Chris has been SUPER busy.

Chris has been SUPER busy. He is placing calls to all our contacts, and lining up our summer trip. Some of you have even shared names of your friends to add to our list. We got our tent, and it is big enough for all of us and our stuff. Wonderful! We are getting more and more excited, and have started getting stuff together for our BIG yard sale. We are looking forward to enjoying our last 10 weeks here in Alabama. So I plan to spend my days packing, and enjoying my family! WE are getting more and more excited to go. Chris is writing our newsletter tonight. I will give him the pictures tomorrow and off it goes to printing. So look for it in the mail soon.

Plans, Plans, & more Crazy Plans!!!

We are making plans! We have rearranged our house, to make rooms for the plans. We have converted our den into the packing and yard sale area. Our bedroom now has a section for the summer trip. Chris has been busy making phone calls and writing letters to meet with both people in town and the people we plan to visit this summer. I have been busy mailing packages, making our lists of stuff we need, ordering Cadence polos, homeschooling, researching camp grounds, and trying to follow any and all leads of people who want to know about Cadence. God is really exciting us. I just can't help it. Knowing that we are heading into the next step is not scary but so thrilling! To be exactly where God wants us to be is Thrilling. I want to just shout out my excitement.

Our Fund Raising Trip

So the first of June we are leaving on a good summer adventure. We plan to visit a lot of states, meet lots of people, and share our ministry to as many people as possible.

JUNE

Tennessee

Kentucky

Indiana

Illinois

Wisconsin

JULY

Wisconsin

Iowa

Missouri

Arkansas

Oklahoma

Fort Worth Texas

AUGUST

Fort Worth, Texas

South Texas

Louisiana

Mississippi

Florida

Alabama

We then are going to try and schedule another trip for September that will be the East coast:

Georgia

South Carolina

North Carolina

Virginia

Maryland

Pennsylvania

If you know of anybody or a church that would love to hear about our ministry,or if you would like us to come by and visit you, please let us know. We are working hard to get to our Hospitality House by Christmas!!

Day Seven - I did It!

Well, it is finished! I survived, I thrived, I truly did enjoy this experience. It was so good for me. I would really recommend you fast. It has changed so many things I thought I knew about myself and along the way, I got to have a deeper relationship with the Lord.

Picture Jesus coming down to the shore, calling you in from your boat, and fixing you break-fast. And having a meal together. This is what tonight was like. I sat and ate and enjoyed. I wasn't hungry. I ate because I knew I needed to.

For those who are curious my final weigh in for 7 days, was that I lost 14 1/2 pounds. Still am not sure where, but I know it was good.

My parting words...Pray, Seek the Lord, Fast!

Day Six

I can hardly believe it has been this many days. I do know this, It wasn't this huge scary thing I always thought it was. I didn't die, I didn't sit in wallow in the loss of food, I didn't chew gum (thought about it), I didn't tear my sackcloth and throw ashes on myself and say "why I have done this horrible thing to myself". I kind of thought I might have those feelings. But it was not any of those things, It was something simple, and yet big. And I learned a lot about God too. He is so Simple and yet so Big. He loves me regardless, and has forgiven me of my sins. You see how simple that is yet still so Big. He spoke the universe it to being. Speaking is so simple, and yet his words "Let their be light" were so big. I could go on and on.

Right now, we are making preparations for a two month road trip to speak at churches and with individuals about Cadence. I am going to post our calendar on here soon. This excites me that we are at this point in our partnership development. And while I have been fasting I have been praying for the locations, and the people we will meet a long the way. That God will use us. That He will go before us in all we do.

I have also prayed for a dozen individuals. For some I prayed for divine healing, for other's courage, for some strength to continue on their fast, for other's their salvation. It has been a good time. I think sometimes we go overwhelmed by the everyday demands: breakfast, clean-up, chores, lunch, clean-up, home school, homework, chores, dinner, clean-up, baths, family time, bed time, prep for the next day, church obligations, couple time, etc. that we can not find the time to sit and be quiet. I have been amazed at learning that I have little time throughout the day, 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, and now I am gonna keep using it. I am going to keep up this prayer time and really delight in talking to God as I go. Like I said before I thought I already was doing this, but it's like the cobwebs have been cleared from my mind. And I can focus better.

