Thanksgiving Month Highlights

~Thank you Lord for the ministry of CEF!~

For the first week of November, I was stuck in front of the computer screen, preparing a lesson I had been invited to teach at the  So. Cal CEF State Leadership Enrichment class. One thing that I absolutely love about teaching anything is that after I have taught it, I actually know the material! Teaching is definitely the best way to learn! I had a lot of fun teaching this class session about Step 5 of The Plan. Because we couldn’t get the PowerPoint clicker working, Aunt Debi and I made it a team effort. So much fun! Love you Aunt Debi!

~Thank you Lord of Uncle Bill and Aunt Debi. Please bless their ministry.~

The following week we found out that my Mom’s Grandmother, whom we affectionately called Grandmama, had passed away. We waited a few days to leave for Colorado in order to attend a scheduled meeting with the Superintendent of the Palmdale School District. As a result of that meeting, the Palmdale School District is now open to Good News Clubs.

~Thank you Lord for opening the doors!~

After a long night of traveling we arrived at my Grandma’s house in Colorado. Our time with family although filled with sorrow over the loss of my Great Grandmother, was one of tremendous joy. My Great Grandma lived her life for the Lord. When she came to know the Lord as her Savior, everyone around her saw the difference. It was thrilling to me to be a part of the celebration of her life. We rejoice that she is now with her Savior.

This is a picture of Grandmama- Elizabeth Ann, Grandma- Barbra Ann, Mommy- Jennifer Ann, and the baby- Melissa Ann.

~Thank you Lord for a safe trip and a wonderful time with family!~

This past Saturday we conducted a six  hour training for teachers who are planning on running a Good News Club in Tumbleweed, a school in Palmdale.

~Thank you Lord for a good day of training.~

In preparation for an Art show this past week end, Beth has been working furiously on her painting the last few weeks. Her paintings are so amazing and wonderfully beautiful! They are simply gorgeous! As I mentioned before, if you would like to help Beth raise money to pay for her Midwifery College Tuition, she will paint you a picture. I wish I could purchase all of them!!!!!

And then the most exciting thing ever. I’ve saved the best for last……Kyle is Coming!!!! Kyle is Coming!!!! Kyle is Coming!!!! Kyle is Coming!!!! Kyle is Coming!!!! Kyle is Coming!!!! He will be here on Saturday the 17th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Dear Lord, Thank you so much for bringing Kyle into my life. Please bless us and give us your wisdom as to what you would have us to do with our lives. Amen~

Up to date

So I haven’t really updated my blog since the end of March. Something about spending a lot of time talking to a very special person…… Maybe this post will sort of make up for it! The following are little snipits from our life over the past few months.

Spitfire our faithful bull dog passed away this summer. As you might have noticed from some of the pictures, we have also had a few smaller creatures added to the menagerie that roams this place.

Rebecca, Heather, my dad, and I  finished our TCE 1 class. Daddy and I just received our TCE1 teaching credentials! Yay!!!!!!

I had an awesome time working at The Oaks this summer! My favorite positions were as a belay person on the Vertical Playpen and the instructor standing on the zip line platform. I also was able to ref. a few paintball games!

Sarah wanders the house singing her A B C’s…..well sort of. She can only make it up to the letter “D.” She can say almost anything! Her little baby accent is the most adorable thing ever!

All of the Elementary Good News Clubs in the East side school district have been adopted by Lancaster Baptist. The three clubs operating in that district are managed by college students from West Coast Baptist. They are doing an amazing job! They are now running the clubs completely on their own. We enjoy visiting them on occasion to see if we can be of any assistance.

Birthdays- In May Heather turned 18 and David turned 8. We now have four adult children living at home. Oh my Goodness! David is 8!!!!!!!! Then July came around. Michael is now 14 and Daniel is 10. In October Beth turned 20. Daddy just had a his birthday as well! Happy Birthday Daddy!

