Busy, Busy, Incredibly Busy....

Much, much too busy to blog! Ha yet here I found myself once again quickly typing away. It's strawberry season! Yay! We picked 12 baskets of strawberries this morning and worked on standardized tests! Hah! I feel like I got something accomplished! Now I have to clean and cut and freeze strawberries. Lots of strawberries...... Mom and Dad are in Lynchburg right now. Sis. Betty Bowlin, our lady at church who is terminaly ill with cancer, fell and broke her hip at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. It's been hectic running back and forth to visit her and finish our testing. I've also been working on VBS stuff. We are going down to FL to do one at Palatka. It's going to be fun but right now I've got to get the work out of the way so that i will have time for fun! I've really been boosting Youth Camp to my young people this year and I think we might have a crowd from Farmville. YAY! This weekend Mom and Beth and I are going down to SC for my cousins graduation and to see the new baby and all of my mom's family. It's going to be nice. Anyway, I hear strawberries calling my name so I'd better run.

Hi Everyone

Ok so I did it again, maybe I'm not so hot at this blogging thing after all. :-) I'll do my best to bring ya'll up to speed but I really am incredibly busy. We had a good crowd on Resurrection Sunday. We must of had around 100. Lot's of kids. Huge Children's Church class. Dawn and John came over after Church and we played games and worked on an idea for VLB posters for the youth march at youth convention next weekend. We raised $200 dollars for the banner program from the eggs that we made. Lots of work trust me. Wednesday we had VLB service we started working on Posters. Then Friday Lynchburg Church had their lock-in. It was a blast! I'd never been to a lock-in before so it was a new experience for me. We enjoyed it immensely. Tonya and TJ came too. TJ seems to fit right in with the guys. Tonya is starting to get more comfortable with everyone. It's going to be tougher for her because she grew up in the COGOP and has lots of friends that are still in the COGOP and she doesn't really know anyone and she's trying to fit in. Sunday was Church again then I'll have VLB again on Wednesday. WHEW!!! Pray for me! We are going to work on Posters again tomorrow night. My cousins wife had her baby! It's a girl her name is Chloe Sienna Miller and she weighed 8lbs exactly. Pretty big for a first baby. That's about it so I'll say goodbye untill the next time I get a sudden urge to blog!

Sorry....

I'm sorry everyone for not being a better blogger. I ought to be kicked out of the club ( if I was ever in it in the first place..) All I can do is humbly express my sincere apologies and hope to do better next time before I make you totally forget there was anything to be forgiven with my wonderful news!!!!! I have been incredibly busy lately. My Mammaw is making Easter eggs to sell for church and I am being taught how. Then of course we have to sell them. We went to S.C. over the weekend two weeks ago for my cousins baby shower. Number 1 for my cousin David ,the former marine, and his wife Katie. They are so excited! While we were there we were able to visit the Midway Church. It was so nice to walk into that Church and feel the love you always feel wherever you go in the Church. The people there are very friendly. I'm so glad we have somewhere to go when we visit family! Ok now for the good news..... We had another awesome service. God is so good! In those two services we had 1 saved, 3 sanctified, and 1 filled with the Holy Ghost. We just had our District Convention Saturday which was very good. The Sandys came and really enjoyed it. Bro. Tony stayed up praying all night Saturday and, drumroll please, Sunday morning they, the whole family, joined the Church! We have our 10% increase! Not to mention, we also have a 50% increase in our VLB band! That's right Farmville now has 12 VLB's! Tonya and T.J. and Autumn and Jennifer. Two were gleaners that turned 12 this year but the other two are new! Yeah! Wow I caught you guys up fast.... I guess that's it. Goodbye!

"O what singing, O what shouting..."

