A Tribute

On Wednesday, April 20th, Jonatan David Torres went home with the Lord after a long fight with cancer. On his 15th birthday he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. He went through 26 rounds of Chemotherapy but then the doctors found tumors in his lungs. Jona underwent several surgeries and in December 2010 he was given a month to live. I knew Jona as a little boy as his family attended our church before God called them to start a church in Greer and have many memories of his happiness and his love of practical jokes. He was a wonderful testimony and rebuke to all who knew him and through his 2 year battle he never complained and he even thanked God for the cancer because it had drawn him closer to God.
Jona wanted to glorify God with his life and with his death if God so chose. At 11:40 Wednesday night God decided to take Jona to his eternal home, where he is now free from pain. Jona DID glorify God with his life and with his death and has left a remarkable testimony for all of us to follow. Please pray for the Torres family as they adjust to life without Jona.

Jona wrote a song about Romeo and Juliet for a school assignment and performed it at school. To view it go to: YouTube- "Two Lovers" A Song by Jona Torres

A Blessed Weekend

This weekend we had the great privilege of hosting a "La Espada" evangelistic conference at our church. Our good friends the Garlick's came and Bro. Garlick did all the preaching.

We had lots of special music which was sooo nice. Here the men are singing "Here is Love" one of my personal favorites and Havi and I got to sing "Amazing Grace, Amazing Love" as well.

Many people surrendered their lives to full time service as well and we were blessed to see the fruit of our hard labors so plentifully granted to us.

We also had time for wonderful fellowship with the Garlicks between services and we have tons of wonderful memories of their visit. It's wonderful to have friends like the Garlicks who love the Lord with all their hearts and try to glorify him in all they do.

Playing "Tricky, tricky bear" at 10:30 pm lol.

Mr.Garlick plays the guitar beautifully and he accompanied us as we played. Also this game is a rather fast paced game so that's why the pictures are rather blurry.

And for a grand finale we celebrated Bro. Daniels birthday with him!!! I thank the Lord sooo much for His bountiful blessings upon us an pray that He would help us all to continue faithfully, pressing towards the goal. Also I would like to thank all the Garlicks for allowing themselves to be used by the Lord in such a great way here in Greenville.
God bless y'all!!!

The delights of baking

There is nothing quite like the delicious smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house and cutting slices of it while it's still warm and slathering butter and honey onto it.
And with the new Bosch my mother got for Valentines day it's a breeze to make and the bread comes out oh so soft. So without further delay I'm off to the kitchen to bake to my hearts content:)
Blessings to all!!!!

Ohhhh so sweet

Victoria making salad

Little ones can sometimes be considered "in the way" when one is cooking but if you take the time to incorporate them you can make them the happiest children and have a blast yourself.
Take time to make someone smile today:)

Conferences in Atlanta

This last week has been chock full of conferences and we have therefore been keeping pretty busy. Daddy was in Panama last week and arrived back home on Monday just in time to leave for a "La Espada" conference in Atlanta.

3 new friends, Rebekah, Bethany and Hannah
Havi and I had the great privilege to help teach the children ages 6-11 and we had a BLAST and were able to make lots of wonderful friends.

Acting out the story of Jonah:)
Poor Daniel had the great privilege of being Jonah and was quite nicely thrown into the sea LOL.

Haviland narrating the story

As if Daniel's being Jonah wasn't enough, Havi decided to have revenge on her older sister and made me the big fish!!! I wasn't quite sure how to swallow someone bigger than me but I think I managed OK and the children enjoyed it:)

The ships crew awaiting the storm

Daniel and Timothy lead in the singing

On the last day all the Pastors, Missionaries and Evangelists and their families had
a big competition, Men against women, and whichever team won, got a great prize of Banana splits so you can just imagine how that went!!! It was tons of fun and everybody enjoyed the wonderful, wholesome games.

I was somehow chosen to walk around all the lunch tables, blindfolded, with an egg balanced on a spoon in my mouth. It was an interesting, to say the least, experience and I'm happy to report that I won!!!

Seeing how many marshmallows they could stuff in their mouths and still say "Chubby baby".

The "Cooking knowledge" competition.
In the end I think the teams tied but my family had to leave early so we didn't get our prize:(
We arrived back home Wednesday about 10 min. before our church service started and rested Thursday ( which we were in great need of as going to bed at 1:00 am 3 days straight is not conducive to very good health. Honestly I now have a greater respect for people who teach room fulls of little children!)
We left again on Friday, this time for Sprucepine but I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures as I was in charge of all the music and couldn't very well take pictures and play the piano at the same time;) We returned home yesterday pretty tired but blessed in the thought that God had graciously used us and praying that our work would not be in vain.