Over the last few months Kyle and I have seen multitudes of our plans swept aside. We are praising the Lord that His plans are best and our lives are in his hands. We have been courting for the last four months and have continued to be amazed at how God is bringing us closer together. Upon arriving in Japan, Kyle found out that he was to stay there for three years (now closer to two and a half years). He is currently making plans to come back to visit as soon as he possibly can. The plan to come back mid October didn’t work out. Neither did the plan to come back for Thanksgiving.  As of right now, Kyle is going to be able to visit in December. We are soooo excited! I am beginning to learn what it means to have your life run by the Army. At the same time, we are trusting that all our plans are in His Hands.

I received my Liberty Home Bible Institute curriculum. I’ve finished the Creation Stage and am now working on studying Prophecy.

Heather and Nathan LeMaster are now in a courtship relationship.

Beth is pursuing her painting with a fury in order to raise $5,000 by January for her Midwifery college. If you would like more information about her paintings please let us know!

Please be praying for our family! With the economy being what it is and the new relationships, and schooling, and ministry, and family, and…….and……things are pretty busy!!! We covet your prayers.

Overcomers

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with kindness. For me it takes some serious effort to show those around me the simple everyday kindnesses owed them by me. This year I decided to study “The art of being Kind.” So far my favorite definition is as follows…..

Kindness is paying the price to meet the needs of others.

This would make the opposite of kindness to be selfishness, which according to Beautiful Girlhood is every girl’s battle. A blog that I follow put together a post on Forgiving. The following section copied from this post spoke to my heart this morning.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive (Col. 3:12–13).

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:17–21).

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. . . . Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice (Eph. 4:26–27, 31).

              Let’s simmer these three verses down to their essence:

1. Jesus asks us to forgive others because He has forgiven us.
2. It’s God’s job to right wrongs, not ours.
3. He asks us to do everything in our power to live in peace with others.
4. Refusing to deal with our anger, bitterness, rage, harsh words, backstabbing, and grudges gives Satan a foothold in our lives.

By God’s grace you and I can overcome the evil beast of selfishness that is in our hearts, minds, and lives….and BEEEEEEEEEEEE KIND!

                                                     (Playing with Salt and Sarah)

Long Distance

Do you have a long distance relationship with your Savior? I asked myself this question this past week, and have found it to be exceedingly convicting. There is a 16 hour difference between here and Japan, where Kyle is currently stationed. Long distance relationships can be……..interesting. One thing that makes it  hard is the limited amount of time that we are able to talk. It isn’t like I can call him at any time I want to…. or the other way around.

During my Bible time one morning I realized that I was putting my relationship with God in a box. It was like I had regulated God to my quiet time in the morning, or in other words to that scheduled phone call time. I stuck to my bible reading schedule as if there wasn’t anything else to read, and kept my prayer time to the 15 min in the morning and “help” messages throughout the day.

Revelations!!!! I don’t need to have a long distance relationship with my Savior! He is with me all the time! I can read in his word voraciously! I can talk to him ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!! I don’t have to wait for the sun to come up, or him to get off work before he is available. This past week I’ve been working on being more spontaneous and less rigid about my quite time. It has given me great freedom to just let loose and literally “eat” the Word. How awesome it is that even though we can’t physically see him, we don’t have to have a long distance relationship with our Savior.

 

Timo, Pistola’s, and Strangers

I was in the kitchen making something at six this morning when a little one streaked past me dressed in full costume. “Good Morning Cowboy!” I called after the retreating figure. I hadn’t really seen the outfit or who was in it. I then heard Timothy saying, “I’m NOT a cowboy!”

Later in the morning I took Thomas and Timothy with me on a short trip to the store. It was then that I actually had a chance to “look” at the little man’s costume. It consisted of a tri-cornered hat, a yellow button down shirt, and a toy orange hand gun hanging from a red sash tied around his waist.

“Good Morning Pirate!!! I said to my Timo mans. “I’m NOT a Pirate,” he replied! I then proceeded to tell him how each article of his costume made him look like a Pirate. When I made it down to his pistol, Timothy informed me that Pirates only use pistola’s (Pistol with a Spanish sound). Since he had a pistol not a pistola then he was most definately NOT a Pirate. He then proceeded to tell me the difference between a Pistol and a Pistola.