I was reading about Jesus talking about the Sabbath today and how it was created for man and not God. I am really pondering that. I got a book for my birthday about honoring the sabbath, and what that looks like for today's family. So I plan to be pondering this for a little longer. Do you have any thoughts or ideas to share to this??

Praying for you!

Elizabeth

Day Five

Well Day 5 is different. I don't feel like I am going to give in, but I do feel tired. Now it could be that Abigail was running a 103 fever last night and was up at various times throughout the night,but I feel like my body is weak. I did decide that we were going to get back to some better eating. I had been diligent about going to the Farmers market every Saturday and getting some great organic veggies. I also was so good at making healthy meals, granted they may have been a little bland, but they are so good for us. And then life happened and I didn't make it a high priority. But I am in charge of this kitchen and I am whipping us back into shape! I am also doing some research for what to eat while we are on the road. As far as snacks to have in the car. A two month road trip does sort of limit going to the farmers market!

As far as for the fast. I think I will be doing something I read about. Tuesday night, I will break fast. I will eat a meal (yet to be determined), and then proceed to do a juice fast, except for Sundays where a small is eaten once on that day. I think this is much more in line to what I can continue to do. I am praying about it as well. I do think the hardest part has been cooking for my family and not sampling the sauce, or all those little things we do without thought! So I have learned a whole lot about food and myself.

I also learned that I never thought of myself as overweight. I always thought of myself as normal. I looked at my gene pool, my Husband said I looked good, had 4 kids, and thought this was normal. I have never been unhappy with my weight or thought that much about it. I have tried to eat healthy and to some degree take care of myself. But the Wii Fit doesn't lie, and I was shocked. I am not one who focuses on weight or BMI (still don't understand how that works), I just always thought, If I am happy! And I have never felt unhappy. So now I feel a little more aware. This doesn't mean I will see a huge weight loss or that I won't occasionally have a piece of cake. It just means I am conscious of food and me a little more. I will add that I have added doing the Wii Fit to whole thing!

I have lost almost 10 pounds, I do believe it has fallen off my ring finger, as I can hardly keep my ring on!

From a spiritual side, I really enjoyed reading about Levi yesterday. The man didn't even ask "what" when the Lord said "Follow me", he just got up and went. At this point in my life I am anxiously awaiting the Lord to reveal the where. It's like Christmas..I know it is coming soon, I just want to know what the gift is. So I am learning from Levi, not to ask questions, but enjoy the trip. Please continue to pray for us we are 1/3 of the way there with our partnership development. We are planning out our Summer trip, and are looking for people to stay with and speak to about our ministry. Please continue to pray for Abigail, she is feeling better, but the cough is still hanging on, Caleb & Julia seem to have added the cough in the last few hours, so they are all getting medicine in a minute.

Thank you for the support! If you have any ideas for our road trip, we'd love to hear them.

Day Four

Last night went great. I really haven't been tempted by too much other than for the entire time, I have had this nice fresh loaf of Italian Bread from Publix sitting on the counter. Last night it looked really good. But I wasn't even hungry.

So I am learning some very interesting things about my eating style. First, I learned that I do not eat enough throughout the day. I usually only eat dinner and sometimes a late night snack. So I am going to be changing that up! I also learned that I eat food because a) it looks good b) it tastes good c) I am bored. Now that last one seemed weird to me, but I learned that because I am not eating right throughout the day, I am setting myself up to fail.

What I am learning spiritually, I am loving looking at the gospels paralleled. It is so interesting to see the differences from each disciples pen. I love how even though there are differences the heart of the message is the same. I feel like that is just like us. We are all different from each other, but yet God still gets to the heart of His message.And how he uses those subtle differences to reach each one of us, and in turn uses that to reach others for him. That's some good stuff as Bro. Roger would say!

So pressing on through Day Four! Just a few more to go!!