And the Tour goes on....

Another busy week! Let me share a few details with you.

On our way north on Monday, we enjoyed some beautiful scenery and the "just beginning to change" fall leaves - so beautiful. We crossed over the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia - what a sight! I had been to an event called "Bridge Day" here with my family back when I was a teenager. BASE jumpers parachute off the New River Gorge Bridge diving 876-feet into the New River Gorge below. Rapellers descend on ropes like caterpillars beneath the mighty bridge. We sat on lawn chairs on a sandbar by the river and watched the jumpers land - it was awesome! We're just a little too early to get in on Bridge Day this year - it's the 3rd weekend in October.




We shared our ministry at the Fairmont Bible Methodist Church on Tuesday night. Thank you to Pastor Powell and family for the delicious meal and to Pastor and people for the share support and love offering.

Thank you also to Dan and Becky Ellis and family for allowing us to stay in their home. We had so much fun and made tons of great memories! Here's a few photos - click to see the album.

Visit with Ellis Family

On Wednesday night we shared our service with Pastor and Mrs. Mark Fultz and family and the congregation at the Cooperstown, PA Evangelistic Tabernacle. Our boys had fun with the Fultz boys and we all enjoyed getting to meet precious little Nevaeh! Thank you to pastor and people for the beautiful place to stay, delicious meals, share support and love offering.

Then last night we enjoyed sharing our ministry with Pastor and Mrs. Byron Gurnee and the Keepville, PA church. Thank you to pastor and people again for the beautiful accomodations, delicious meals, share support and love offering! It has been so wonderful to meet some new friends this week - thank you all for your support.

Our children had fun with the Gurnee kids, and didn't want to leave this morning!

As we sang this song last night at Keepville, the words rang in my heart like never before...."If Jesus Goes with Me I'll Go - Anywhere".


I've been "going" for quite awhile now. I haven't had a home for almost a year. My boys asked me the other day if we were ever going to have a home again! I assured them that we would, but sometimes you wonder....But for now I'm going, lots of places. I know it has an important purpose and it's a necessary part of our calling and I'm so thankful for how God's helping us and for how our support is coming in to make it possible for us to return to Mexico for another 3 year term.

But always going....it gets tiring and it challenges the endurance. But I can honestly say without reservation - that if Jesus goes with me, I'll go - anywhere. Be it Mexico or all over "these United States" - I'll go. But only if He goes with me!

Our last weekend in the Alabama Conference

We shared our ministry with Talladega and Waycross Bible Methodist Churches last week - thank you to Pastors Blankenship and McCormick and people for the meals, wonderful share support and love offerings!

The boys had fun playing with Pastor Blankenship's son.

And driving/riding the go cart in Waycross - thanks, Amber!

Then on Saturday we visited the Bible Methodist Church in Gainesville, GA. We had a wonderful time sharing our ministry with the dear people there. Thank you for the support, meal and love offering!

Yesterday morning we presented our ministry at the Covington, GA Bible Methodist Church. Thank you to Pastor Budensiek and wonderful people in Covington for everything you did for us: for the wonderful meals and accomodations, the share support and the very generous love offering. We so much enjoyed our time with them!

The boys (and us) enjoyed the ice cream Pastor Budensiek treated us to!

Pastor Phil and the church people here are the ones who contribued money to purchase Cameron his Little Martin guitar - the one he plays in all our services. He loves his guitar and played an offertory with me for the first time on Sunday - we played "It is Well With My Soul".

The Covington people contributed $1500 to the Saltillo Parsonage Project! Thank you so much - this will be a huge blessing to Pastor Dolores and his family and to the continuing progress of the work on the house. Watch our Missions blog for pictures of this project.

Another special thing happened for Marc and me yesterday morning - we had the privilege of visiting with 2 Hispanic ladies who attended the service in Covington. Both of them were named Teresa and were from Honduras and Colombia. It was so fun to speak Spanish with them - we enjoyed a delicious dinner with them at the Smiths' beautiful home.

Then last night we presented our service in Easley, SC. A great crowd was in attendance. Thank you so much to Pastor Going and church people for the share support, generous love offering, and great meal and accomodation. Also for the fellowship after church!

It was so fun to get to be with Cathy Parker, our dear friend and wife of our Missions Director, John Parker. Bro. John was not able to be present due to connectional meetings out of state. We missed you!

We also enjoyed getting to see another one of Marc's cousins, Wesley Webb and his wife, Shannon!

And now we turn our attention north to the Heartland Bible Methodist Conference and some services in various other churches. We begin tomorrow night in Fairmont, WV and the completion of the tour of this "our" Conference will complete our Share Support Tour - on Sunday, November 9. We are looking forward to visiting the Heartland churches!

Dinner with the Shirk Family

Donald and Melinda Shirk and their children invited us to their lovely home on the campground for a delicious dinner! We all attended God's Bible School together in days gone by - it was good to visit with them again. Our kids had a great time playing together.

