"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20 NKJV
When I think about this past weekend, that is the verse that comes to mind. In my last post, I asked you to pray that God would take our lack, and make much of it. And He did that...exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything we could have asked or imagined. I don't even have the words to adequately explain how amazing the weekend was...so, instead, I'll use pictures with just a little bit of narration.
First...A few photos of Family Farm, our beautiful home-away-from-home for the weekend:
I like this picture because you can see the morning mist on the pond!
All ready for our guests to arrive!
Next, our time spent meeting together....
Pictures of our precious children...
Praise & worship time on Sunday morning
The Mays sharing about the loss of their son, Zane, at "Salvation Station"
The lovely ladies who served our delicious dinner Saturday evening! Aren't they cute?
Time for some fun! Here we are enjoying the "farm" part of Family Farm...
I could tell you about the "pig riding" episode...but, hey...what happens at WWWW, stays at WWWW!
Of course, we had to try out all of the camp activities, such as "Islands"....
Success!
Land Skis...
The guys won...but I'm pretty sure they cheated!
The Zip Line...
And, of course, fishing!
Nice one, huh?
By the end of the weekend, this group of strangers had become a family. We left there changed people...inspired by the stories of our children's lives, reassured of our normalcy as grieving parents, reminded of our Savior's love for us, and most of all, re-energized to serve our Lord while we're waiting to be reunited with our kids in Heaven.
I'll close this post with a link to the song "While I'm Waiting" by John Waller...I believe it sums up the weekend better than I ever could. Thank you so much to all of you who prayed for this first "While We're Waiting" Weekend. We will be having another one in the fall...probably the first weekend in November. Send me an email if you would like a registration form! And keep watching the blog for some other "While We're Waiting" projects we're working on!
Looks like the perfect place for a retreat with some very sweet people. How precious the FAther's spilled out love is to us... How precious your spilled out love must also be to Him...
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful place to spend wonderful time with new family! These pictures look like this time spent together brought a lot of love and peace to special people.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you - Kelley
P.S...I would love to meet you in person one day too, that would be great!
I have just cried and cried looking at these pictures and thinking of how God has used you and Brad in building HIS kindgdom! I have so many friends that I want to experience this weekend in the fall. I am going to send them a link to this blog so they can "see" what I have been talking about. The love of Christ just flows from this blog to your readers. So thankful to have you in my life as an example and encourager.
ReplyDeleteSo glad that it all went so well! Looks like you all had a great time of fun and fellowship. Praying for the fall retreat!
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