to listen to our travel tales and to give us your support and counsel. We love you.

Our boys always love being with Uncle John - he spoils them. When we were pulling away from the restaurant, Cameron said, "Uncle John's just awesome!"

Family Time

We are loving getting to spend some time with my sister Marci and her family. Love you guys!

Our kids have a blast together. When they get together, they act as crazy as their dads! (never their moms) haha...

The boys and Principal Crosley

Jordan and Cameron so enjoyed having David Crosley as their principal last week at SCCA. Logan's looking forward to being able to attend school with his brothers for a few days in October. Thanks, Bro. Crosley and teachers, for everything!

A Wonderful Report

I am so thankful to share with you the wonderful report Logan received from his doctor visit today. Tuesday's MRI results show dramatic improvement and the doctor is very pleased. His words were "we can consider this situation almost resolved"....thank the Lord! Logan's bloodwork was all normal. The doctor is prescribing 3 more months of antifungal therapy because of the length of time it takes to treat this fungus and Logan is to have another MRI/bloodwork just before we return to Mexico in December.

This is the best report we've had since this whole ordeal began in early October, almost a year ago. We are so thankful to God for His touch on Logan and to all of you for your love, support and prayers!

Sunday Services

I failed to mention that we had 2 wonderful missions services on Sunday at Concord and Evart, Michigan.

Thank you to Pastor Rosa and Pastor Ward and church people for your warm reception, love offerings and support.

Sis. Rosa served us a scrumptious lunch and Sis. Ward packed a dynamite ham sandwich picnic to take on the road Sunday night.

Thank you so much for all your kindness to our family!

Now this Sunday begins our tour through the churches in the Alabama Bible Methodist Conference - we are looking forward to that!

Book Recommendation

I saw this book recommended on a friend's blog and decided to purchase and read it. It's titled Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. I must say - it's a fantastic book!

Very convicting and challenging but at the same time encouraging. Marc and I have read it together and we highly recommend it to any married or engaged couple, regardless of age or "stage" of marriage.

The Love and Respect principles are so clearly explained and so Biblical. Attention is given to the role of both spouses - it's not lopsided in its approach. Anyone interested in enriching and improving their marriage would benefit from Love and Respect!

Pictures of our trip to Washington DC

Here are the photos of our trip...warning - there's tons of them!
We had such a wonderful time.
Enjoy the pics!

Washington DC trip

It's Back 2 School 2008

It's back to school for our 2 older boys - this is their first time to attend "Real school", as they say, in several years. We're beginning our 4th year of homeschooling - that's hard to believe. But the boys are getting to attend Stone City Christian Academy this week and they're thrilled. Thank you, Principal Crosley and teachers for including our boys this week - they even had a desk personalized with their name, just waiting on them! Thank you!

Jordan is entering 8th grade and Cameron is entering 6th. Of course, Logan is entering 4th grade, but due to his doctor visits in Texas, he won't be able to attend this week. He's here in his heart!

Logan's medical checkups

Hello, everyone...I have a lot to catch up on my blog but first things first....we'd like to ask an interest in your prayers for Logan this week. He has his planned medical checkups in Texas coming up. Tomorrow morning at 7:45 am will be his MRI, Wednesday his bloodwork and Thursday afternoon, the visit with the Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist. He may have a visit with another doctor worked in there somewhere...depends on the MRI results.

Logan is doing great - there are no new concerns! These are scheduled appointments that have been planned since the middle of May. But as you can imagine with what Logan's been through, we are very concerned that the test results are good and the doctors are pleased. If all is well, then we'll be cleared to continue our Share Support Tour this fall and be on our way back to Mexico in early December!

Marc and Logan are on their way right now to Texas...should be landing in McAllen very shortly. They'll be back on Friday if all goes as planned.

Meanwhile, the older boys and I have arrived in Bedford, IN this afternoon and the boys are going to be able to attend Stone City Christian Academy this week - they're so excited!

Cameron's blog

Cameron has recently updated his blog - check it out at
http://www.missionarykidinmexico-cameron.blogspot.com/

This week in DC

We have been so privileged to spend a few days this week in Washington, DC....we're having a great time! This is the first time for our boys to visit DC and we've had White House and Capitol Tours, gotten to sit on the House floor and listen to Representatives debate the energy crisis...and more! Pics coming soon.

CN tower and Sunday Services

On Saturday after leaving Niagara Falls, we visited the CN tower in Toronto - it was so impressive! Just before arriving in Dawn Valley, we saw an absolutely beautiful double rainbow - my pictures don't do it justice! The colors were so vivid.