School "daze"

The boys have had a great start to this school year...we'll be making progress as we're able during our deputation months and get caught up once we get back to Mexico.

More stops along the way

We recently shared our ministry with West Blocton, Enterprise and Florala Bible Methodist Churches. Thank you to pastors and people alike for your share support, love offerings, and delicious meals!

Enjoying a meal with Bro. Rinnie Evans and family and the Rays

Logan being silly in the background

We drove across the state line into Florida to say we'd been to Florida on this tour..smiles.. If you check out this sign you can see that we were sitting high atop the Highest point in Florida - 345 feet above sea level!

The sandy road leading back to Florala Church

The dining hall dedicated in my Granny's memory - still love and miss her so much.

Cody and Cheyenna Underwood had been working on a project to raise money for children in Mexico. They presented it to our boys at our service in Florala and the boys are already full of ideas and suggestions on what project to do in Mexico! Thanks, Cody and Cheyenna - we'll be letting you know what project we come up with. Thank you for your investment in Bible Methodist Missions in Mexico - we pray God's special blessings on you for your gift!

Marc sharing in our service in Florala, introducing people to some of our Bible Methodist pastors and churches in Mexico by way of pictures.

More news from the road

We enjoyed services at the Bible Methodist Churches in Cordele and Columbus, GA this week. Thank you Pastor and Mrs. Earls for your kindness to us and the delicious meal, and to pastor and people at Cordele for your share support and love offering.

It was good to see our friends, Wesley and Janelle Deaton and their son, Bryson.

Last night we were privileged to present our ministry in Mexico at the new church plant in Columbus, GA pastored by Curtis and Jennifer Going. We also enjoyed ministering in music along with Billy and Bekey Herron and their family. Thank you to Pastor Going and people for your wonderful accomodations, delicious meals, share support and love offering. We are so happy to be able to celebrate this One Year Anniversary Weekend with you - thank you for allowing us to come!

In other news....

Here's Marc, the expert packer, at work - he can make it all fit better than anybody I've ever seen...and he's getting lots of practice on this tour, let me tell you!

The boys had 4 home school days this week - yay!

I'm trying to fight off something: a cold or a sinus infection....think it's the latter. There's no good time to be sick, but surely this must be one of the WORST times - please pray for me. There are 2 services tomorrow, and several more this coming week...all the way through mid-November. Gotta keep going! Thanks for praying.

Exciting Project in Mexico

Check out our Missions Blog for an exciting opportunity to be involved in a work project in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. Details are posted there!

Weekend Events

This past weekend was another busy one.

I was invited to speak at the Ladies Luncheon at their district meeting in Ada Chapel on Saturday. We had a great time fellowshipping and eating together. They were so kind to me and gave me lots of notes of appreciation and gift cards, money gifts, etc...thank you so much, Judy (Eads, pastor's wife - Ada Chapel) and ladies for your thoughtfulness!

Here we are having fun playing a couple games.

On Sunday morning, we shared our ministry with the Bible Methodist Church in Greensboro, Alabama and Pastor and Mrs. Steve Vernon and Priscilla.




The church was so kind to present us with gift cards after the service along with a very generous love offering and share support pledges.





And the carry in meal was second to none!



Thanks, Steve, Kay and Priscilla and church people - we love you!



Cameron loves his guitar stand that Bro. Steve gave him.




Sunday evening we shared our ministry in Ada Chapel. The people from Brent attended also. Thanks to Pastor Eads and everyone for your support, love offering and delicious meal!

Here's Cameron waiting for the service to begin in the beautiful sanctuary at Ada Chapel.

Mid - Week Services

We were privileged to share our missionary work this week in 2 Share Support services - in Pell City, and in Tarrant, AL. Our thanks to Pastors Jones and Burroughs for their kindness to us and for the share support, meals served and generous love offerings. Also to Pastor and Mrs. Seeley and the Golden Grove Bible Meth. Church for the meal and the love offering.

A very exciting thing happened at our service in Tarrant Wednesday night. After Marc shared about the need to finish the remodeling in one of the missions that Bro. Santiago Hernandez would like to open in the town of Rio Bravo, the Tarrant church volunteered to take that on as a project and provide the necessary funds to complete the renovations! Thank you, Pastor Burroughs and dear people at Tarrant - may God bless you for your investment in His kingdom in Mexico!

Jordan sharing in the service at Tarrant

Another great thing was that the Tarrant people got together before service for a time of fellowship and food - delicious! - and we got to visit awhile with Marc's cousin and family, Leonard and Krista Collins and their 2 precious boys. It was fun to eat and laugh together!

Our boys just hanging out before the service at Tarrant...while Mom snaps pictures.

And what was Cameron doing?

Gotta love those Hardy Boys books!