“Lissa, a Pistola has a little longer barrel, the handle curves like this, and it is a little bigger. I’m not a Pirate!”It’s a little more complicated than that. He spent the five-minute drive to the store explaining to me the technical differences between the two weapons.

So Cute!!!!!!! Got to love little actors!

Cute Quote from this morning-

I was walking through the store with the boys when a Grandmother said to me, “Oh I remember those days. I now have six grandchildren.” After talking to her briefly we moved on down the aisle. Timothy told me, “Lissa, I don’t think that you should talk to strangers!”

It’s Under His Control

When I was in my early teenage years I gave to God my right to be married. I mean truly gave it to him. I knew that by giving that right, it  meant that I would be ok with him saying I wasn’t going to get married ever. Instead of day dreaming about when Prince Charming was going to ride up on his white charger, I began to focus on how I could minister to those around me. I became my Dad’s right hand when it came to the ministry, the business, or other office work. In fact, I began to focus on it to the point of shutting all household and homemaking skills out of my life. But that is a topic for another post.

The year I turned 21 and again on my 22nd birthday I had to again struggle with giving to God my right to have a special someone in my life. “God I’m 21, I’m 22,! When my mom was my age she was married already, and had known my dad for four years! What are you doing to me? There is no way that I could get married before I’m 25! Why would you make me wait that long? Lord I again give to you my right to be married some day.”

In May God brought a wonderful young man into my life. All I can say is God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Girls, God doesn’t work on our time frame. When it is the right time for that man to be in you life, God will put him there. This is just another way in which God was saying to me, “Melissa, trust me! I have everything under control!” When will I ever learn!!!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
   and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
   and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

“Is your shower working?”

Sometime after five in the morning,  I heard one of my dear friends say, “The shower isn’t working.” She had tried it. I got up and tried it. Of the 4 or 5 of us girls staying in the cabin that week for the CEF International conference, not one of us had any ideas on how to get it working. Brains don’t work very well that early in the morning anyways.  The question was, how to get the water to come out of the shower head. We wiggled, pried, pulled, spun, and banged on the only part that could possibly have been designed for this purpose. Yup! It was broken.  I didn’t suffer much because my parents were staying just up the hill in a cosy sprawling apartment with an easily operated shower. We did everything that we could to get the maintenance team out to fix it. Two visits to the front desk failed to produce a solution. So some of the girls asked our honorary “CMI dad” to help.  After two days we found a note on our bathroom door.

The shower was just fine the whole time! The broken thing we had been thinking would do the magic trick was the plug for the tub.  LOL!!!! Nearly every time we turned around one of our friends would ask us, “Is your shower working?”

Serving in our Corner of the World (International Conference)

It didn’t begin like we had planned. About 4 o’clock A.M. things started going wrong. I don’t know why God planned it this way. Maybe he wanted to show me how nasty I can be when things don’t go the way I planned, just so that I can work on it. We didn’t make it to our flights on time. This was to be my first flight flying with my parents. I thought that it would go off without a hitch but……$150 later we were on our way to Atlanta, Georgia. Upon landing we had either a 5 hour layover plus a 2 hour drive in a rented car to our destination in North Carolina, or we could drive the whole way. We drove and it ended up being the best option all the way around. Eventually we made it safely to the conference.

View of clouds from on top

I have now personally adopted the motto of this conference as my own. Every Child, Every Nation, Every Day. Together we can! No long is this a random phrase on a colorful poster, no longer is it just a “CEF thing.” It has faces, places, goals, meaning, & substance. It’s the big picture, a cause worth fighting for, a banner behind which to stand, a motto for living, a vision of great things to come. Together we can reach every child in every nation around the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then help that child to grow in Christ each and every day.

