My Life as a Novel

Yesterday was Journey Out Day for the Journey Church, meaning we "Journeyed Out" of the church building, had no worship service and just had a good afternoon with lots of our friends. We reserved a shelter at Wannamaker Park. The Grillmaster, John Mills, served up a feast of hamburgers and hotdogs. And we expected an afternoon of shorts and sandals for our wiffleball/volleyball/ultimate frisbee games. What we got, however, were wintercoats, gloves, and scarves, and very chilly winds -- and a very mini-bonfire! But the afternoon was a success. LOTS of fun, and a very welcome break from the typical set-up/tear-down process! :)

lots more photos here: The Journey Out photoset

Labels: Journey Church, photo

I give you pictures.

Oliver - in all his royal beagleness. Ain't he handsome?


When I got home the other night, Andrew (roommate) said, "If I knew how to work your camera, there was such a good photo op earlier!" He described the big pink azalea bush with the light from the porch blazing through it in the dark. I tried to capture his "image" and while I think I came up short, I still thought this was a nice picture.


This is Joy - the first baby I ever loved. And now she's almost two, and she can hang on the monkey bars all by herself. (Don't worry. Daddy was hanging out very closely behind her and just out of the shot.)

Labels: photo

My friend Andrew blogged about this movie recently. I'm so excited about it that I decided to do the same so that more people could see this preview.

I'm going to see this movie. Who's going with me?

Friday, April 11.

Labels: movies

This is the video that we used to kick-off our church service last night. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, was the official 'kick-off' for the Journey Church. If we hadn't already, we have now officially hit the ground running.

Let's just be honest, it wasn't our first time seeing/using this video, but I love it. It speaks exactly what I would have our church say - week in and week out - to those who find themselves in our services. People often come in to church their with guards up and their expectations down. I think this video is a good reminder to those of us who are doing the reaching out that we have to create an environment that disarms people and allows them to be who they are while we point them in a certain direction and aid them in discovering truth.

I hope your Easter weekend was a good one, filled with time with your family and remembering the event that shapes our faith, and ultimately our lives.

Labels: Christianity, Journey Church

Labels: Marriage, The Hubby

Anyone who went to NGC in the year 2000-2001 will understand that title. Those who didn't ... you're not really missing anything.

“Sometimes I fear maybe this is all just a game
Our friends and our families all play too
To harness the young and give some comfort to the old.”
(more...)

Labels: Christianity, Journey Church

Those who are from Walterboro, SC and the surrounding areas (like the one my husband grew up in) are familiar with the story of the Jacksonboro Light. As the story goes, a young girl had wandered off from her home and as it grew increasingly darker, her parents grew more and more anxious about her whereabouts and frantic in their search. Her dad lit a lantern and set off into the heavily-wooded area around his land and called for her. He searched late into the night and never found his daughter. Tragedy struck twice in the same family when, during his search, the father was struck by a passing train and killed.

Local legend has it that if you go out to this location in Jacksonboro at night, if you turn off your car, flash your headlights five times, and then turn off your lights and sit, you'll hear the sound of a passing train, despite the fact that no train is visible. And then the Jacksonboro Light appears and literally passes over your car -- the ghost of this gentleman still searching for his daughter. And if The Light touches your car, you can't crank it up.

I've heard this story several times in the past few years and Kyle and I were looking for some adventure this weekend, so we -- along with Kenny and Andrew -- drove to Jacksonboro on Saturday to see what it was all about.

Jacksonboro is about 40 minutes from where we live, so we packed up into Kenny's SUV and headed South on 17-A. The directions we were able to find on the internet were not all that clear, so we just drove down the road with the sign that said "<-- Jacksonboro 11" on it until we came to Parker Ferry Road. We drove down The Creepiest Road In Existence waiting for a church to appear on the left, but no church did. And then we were at the end of the road and back on 17-A. We made a few late night calls to find out exactly where we were supposed to be going and got no clear directions. Something about an Edisto River Access, a church, a bridge, a dirt road, and some other craziness.

This story is very anticlimactic in that we didn't really see anything, and we were never 100% sure that we were in the right place. But we will go back -- next time with someone who knows where they're going in the car and not just on the phone.

Oh yeh and we almost hit a deer.

Our roommate Andrew's mom sang at the Map Room the other night. They asked me to take pictures. This was a fun learning experience for me, as I am still kinda just learning how to use the new camera. Thought I'd share some of the good ones.

This was a group of three ladies who sang songs made popular by The Andrews Sisters. It was so much fun to watch! They were good!

Labels: Charleston, Friends, Music, photo