The observation has been made that every time the Baldwins go to Florida we have an awesome service the Sunday after we get back. It's only happened twice but it seems to be true. Sunday morning we came back from the nursing home and as soon as you opened the door you could hear shouting and singing. It was great. Sunday School was evidently not even dismissed. We have a very annointed teacher in our adult sunday school class and we've really really been enjoying our lessons this quarter. Anyway she was teaching and then she started preaching and God started moving and there was a message and interpretation given and the Holy Spirit started convicting some of the folks that come all the time but aren't saved. One of our member's daughters who was raised in the church but hasn't been serving God for years was saved. She was so happy she was just laughing and crying and saying, "Bro. Frank I'm back!" It was great! I mean we really had a time. We even had a Victory March. It reminds me of that song heaven's jubilee. I remember some of our older members testified saying it's like old times! Now for a cute kid story as I promised.... The first night we were at the Cox's, Ruthie and Mary-Fran were fighting over who was going to sleep with me. Mary-Fran said, "I'm gonna sleep with you" so I said, "who's gonna sleep with Bethany?" She said, "Ruthie can." Ruthie interjects at this point, "No I'm gonna sleep with Charity!" Sister Betsy says, "Mary-Frances why don't you want to sleep with Bethany?" Mary-Fran replies, " I wanna sleep with Charity cause Charity suffereth long and is kind." That was their memory verse for that week and let me tell you I got the full effect of it! The guys are all like "Yes! we can do anything we want to to Charity and she won't do anything about it cause she suffers long and is kind!" I'm sure there are lots of other stories I just can't remember all the details. Oh yeah Caleb came to me when I was changing Abby's diaper and said, "Did you know, I didn't know this, but did you know that when Abby was born she was born with finger nails and toe nails?!" I thought that was hilarious he is right though it is wonderful that God creates babies with all their finger nails and toe nails! O that we could see through eyes of wonder like little children do. They can always see there is a Creator because their eyes behold the wonder of the creation! No wonder Jesus said of such are the kingdom of heaven! Well I'll write more later. Beth is wanting to use the phone.

Home Again

I am home in good ol' Virginy. Florida was great and we would have loved to stay longer. However, we have certain responsibilities at church this Sunday which we need to complete so we had to leave, amid much lamentation, and come home. March is World Mission Month and we have to get started on our missions drive. March also happens to be when our young people are responsible to hold Sunday services at the local Nursing Home. Anyway, we had a great time with the Cox's. We arrived just after 7:00 Thursday night and said our hello's and the next thing I knew I was hiding in a bush telling Francie to be quiet or the big boys would find us. War had broken out. I really don't think it was quite fair. Zach, Beau, Josh, and Daniel were on one team and Micah, Nate, Caleb, Noah, Bethany, Francie, and I were the other team. We had the bigger team but there were a couple of problems. Beth and Francie would scream at the top of their lungs whenever we saw the big boys which directed their attention to us, Caleb talked the entire time we were hiding, and when Noah got caught he would show them where we were hiding. Thus it was really Micah, Nathan, and I against the big boys. It was still pretty fun and the 3 of us made a deal that we would never give up. We ended in a truce. We went to St. Augustine the next day and had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit. We went to the Spanish Quarter, Fort Matanzez, and The Old Florida Museum. Saturday we rested up and Sunday there was a dinner and singing at the Palatka Church. After the dinner we went to the hospital and visited a couple of the members. That evening it was VLB service. We played a Bible Trivia game, we won by the way, and then Beau had a short devotional and alter call. I really enjoyed Beau's devotional he had a great visual aid. Zach, Beau, Josh, and I learned Amazing Grace on our respective instruments and played together. It was a lot of fun. I taught all the Cox kids, except for Abby, the Bright Arrow Song. Beau and Josh weren't too keen about it but they learned it anyway. The rest of our visit was filled with Basketball, War, Spotlight, Dutch Blitz, and lots of talking, laughing, and joking. We also made one more trip to St. Augustine and visited the Castillo De San Marcos. That was very interesting. We also visited a quiet and deserted strip of the beach and played Frisbee, built sand castles, and got our feet wet. Friday was a sad and dreary day. It was raining and that made everyone feel even more gloomy. The older kids had discussed the possibility of pulling out a spark plug or something similar to that but we decided we would get in big trouble so we were good and didn't do anything. That's about it except for details and other things that make up our inside jokes. We finally arrived home early this morning. In other news Hailey's test results have come back and she tested negative for Leukemia and everything else they tested her for. Praise the Lord! She is still having all the symptoms that I mentioned before and has now been running a Temp. for almost a month. Please keep her in your prayers. The doctors have no idea what this is and it is stressful for Vanessa and Jacob. Pray for them also that the Lord would give them perfect peace and comfort in this trial.

