Super Summer

For the past 2 weeks, I had the opportunity to be a Team Leader at Super Summer (Summer camp for Baptist kids). It was an incredible time watching the Lord do some amazing things in the lives of students, but also in the lives of leaders. My responsibility was teaching and leadership over the 9th graders (10th if you ask them). I was given 7 college students as small group leaders that I would directly pour into as they built more personal relationships with the students. I love hanging out with college student and pouring the gospel into them. It was awesome to see God work in their lives too. We saw a number of students surrender their lives to Christ and I wanted to share one specific story that I personally was involved in. This student, Jake, attended an evangelism seminar by Bob Caldwell to learn to share his faith. Bob gave an invitation to receive Christ (how ironic is that) and Jake expressed that he had never put his faith in Christ. I talk with him about it over dinner and he had a ton of questions. It was awesome to see his eagerness to get answers. He actually told me, "I don't have enough time to sit around and not find answers to my questions." I thought that we incredible. He told me that at one dark point in his life he tried to commit suicide but looked at himself in the mirror and realize that there was a greater purpose for his life (He didn’t know at the time that it was Jesus :) ). That night during an invitation to receive Christ, Jake stood up and went with the youth pastor he came with and received council. He was still seeking, still with some doubt but another step closer to having his soul saved. The next night he came forward to get prayer and I went off with him and we spend 20 minutes looking at the Scriptures and the meaning of the cross. The whole time he was literally shaking. He told me he had felt weird ever since he came to super summer, just something inside him wasn’t right. I told him it was the Spirit of God drawing Jake to Himself. That night Jake surrendered his life to Jesus. It was amazing! I’m blown away that the Lord allows us to be apart of the power of His gospel bringing a person from death to Life. Later on I received a letter from Jake that I want to share:

Dave, thank you so much for everything. I don’t think I can ever repay you for all you’ve done. Never have I shed so many tears and questioned so much and in the end give all that up. There is a song from Flyleaf called “All Around Me” and it’s about the feelings I was having and before this camp it was just a song and the lyrics were cool, but now that I’ve had that feeling it means so much to me. And every time I hear that song I’ll think of that night when I was standing there at the worship and the power of God called me. It was a rush of indescribable emotions. And I’ll think of sitting in that hallway, crying, shaking, and listening, and giving myself to Him with your help. So I want you to find that song and listen to it. I’ll keep you in my prayers. Thank you! Jake, Finally unleashed and free!

Praise God!!! I am blown away every time I read that! The power of God in a person’s life is unstoppable. John 6:44 says, “Anyone who comes to the Father must first be drawn by Him.” How true is that in Jake’s life!! I immediately purchased the song on iTunes and WOW. What a cool story and words that describe it so well. I never want to stop being around God’s activity in the world. His gospel is supreme and his changing lives. How foolish are we to sit around and not be a part of it. God has called every one of his Children to live lives on mission for his Name and renown. Might in the end our prayer be 2 Cor 4:5, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

The perfect gift for a perfectionist is LIBERATION!

In order to keep my "go-getting", intense, and (for the lack of a better word) perfectionist husband sane, I am always on the lookout for stress relieving gifts for him. Well I hit the jackpot this year...A JOURNAL THAT GOES AGAINST EVERY "RULE" HE IMPLEMENTS UPON HIMSELF CONCERNING JOURNALING. I have to admit, his first glance at his gift wasn't exactly what I had in mind..."you want me to do what with this.".
Like I said, this goes against every journaling experience he has ever had. But since then, we have had so much fun!!! Here are a sample of some of the pages he has already "journaled" in.

NOTE: "Dedicated to perfectionists all over the world"

I think this one was my absolute favorite to watch so far. He had to think about it for a minute.





He did it!

"burn this page"--this one wasn't hard at all for him- pyro!





That is a handprint of A1 sauce that he had to smear all over the page.


So...


what's Dave's next adventure with his journal.....




Sorry, there will be no pictures of this one!

We are changing our last name to Harper.

Well....our current news is that we are trying to rent out our home, but are running into some problems. We do own our townhouse but 3 months before we bought it, a new bi-law was made that no one after that date could rent their property (we were so close!). So, we are in the middle of the process of appealing to the board of our association to let us rent short term. After our first letter for permission, we received a call saying they couldn't honor our request but we could further pursue the issue with the board. So, we did :). We were scheduled to meet with a lady at our home on Tuesday but she never showed up, so now we are back to the waiting game. It's hard to communicate through blogs but the situation is still hopeful based on our conversations with the association. Probably most of you are wondering why we want to rent and where will we move to...and all I have to say is two words-

Mama's Family.

You can just call us the Harper's! We would move into the basement at my (Danielle) mom and dad's house( sorry mom- Mama doesn't do you much justice, and dad...you aren't pictured) We have prayed and prayed and thought about how to pay off our student loans fast and this is the best option we have thought of. There are plenty of pros and cons to think about (none of which deal with any negatives of my parents or in having our own space or privacy). But it does kinda seem humorous that there is potential to move back home. This move would only be for 1 year and then we would either move back into our townhouse or sell and buy a house.