We had 2 great services on Sunday at our Bible Methodist Churches in Dawn Valley, Ontario, and Vandercook Lake, Michigan.

Thank you to the Byers and the Hillings for their wonderful hospitality and to pastors and people for their love offerings and support!

We rode a ferry on Sunday afternoon to cross the St. Clair River and to cross the international border into the United States. The river was a little rough...I was a little unsure...but we made it. (after waiting 2 hours at the border!)

Here I am with Karalynne Watters, Missionary President at Vandercook Lake. She worked very hard to prepare this beautiful bulletin board featuring our family and Bible Methodist Missions in Mexico. Thank you, Kara! It has been so nice to meet you.

We so much enjoyed reminiscing with our wonderful friends, Chris and Esther Hilling, about GBS days and our children enjoyed playing together, too!

Niagara Falls Day 2

Here are the photos of today's activities.
Oh by the way, we're staying on the Canadian side, although we did go over and spend a couple hours on the Stateside today to walk to Goat Island and see the Falls from the US. There are many more hotels and tourist attractions on the Canada side...and the view of the Falls is better too. Also because, our Sunday morning missions service is in Canada. We're so happy these couple days worked out for us to come and see Niagara Falls. Marc and the boys had never been here before. It's well worth the time!

Niagara Falls Day 2

The Crazy Picture

-Ok..ok...here's the crazy picture of our family. I posted it at the bottom of the original post - Catch Up Post - Part 1

Niagara Falls Day 1

This was the 1st day of our visit to Niagara Falls - we had so much fun. Check out the photos below!

Niagara Falls Day 1

July/August Mexico Newsletter

Our July/August Mexico Newsletter is now available by email. If you do not receive it and would have interest in doing so, email me at melodiesankey@yahoo.com to receive your copy and be added to the email list.

Thanks!

Lake Michigan and Sunday Services

On our way north on Saturday to begin our tour of the Great Lakes Bible Methodist Churches, we stopped to see Lake Michigan...so beautiful!





We had wonderful services on Sunday in Rock Lake and Greenville, MI. We appreciate you allowing us to come, meet new friends and supporters, for the delicious meals you provided, and more!

Marc's friend from GBS quartet days, Dan Woodard, stopped in to see him on Sunday...they had fun reminiscing about the "good ole' days".

Fellowshipping and enjoying a great meal with Pastor and Mrs. Johnson

Another blessing is that the Great Lakes Churches have given us a place to stay on their beautiful campground in Rock Lake and are providing meals for our family. We are enjoying these days of relaxing!

Share Support Services in Shelbyville and Cape Girardeau

We had 2 wonderful weeknight Share Support services this past week...one in Shelbyville, IN and another in Cape Girardeau, MO.

Again, in both places, share supporters were added to our team, generous offerings were given, wonderful meals enjoyed....thank you to both pastors and churches for allowing us to come.

Our time in Shelbyville was made especially nice by some wonderful Hispanic people we were privileged to meet and fellowship with. We enjoyed showing them some of the pictures of our missionary work in Mexico - some of the places being familiar to them since Mexico is their homeland. It was a great refresher for our Spanish and we just fell in love with them - makes us so homesick for Mexico!

Thank you, Pastor Smith, Smith Family and church!

And then we met some wonderful new friends in Cape Girardeau, Pastor Troy Truitt and his great family! Here's a few pictures of our time together.

Jordan and Marc sharing in the service....

Boys enjoying Oreo cookies and milk...doesn't get any better than that.

Logan and Andrea Truitt...many prayers have gone up for these two -

they are special kids, for sure!

Here's Troy and Jenn.

And all the young'uns....3 Sankeys, 6 Truitts and 2 Boardmans in front of the Truitt's beautiful home.

Thanks for the wonderful overnight accomodations and meals in your home, Troy and Jenn. It was our pleasure to meet you. And thanks to Pastor Truitt and Church in Cape Girardeau for your love, support and prayers!

Fun with Cousins

Ryland is helping Logan build his roller coaster

My boys are loving being around their cousins, Lane and Ryland a little more often this summer when a break in our travels allows us to be in Bedford, IN.

Here are Cameron and Logan having fun with Lane and Ryland............in front of the home that Faith Mission Church is allowing us to use for the summer and fall while we're in deputation travels.

Thank you, Faith Mission!