Getting Ready to Leave....

......Not this world though that's true too. We are getting ready to leave for the land of sunshine and warm weather- Florida. Yippee! We are all really excited including mom and dad. This isn't going to be very long I just wanted to let everyone know I am still on this planet. I don't think I'm really going to have a chance to blog while I'm gone so you guys will hear from me when I return home. I should have plenty of cute kid stories to share too. One thing If you guys would be in prayer for my little cousin Hailey I would appreciate it. Hailey has been running a slight temp. for a couple weeks and has been having more than the normal count of white blood cells. She is less than a year old and has never been in perfect health. She died before she was ever born and the whole family started praying and when my cousin Vanessa went to the Dr. for something else he asked her if she had a praying family she said yes and he told her "This baby was dead two days ago but it is alive now." Anyway, the Pediatrician told her he didn't know what was wrong with Hailey so he's sending her to a specialist. There is a possibility it could be Leukemia because she is showing all the symptems. So please pray for her and please pass this prayer request on.

Sing unto the Lord a new song...

Happy Valentines Day to all of my friends and anyone else who may be reading this. (with a blog you never know.) Well, Micah is up and about. Not a lot has been happening lately other than school and piano and church. Have any of ya'll seen Facing The Giants? It is a good movie. It's made by a baptist church down in GA. Dawn and John have it and they brought it over to our house a few days ago and we all watched it. After seeing it Dad went and got it for us. Saturday, Zach and I went and took CPR and First Aid. Mrs. Bloss was the main instructor. There was 2 classes going on one for community and another for poeple who were going to be life guards or on the squad. Mr. Bloss taught the community one so he was our classroom instructor. I've been told we passed. We just have to wait for our certification cards to arrive and it will be official. Sunday after Church we had a dinner and singing. We took up an offering for the dinner and proceeds went to the VLB's we're still deciding what to do with it. We had a grand total of $152.50. Pretty good if I do say so myself. Anyway we had to sing during the singing. We sang "Jesus the Way Maker," "I'm not Looking for a City Going up but the one That's Coming Down," and "If you Believe." The first 2 were fairly new ones but I think we did pretty good. I also worked with the Gleaners on a new song. They learned "Behold What Manner" they also sang "Bright Arrows" which they already knew. They did a good job I was proud of them. We started out with 12 and ended up with 4 but they sang so loud they sounded like the whole 12 were there! The Sandy's were there and all 4 of them sang. T.J. sang a song that I really liked. I think it was called "He'll Take you Through the Fire Again" but I'm not sure. I had heard it before. The chorus starts out "He never promised that the cross would not get heavy or the hill would not be hard to climb, He never offered out victories without fighting but he said help would always come in time. So remember when you're standing in the valley of decision and......(I can't remember this part)..... He'll take you through the fire again." Sister Gayle sang "I know that He'll Deliver Me." I really enjoyed those 2 songs in particular. They reminded me of the VLB theme this year. Tim was there and I told him if he was coming he had to sing, so he sang "Keep the Flame Burning in my Heart" and another song which I can't remember at the moment. After the singing ended we went home and Dawn and John came over to visit. The Sandys had to leave the singing early because Bro. Tony and TJ had to dig a grave and Tonya had to work, but Bro. Tony and TJ came by our house for a while after they dug the grave. We had a good time. That's about it except in less than 2 weeks we are taking a vacation. (Kind of) Our vacations are always visiting family or friends. After Christmas this year when we didn't get to see the Cox's Bro. Jerry and Sis. Betsy kept after Mom and Dad to come for a visit them so we are going to go see them. Yeah!!!! We were only going to go for a weekend but Sis. Betsy has talked Mom into staying for a week. We are driving down on the 22nd. Yeehaw!!! We are going to have a lot of fun! The kids are counting down the days. We are all really excited. There are a few folks in this world who you can just let your hair down with and the Cox's are some of those poeple. Fortunately they feel the same way about us. ;-) We are going to have so much fun. (I already said that didn't I?) Anyway that's about it. I'll talk to everyone later. G'bye

Can you believe it I'm actually posting!

