Discovering Columbus

We had a great time hanging out with the youth groups in Columbus, GA!  They were a great group and we enjoyed talking with all of them!  While there, we met up with Brad & Amy, and Jimbo & Kristen, all of whom are old friends from Auburn.

 

Fun in Sylacauga

Last night, we talked at the evening service at Knollwood Presbyterian Church in Sylacauga, AL. Ellen's family was all there, in addition to two of our old Auburn friends, Joy and Todd, who drove out to hear it--thanks guys!

My opening joke was: "A few weeks ago, we spoke at the church my father attends.  I don't know what's more intimidating, speaking in front of my father, or speaking in front of my father-in-law."

...well, they thought it was funny.

Tonight, we are heading down to Columbus, GA to talk to the combined youth groups of Mountain Hill Baptist Church & Hunter Road Baptist Church.  Pray for us.




Ellen with Joy

 

Me with Todd (a frequent visitor to BrooksLanding.com)
 

Precious baby Elena!

This past week, we had Stephanie, Josh and Elena out to my parents house. They are long time family friends who came down from Pennsylvania. We had so much fun boating, swimming, and hanging out.  It was sad to see them leave!     

Talk a lot, eat a lot, sleep a little...

This past weekend, I had a great time relaxing with my best friends from high school.  We spent the weekend at Ginny's grandparents' lake house,  swimming, talking, eating and talking some more! It was such a great time of catching up on our lives, since we don't get to see each other very often.  The climax of the weekend was Sunday night when I was able to meet for the first time, Amy and Paige's future fiance's!  This picture was taken that night. 

New Photo Gallery!

I just put in a new Photo Gallery, which currently houses about a dozen of our favorite pictures taken over the last year or so.  (Since purchasing our digital camera.)  Let us know what you think of them!

Sweet Home Alabama (for now...)

Finally! We are now in Alexander City, Alabama with Ellen's folks, which is where we will stay for the next couple of weeks. After we arrived, we helped Ellen's Nana move into her new apartment in Birmingham, and we have been working hard at putting together our first ever newsletter, which is due to be sent out early next week.

For those of you who are in the Great State of Alabama, on Sunday, July 25th at 6PM, we will be speaking at Knollwood Presbyterian Church in Sylacauga. (For those of you NOT in Alabama, we'll have pronunciation lessons later...) Call the church at 256-249-2648 for driving information, or just plug in the following address into your favorite map program:

1277 Knollwood Lane

Sylacauga, AL 35150

 

Sweet Beulah Land

Tonight, we had the privilege to speak at the evening service at my father's church, Beulah Baptist, in Pensacola, Florida. The congregation warmly listened to us talk about our faith and how we decided to go with Wycliffe. We have plans to speak in at least two more churches this summer, and Dad has asked us to speak at a retirement community tomorrow morning. If you would like for us to come speak at your church or whatever group you are in--then let us know!


Actually, we forgot to have someone take a picture while we were talking. We staged this picture after everybody had left.


Umm...then our faked pictures got a little out of hand...

The Art of Peanuts

Today, we said goodbye to our temporary home in Orlando, and have begun our journey back to Alabama. Tonight, we stopped back by to see my grandma, Aunt Carolyn, and Uncle Grady one more time. Uncle Grady thought it would be a lot of fun to purchase and boil 28 pounds of peanuts. But first, we had to clean them...



And then, I had to take some fancy-pants artistic pictures of them...

Diversions from Camp

We are now halfway through our third and final week down here in Orlando. I am hoping to put together a little video that shows a little what life is like here at Training Camp, but that might take awhile to do (I have LOTS of great ideas--just no time to implement them).

We have been taking advantage of our free time to see some friends and family who live in the Central Florida area:


Brinn, Ashley, and "any day now" Chase


Romanus and Molly


Ellen's Grandma, Uncle Tex, and Aunt Nora


My nephew, Caleb.