Over 1,000 CEF workers from Asia, India, Egypt, Africa, Brazil, Europe, America, Canada, and many other nations from all over the world gathered together for the International Conference.  At this conference a little over $1,000,000 were raised so that we can now support 300 full time overseas national CEF missionaries on the field in various nations around the world for a year. This conference brought renewal of vision, deepening of passion, a since of accomplishment and success as servants of our God, and an awareness of the need. It brought a since of belonging to something big, and I mean God sized BIG. I received invitations to work in many different countries, and in various places across the US.

I loved connecting with friends from CMI, my parents CMI class, and making new friends. This trip gave me ides for how to set up teacher training classes and help teachers make their clubs dynamic. I’m sold on focusing on the fundamentals of Training, Equipping, and Supporting our Good News Club workers.

Friends from CMI!!!!

One thing that I came away impressed by the  importance of prayer in ministry. Mr. Kauffman, our president said, ” Your personal time you spend alone with God will do more to increase your ministry than the time you spend in the office.” I want to learn how to pray!

Although this trip didn’t begin as planned, I know that all plans are in his hands. He planned for us to attend the International Conference. In answer to prayer, we were able to get bumped on the way home, receiving vouchers that will Lord willing purchase tickets to next years conference. Praise God for how He is using CEF around the world!!!!! I pray that God will give us much grace as we serve together with our fellow laborers in our corner of the world.

Quotes

Visiting Grandma's grave. It has been a year.

Timothy- Do you know what? I’ve been fasting of….of….um…….water.
Thomas- Guess what? I’ve been fasting of water too!

Timothy- (Discussing who should eat the cake batter out of the bowl) “I’ll tell you what, I’m going to have the bowl for an hour…..then you can have the bowl for 2 hours!”
Thomas- “No! I want to have it for 4 hours! Let’s do it how old we are!”

Thomas- (Brandishing a butter knife at the table) “You had better not mess with my knife it’s a sharp knife! Becca! You had better not mess with my knife! Daddy, wouldn’t mess with my knife. But he might mess with me. I won’t mess with Daniel’s knife! Heather you had better not mess with my knife!”

Thomas- Can somebody, Mommy! Can you open the side window so that I can come through?
Mommy- Thomas, you aren’t supposed to use the windows to come inside!

A Friend- “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken”

We now have two Hubbard girls with glasses.

Melissa- “Preparation equals peace of mind.”

Doesn’t fit but it’s still cute!!! Sarah caught a bug and was sitting there watching it wiggle it’s legs.

Customer- “This may be kind of a weird question, but is your Dad the owner of this business, and are you his daughter?”
Me- “Actually, yes!”
Customer- “Awesome! I’ve been calling around trying to find you guys all day! I couldn’t’ remember the name of your business!”

Beth- Was the Printer here today?
Melissa- Beth….the printer….(points to the printer) was here all day.
Beth- “Well then, was the mechanical individual that fixes them here?”

Daddy (During Bible Reading)- Thomas, why don’t you have your bible?
Thomas- I don’t know!
Daddy- Son, the right answer is that you can’t read.
Thomas- I can read I just do it out loud.

Matthew with his new truck!!!

TCE 1

That evening before the party, I received a phone call from our CEF state director. He offered to let me teach his classes at an up coming TCE 1(Teaching Children Effectively Level 1) class. After receiving permission to do so from all of the appropriate people in the next day or so, I began working on class notes. On the first evening I was to teach two 50 min. class sessions!!!!!!

To make a long story short, we made it down to Long Beach for the class just a few minutes late. If we had…….well……..there were a lot of “if’s” that evening. If we hadn’t been lost, if only the first day of TCE hadn’t fallen on a GNC day,if we  hadn’t tried to go into that driveway, if we hadn’t almost been killed by the oncoming traffic, if we hadn’t left so late….ect. Let’s just say we had quite a time getting to the place.

That was the first evening. For 14 weeks, my Dad, myself, Heather, and Rebecca will make our way down to Long Beach to learn how to be better child evangelists. Please keep us in your prayers!!!