Sunday!

Documenting our sleepovers... They have been loving falling asleep together in my bed! Then one gets booted down to the floor. Hopefully the adjustment isn't too hard when Steve gets home! 

Church was awesome this morning! Since our life group read the book radical and two of the guys in our group are on the leadership team at our church- they decided to do it together as a team and it is so exciting! 

Our church has been hurting in the fact that ever since we have been going it has been "seeker-friendly" keep everything light so that no one is offended and you can reach more people. We had secular music to open up the service, lots of jokes and only fluffy stuff spoken at church to make you feel good about the way your living. I understand why people want to do it... But Jesus was not seeker friendly. He spoke the truth, he offended and he called people out living in sin! The church is a place to learn and grow in your faith and to be challenged. We have missed that deep teaching we enjoyed at our previous church in Calgary. So all that to say- our leadership team is starting radical and they are excited about it! Our pastor spoke a challenging message on giving and spoke from Malachi in the Old Testament. He was saying that if you aren't giving your best to God why even bother? And giving is one of the only things that God says to test him on.

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!" Malachi 3:10

I love this... It gets me excited because we have seen Gods hand move time and time again in regards to our tithe. When you give even when it hurts and when you give the firsts of your fruits and not the leftovers to God. I love the story in

Mark 12:41-44"41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

When Steve went to bible school in Germany, he had amazing teaching on tithing and I remember when we were first married this was his conviction. We had nothing, literally nothing. Married at 18, baby at 19, Steve scraping by trying to find work. We lived in a tiny basement suite with no windows in the back of it and my grocery bill was $25 per week. Each month Steve would take his 10% of whatever he earned and we would bring it to church with me fighting it saying we needed diapers or food or gas money. But he would always give it. Eventually I gave up fighting and at the end of that first year we had more savings then we could believe and we only made $18,000 that year and lived off that paying $850 a month in rent. God is good... I was taught a big lesson that year as the numbers did not add up! 

Again when Steve received his settlement from his accident and we were living in crofton, working at camp and scraping by trying to find a bigger house. He received a large chunk of money and said he had to tithe his 10% I was shocked! We needed to buy a house, or a new vehicle or, or, or!!! But he gave and we prayed over it and that week our pastor called us saying a couple in our church had a house they needed to move out of ASAP. We looked at, knew it was perfect, agreed to buy it and then they called and told us they wanted to sell it to us for $45,000 less then they bought it for two years earlier! All praise be to God! 

You cannot out give God!!! 

Anyways, I am very excited to see what God has in store for our church and the community of crofton. So far since the study one couple in our life group has felt led to adopt siblings from Haiti, they also gave away their car to a struggling family in desperate need of one. Steve felt called to the Dominican and went, another couple is starting to downsize and sell what they don't need, another couple has started having youth in croftom to their homes every Sunday after church for lunch and a bible study. Already 25 youth from crofton are going and only 3 are from church going families. 

I highly recommend reading the book "radical" and studying it with friends or a group... It is a man who has humbled himself before God and is reading His word and living it out... Something we should all be doing! 

Anyways after that huge rant- onto some pictures of our fun Sunday! 

Took the girls to subway for lunch and then followed by going to the pet store across the street to pick Meeko a new squeaky toy. He loved his pig we bought him so much he chewed the head off! Amara carries her own diaper bag everywhere we go... She is pretty cute! 

My favourite... Amara loves her big sisters soooo much! Danika is so good with her and always looks out for her best interest. Sometimes I still feel like Danika is more of a mom than me! The other night at dinner Amara didn't finish her food and the girls were getting dessert, and I got Amara some and Danika looks at me and says "mom she needs to finish her food first," and proceeded to feed her her dinner!

There was a huge wind storm Sunday morning that knocked off huge branches off our trees. So we spent some of the gorgeous afternoon making a big burn pile of branches.

My girls... They all rock! I am totally blessed to be privileged enough to be their mommy and to call them my daughters. They are each so unique, with such wonderful personalities and I pray we can raise them into woman of integrity who love Jesus!!! 

My dolly...