Hello everyone. I'm back again to aimlessly bore you out of your minds with news such as, "No it's not broken only sprained" and other such trifles. I should probably back up to last Friday and catch everyone up on my nice, quiet, sane, (yeah right) peaceful, (if you don't count having trouble with the police every time I turn around) existence. Last Friday morning I was getting dressed and ready for the day when suddenly I couldn't see. (ok maybe I could see but everything was really blurry) I realized that one of my lenses must have popped out again so I calmly and rationally start looking for it. (maybe I should say feeling for it hmm...) I find it and somehow manage to grope my way down our very steep stairs and through the mine fields of the living room and dining room into the Kitchen where Mom is. I of course am unable to fix my glasses when I can't really see so I carefully hand my glasses over to Mom to work her magic on. Mom starts working with my glasses and suddenly a question is asked which fills me with utter terror, " Where is the screw?" "The screw?" I manage to squeak out. I had no idea where the screw was. I covered my path from my room all the way to the kitchen on my hands and knees desperately and blindly feeling about for the screw but to no avail. Needless to say my piano lesson was cancelled and Dad and I ran into Blackstone to see the eye doctor so he could fix my glasses. Those of you who wear glasses can empathize with me. The next day was our long awaited snow tubing trip. Our general plan was to leave by 4 a.m. Saturday morning. Tonya was going to come and meet us at our house by quarter to 4. However unexpected difficulties in the way of faulty alarm clocks, lack of fuel, and slow pesky deer prevented us from leaving until close to 5. When we finally hit the road we were exhausted and excited. When we got to Prospect we missed Amber's road and had to turn around and go back. Then we settled in for a long drive. We arrived a little late but we enjoyed our snow tubing experience immensely. Tonya and Amber got to know one another fairly well and had a grand time. There are many stories I could share but then I'd be here all day. However I think I will share one with everyone. The tubing lanes went down the hill in steps and then at the end of the lane it went up a hill to slow you down and stop you. After the lane ended there was a little slope down into a net like fence that kept you, if your tube went too far, from going over a big embankment into the road. Several of our group hit the fence and bounced off and it became a matter of pride if you could hit the fence. Well poor Tim tried all day to hit the fence and he just couldn't manage it. I mean he studied the slope of the hill and calculated the best way jump on his tube and how much of a running start he needed and he could never hit the fence. Well when we went up for our last ride this little fellow jumps on his tube and goes all the way to the fence and bounced back. So Tim thinks if he can do it so can I. So he jumps on his tube and goes down the hill and stops before he even gets halfway up the hill. You guys should have seen him he was clawing at the snow with his hands desperately trying to pull himself further up the lane. It was my turn next. I was going really fast and saw the end of the lane coming up fast and I had no desire to hit that flimsy little fence and maybe go sailing out into oblivion or worse yet land in the road and maybe get run over by a car so I drag my feet and throw myself half off the tube before finally coming to a stop on the top of the hill inches away from going down the little slope into the fence. Amber was next and she did exactly the same thing I did. Then Micah was up and he slammed into the fence and bounced off sure enough. Tim didn't think it was very fair that he had been trying to hit that fence all day and hadn't done it and that we had done our utmost to keep from hitting it. So snow tubing is over and it was fun but I have more adventures to relate to ya'll. After dropping Amber off we made it back home at about 9:15 and the Sandy's arrived to pick up Tonya at about 9:30. Tonya had just managed to put her stuff in the trunk and climb in the car and they were getting ready to pull away when to our surprise a police car pulled up with his lights flashing at 9:30 in the evening, to tell us that we were breaking the law by parking in the middle of the road! They hadn't been there for 2 minutes and all they did was put her stuff in the trunk and let her get in the car! On top of that there was no place within half a block for them to park! I would like to remind everyone that this was within a residential neighborhood in a small town of maybe 2,000 people and that this road is rarely used except by people who live on it! On top of that the cop was making a big disturbance and parked in the middle of the road himself. I'm telling you guys I really miss our old cops. I wish they would stop bringing in these big city cops into our little tiny town! Our neighbors couldn't believe that cop either in fact they made a complaint about him to the mayor, and the police chief, and the town council. I have a feeling that cop won't last long around here. Rumor has it that we aren't the only ones he's picked on lately! Ok I know everyone is dying to know what I meant by "it's not broken only sprained." Micah was playing two hand touch with Dad and the older boys and somehow ended up getting sideswiped by both Zach and Daniel and knocked onto the ground with his leb bent beneath him and Daniel on top of him. Mom and Dad took him yo the emergency room and everyone thought his leg was broken for sure. The doctor was surprised when he read the x-rays that Micah's leg was not roken only badly sprained with a contusion on his knee. He is not allowed to put any weight on it and is wearing a leg brace and using crutches. That was the big excitement this week. Other than that my weeks has been quiet and uninterupted by anything else except.... SNOW!!!!! We had snow.... kind of. We got less than a quarter of an inch and it was all gone by the next day but for that one day it was beautiful! I hope we get more but I seriously doubt it. Anyway that's about it. G'bye