So, as humorous as it may be, we really really want to get out of debt and hate being enslaved to a bank. Please pray that our dreams come true(hehe) and the association lets us rent. Thanks!

This will be a L-O-N-G blog...here goes...

FYI....I am sitting here trying to kill time as I wait until about 10:30am to vote (it's 8:30am). I figured that would be the best time to take Mikail and I hope I figured right...if not, I think my vote should count double due to having to entertain a figety, very independent 9 month old while waiting through the lines (which have been taking an average of an hour and 30 min. to get through---I know...lifes tough right. :)---at least I just have 1 to take!

Anyway...alot has happened over the past couple weeks in our home... Mikail went to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard for the first time, Aunt Amy came in town to play, Mikail was dedicated at church, Dave went out of town for 4 days, Mikail dressed up like a monkey for Halloween(we had two options but the butterfly outfit was too big for Mikail), I continue to make my own babyfood *sigh* and lastly, Mikail had her 9 month old doctor appointment yesterday.

The doctor appointment yesterday went well and Mikail is still teeny tiny. Her height is 26 1/8 in. tall (15% for her age), weight is 15lbs 5 ounces (5% for her age), and 3% for her little head circum. She is still in 3-6 month clothing.

I figured the rest of the updates will mostly speak for themselves through pictures:



Mikail giving her cousin Ashley a kiss at the pumpkin patch.


Our fun outing at a Trunk or Treat


I counldn't resist putting this in the mix. I think Dave and I have more fun during bathtime than Mikail. Her bath shapes stick to her body so we have contests to see how many we can stick to her.



Mikail's baby dedication outfit minus her bow :)



Mikail's baby food...yes she eats tofu and likes it :)











These are fun pictures I took the other afternoon when it was soooo nice out. She is such a sweetie!!

The BEST double date night EVER!!

Our church sponsored a double date night contest on Friday night. The contest rules were to come up with a creative double date while spending the least amount of money. It was such a fabulous idea!! And then at 10pm that evening, we would meet up at our pastor's house to have dessert and share our dates. Our date ended up being the best date I have ever been on. I am pretty sure we laughed the whole time. So this is what we came up with....

...a Drop in Progressive Dinner!

It gave the traditional progressive dinner a twist by stopping by unexpectedly to people's homes for each course (appetizer, main course, etc.) The "unexpectedly" part was hilarious! Our targeted appetizer home was to a single former youth pastor who had just heated up his left-overs for dinner when we surprised him with a little "knock-knock." When he answered, we explained that we were in a double date contest and decided to do a "drop in progressive dinner" and we were here for the appetizer. It took a minute to register and then he burst out laughing. He was such a great sport! We had quesidillas, broccoli and cheese, and "stuff" on shingle. Appetizer down...on to the main course. I am not going to lie and pretend that we weren't nervous every time we knocked on each door. It is one thing to drop by someone's house unexpectedly, but it is totally different when you stop by AND ask for them to prepare and feed you a meal. SOO FUNNY! OK....back to the main course...so when the door opened to our next targeted home- a family favorite of Dave and I- we realized that we had woke them up from dozing off on the couch- woops! They also were equally AMAZING as our first home. You should have seen the look on their face when we announced that we were there for dinner. We got a blank stare and then a hearty welcome and they wipped up the best french toast. They even dimmed the light and lit a candle while waiting on us with a white towel around the arm. They wouldn't even let us clean up. Seriously, there was not one single moment when we weren't laughing. OK, so at our last stop, we seriously woke them up from REM sleep (it was only 9:30 but they fell asleep with the kids while putting them to bed). You know the marks you sometimes get on your face from sleeping on creased pillow cases or whatever...well, yeah they were visible from our sleeping victim. We were yet again welcomed in and spent the last 30 minutes with our last home. All in all, we spent $0, but yet had dinner and entertainment!! And thankfully all of our "hosts" had a great time as well.

Woops!

We turned Mikail orange- literally. Guess we need to hold off on all the carrots. I would post a picture but it wouldn't do her orange tint justice. The hilarious thing is that it isn't evident to only Dave and I...we have had several people ask us if her face needs to be cleaned off- like that she ate something and there is just alittle evidence from it left over on her. Funny story, but maybe we could just keep up the carrots for a couple of more weeks and she could be a carrot for halloween!

"What did we do before ______?

What did we do before the internet?
What did we do before cell phones?
What did we do before PODCASTS!!!!??

So the real reason for this post is not to be sentimental about "what we did before" but to talk about podcasts. I think that Dave and I are on podcast overload (and we love it!). We have been hooked on two great sermon series that we thought we would share---this means you should check them out :) ! The first is Mark Driscoll's series on the Song of Solomon: The Peasant Princess. And the second is Matt Chandler's series on Luke. Both of these guys are going through these series now. I don't think that there has been anything we have looked forward to so much since last seasons LOST. haha-anyway, if you check them out or have been already listening to them, let us know what you think.