My Pocket Farm

I am from Georgia.

I just LOVE the South!

I love farms and space and land.

I don't have any of those things where I live now.

I just have a nice fenced in backyard with 4 rabbits, a brand new bunny and a dog.

It's my pocket farm because it is pocket sized indeed!

Hopefully one day we will have a few acres of our own, but maybe not. So I will choose to be content with what I have.

While I wait for the day that I may or may not have more land, I have to keep you posted on the growth of our animals and over time all my ideas for our "farm."

Hudson is 9 weeks old and is still sleeping...

A LOT!

Here is Jovie sniffing around her nesting box.

Look at all the fur lining the box that she pulled out of

her belly just before giving birth!

It was so neat to see the whole process!

Jovie is a great mommy too!

Here is the newest addition at exactly one week old. 

Finally getting some fur. 

They really are pretty ugly at this point.

A boy and his dog

*love*

Paige wanted to show off her cowgirl boots. 

Wish her eyes were open...

Belated Valentine's

Valentine's Day is such a fun holiday!

We don't buy our kids gifts , but we do festive things to celebrate this lovely day.

Here is a peek at what we've been doing over the last week or two.

Melt My Heart Crayons

1. Unwrap all your broken crayon pieces

Fill a heart shaped pan with broken crayon pieces.

Throw it in the oven for about 20 min. at 250 degrees,

let cool and then you have these...

SO FUN!

I saw this in a Family Fun magazine a couple of years ago and I

haven't thrown away a broken crayon since. The kids love these...so much

that after five sweet years with Noah he decided to use them to color

all over my dining room wall! WHAT??!!  He is FIVE and has never done that

before.  He said he just wanted to "have some fun with his crayon!"  

Mom was NOT happy!

But please don't let my experience hinder you from making some with your little one.

Noah's Monster Valentine Mailbox

totally awesome and 100% BOY!

Here is a Valentine Noah made 

Red Hot Popcorn

My children and I are popcorn addicts.

So red hot popcorn was perfect for Valentine's Day!

Here is the Red Hot Popcorn recipe:

Pop 1/2 cup popcorn (I use an air popper)

Melt 1 6 oz. box of red hots with 2 TBSP light karo syrup

& 1 stick of butter. Stir often until red hots are completely melted. 

Spread popcorn out on cookie sheets and then pour mixture over the top.

Let cool and ENJOY!

To end our day we played the Newlywed Game with our

Community Group. 

The VanStormers WON...of course!

We also made our traditional Valentine's meal for the 8th year in a row....

**CHICKEN PARMESEAN**

Submission

About a month ago a dear friend of mine asked me to come speak to a mom's group she helps lead.

She wanted me to share my story of...

SUBMISSION!

Yikes!

I agreed, knowing I would be uncomfortable, but knowing that God had done a work in my heart and I needed to be vulnerable to share my story with others in case there was something they could benefit from as well.

So today I shared my story of submission with about 30-40 other mothers and wives. Here is just a sneak peek of what I shared.

It had to do with our stay in Romania.  Steve and I both felt burdened and convicted about not living missionally in Knoxville and not making much effort to build relationships with our neighbors and over time share Jesus with them.

I only felt burdened enough to pray for them 6,000 miles away. Steve felt convicted to the point that he was pretty sure the Lord was leading us back to Knoxville after our trial period in Romania.

I didn't like this. In fact, I hated this idea!

I didn't want to leave Romania. This had been a dream for me. A God-given dream and I wanted to stay working and playing in dusty gypsy villages and holding abandoned babies for a very. long. time!

For about two months it felt like Battle of the Wills. I wanted to stay. Steve felt like we were not supposed to stay. We were frustrated that the other person didn't see it our way. Lines of communication stayed open and we knew where the other person was on the matter.  We both were fighting for very good things. Very godly things, even.

This was a hard place for us because after six years of marriage we had never had a MAJOR disagreement like this. We had had disagreements, but on big things we were generally on the same page. So this was very hard.

One afternoon I was talking to a friend in TN who encouraged us to begin praying for a spirit of unity in our marriage!

Genius! Why didn't I think of that!

So Steve and I began praying for a spirit of unity.

It took about two months for us to get there. It took two months of me realizing that I needed to love, respect, trust and affirm my husband's leadership.  God put him as the head of our relationship for a reason. I knew my husband had been praying and fasting and there was no reason for me to not trust him.