Snowtubing Bound!

Hey everyone! In less than 48 hrs I will be happily whizzing down the the slopes on a tube. Yeehaw! I can't wait, neither can anyone else in our family! Maybe I should have said neither can anyone else I've talked to! We are leaving at 4 a.m. Saturday. Fun. I hope we survive the trip. On the way home people will probably be pretty cranky. But it will be worth it! The boys will be in a different vehicle so we won't have too many cranky folks in our van. (Teenagers don't get cranky when they get tired they get silly, and goofy and crazy.) We are going to have fun... just as soon as Tonya and Amber get used to each other. That shouldn't take too long hopefully. :-) After tubing the plan is to get lunch together. I don't know if we're going to find a restaurant that will have enough room for all of us. Sister Tonya said that 50 or 60 young people are going. You guys can all tell what is on my mind today. I'll write some more later after snow tubing.... :-)

Hello

Hey everyone. Ok so my life in the past week. (Some people are just glutton for punishment!) LOL. Anyway, I enjoyed my quiet Saturday last week and am enjoying another fairly quiet Saturday this week. Sunday we had a good service at church. That evening the Sandy's were back again. Tonya and T.J. came and spent the night with us. We had a good time. The public school kids didn't have school Monday or Tuesday. Monday was Lee/Jackson/MLKJ Day and Tuesday was some sort of teacher work day. When we got home from church Sunday night we decided to pull out the glow in the dark football and walk the not quite a block to the Libray field and play a game of football. It was just after midnight but no one had school the next day and we were very quiet. We didn't talk except in our huddles and then we whispered. Anyway our team, Zach, T.J., and I, just got the kickoff and Zach ran it back for a touchdown. The other team wasn't happy with that so we were going to kick it off again when suddenly our eyes were blinded by a bright light. A policeman was standing there holding a light almost directly into our eyes so we couldn't see anything. He then said, "I was just checking to see if you had an adult with you. Because if you hadn't you would have been in big trouble with me!" We used to have nice policemen in Crewe that were actually from our area and could connect with the people. Now they have started importing foreigners that don't know anyone. When we had first started playing I had seen a car drive up and sit in the parking lot for about 5 min. before they drove off. Dad said they must have been the ones who called because none of the neighbors complained. We went home and played quieter indoor games untill we finally headed off to bed. The next day we had a good time playing cards and hanging out. Later that afternoon we went to the baseball field and hit and fielded the ball for a while. I'm usually not too good when it comes to baseball but I actually did really good that day. When Bro. Tony and Sis. Gayle picked the kids up they stayed for dinner. Then we played games and laughed and laughed together. We always laugh when we get together. Anyway Tuesday we had to go to Richmond for an Ortho appointment. We did some shopping and errands that needed to be done. Then Wednesday we had VLB service. I used the title " It's time to clean house!" It went pretty well over all. Then Thursday I had to work at Mammom's. We got cell phone upgrades in the mail that day as well. The new cell phone is really cool. It has a camera and bluetooth technology. It's pretty neat. I do like our old ringtone better though. Friday we had piano lessons and I did fairly well. Today I am having a quiet restful day. Tomorrow I have to teach Children's Church and then the young people are going out for pizza. We are going to have fun. One last thing... Only one week till Snowtubing!!! Yeah!