I am a very passive person, but not in my marriage. I am very comfortable with Steve and so in our relationship I do not sheepishly do whatever he says if I have a differing opinion. Not in a disrespectful way, but I feel comfortable sharing my heart....my thoughts...my opinions. Steve wants that too. The Lord taught me that I am to have a voice and opinion, but ultimately I do need to follow Steve's leadership (if his leadership is under that of God) because God has placed him there to provide and protect in respect to Christ.

I came to a place where Steve knew that I didn't agree that we shouldn't be in Romania, but I was trusting him and submitting to his leadership.

I love John Piper's definition of a wife's submission. It is a divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husbands leadership and to help carry it through according to her gifts. 

Wow! I just love that!

I was not in a place of honoring and affirming my husband and the Lord just convicted my heart to do so. To help him carry out his leadership role with my gifts!

This has literally changed my outlook on my role in the marriage in such a positive way.

I want to share with you what he says about headship as well.

His definition of husband's headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christlike servant leadership and protection and provision in the home. 


God had taught me a few other things concerning submission.

*I cannot submit to Steve unless I am abiding in Christ daily. Abiding in Christ results submitting first to God. Submitting to my husband is then a natural result.

*My pride and my will can blur my vision of God's purposes for me

*Pray for a Spirit of unity with your spouse

Have you read Sacred Marriage?  I love the line on the front cover:
What if God made marriage to make us holy rather than to make us happy?


It is a guarantee we will not always be 100% happy in our marriages.  However, it is pretty much gauranteed, that if we allow the Lord to work in our lives and are listening to His voice, that He will make us holier than we are right now, not because of ourselves, but because of Christ in us!


Abide in Him!


Satan is out to destroy our marriages. To steal, kill and destroy them.  Be on guard! Stand Firm! Abide in Christ!

North Knoxville Campus Part 1

I know. I know. It's about time I start writing about the North Knoxville Campus of Fellowship Church.

Before I start unloading the plan for this Campus, I want to look back and share how God brought us to this point.

Steve and I have been interested in church planting for several years, but thought that may be something we would do in New England one day.  Still open to the idea of church planting locally in Knoxville, but just thought it wouldn't be right now.

When we left Romania we didn't have a clear picture of what we would be doing specifically long term.  I knew that if God was telling Steve to take our family back to America that it HAD to be for a very specific purpose.  We just didn't know what.

Until we actually left Romania and made it back to Knoxville.

Two weeks of being back in the States Steve had a meeting with his boss about long term job opportunities with our church here (Fellowship Evangelical Free Church).  There were about four options and one of those was a church campus/plant of our existing church.  That was the only thing that Steve wanted to do out of all the options.  Steve came home and shared the options with me and asked which one stood out.  Immediately, the church campus stood out. We were so relieved to be on the same page!

We truly desired to be in North Knoxville. We live in NW Knoxville, but while in Romania the Lord was definitely burdening our hearts with North Knox and to be doing something out that way. We later found out from our pastor that people have been wanting a church campus out there for the last ten years!  It just hadn't been the right time.

Isn't it so neat how God works?!  How He sent us to Romania and while there burden our hearts to be missionaries in North Knoxville. Then, He sent us back to Knoxville so that we would partner with another family in planting this church campus that the church has been praying and preparing for for the last ten years!

Truly humbled to be a part of this.

Speaking of a family to partner with...Steve's boss had a family in mind that we would partner with to develop the church campus.  Steve didn't even have to tell me who the family was when he got home from work because I already knew. God had already told me! Seriously!

We are SO THRILLED to be partnering with Michael and Andrea Thomas and their four children to start and develop the North Knoxville Campus of Fellowship Church! Really excited to see what God has in store for all of us and all of those residing in North Knoxville.

To be continued....

and then there were three...

Yep! We have a new addition to the family!!

This addition has been awaited mostly by Steve and Noah for a couple of years.

I just wasn't ready or on board, apparently until last week.  Friday we woke up and spontaneously decided we should just get a dog!  Not one that we would have for a week and then convince a friend they should have it. (yes, this happened to us, but I don't want to explain :)) We wanted a family dog that would grow up before our eyes and that we would have for as long as possible.

Enter HUDSON!

So now we have three little ones running around the house.

Hudson is a 7 week old Golden Retriever and is super sweet.

Can't wait to watch him grow with our family!