make disciples of all nations
In true Valley form, we have been blessed with the unique opportunity to love on our community in a way no one else is: An all inclusive mom's night out: FREE childcare, pampering, shopping, dinner, and a MOVIE!!!
We all know every women could use a ladies night but those in our community dealing with the aftermath of the AR tornadoes have an even bigger need this Mother's Day weekend to cut loose with their girls. Can't wait to share more about this.
       |
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
  |
We woke early after a loooong night of little sleep and too much worry, wondering if our friends were okay, if our church's meeting space had survived, and what exactly had happened to our community. Dropping off our kids with their grandparents freed us up to go out in search of the answers to all those worries. I was focused as we working our way through roadblocks and security down to our friends’ home where our friends’ home once stood. I was on a mission, get to their house. Find her. Give her a hug and a Dr. Pepper. I had a plan.
I found her neighborhood, or what was left. I could see the demolished street from atop the hill where we sat behind law enforcement who were protecting our friends from looters. I found her home, or what was left. A sad resemblance of the place I dropped my kids so many times so Matt and I could go on a date night. Once inside, I found my friend, what was left of her. I lost focus. I lost my self-controlled-persona. She wept on my shoulder while uttering confusion over her spared life and not that of her son’s best friends who had eaten dinner with them less than 12 hours before the digging through rubble began. She may not have been intact as I'd left her or once knew her but she was becoming a new creation.
She gained composure as did I and ask for a task. I headed to a bedroom with the goal of retrieving any remaining toys and clothes. I dug and packed. I shook off glass and shards of home. I crammed totes full of once treasured belongings that are now “remains”. I found glimpses of HOPE among the destruction. Signs God was for us, not against us. He had not left us.
I glanced out the window as I threw a piece of lumber through the shattered glass only to see a world so broken I had no chance of making a dent. I couldn’t comfort those whose house was g.o.n.e. Whose children were g.o.n.e. as they lay in a hospital bed and those who knew and loved them dug through their pile of stuff in hopes of finding anything of value.
Just months earlier I'd been sitting in this very house, celebrating that my fourth child would soon be here. I Still Have Her. Alive and well. Tucked safely away with her Nanna as I wonder how my house was untouched with a pile of twigs unwavered, the house I stand in has walls and survivors, and the one down the street is void of life.
I prayed for discernment. Jesus had something for me- Something that I would have the pleasure of being a tiny part of. I got to work with the comfort that in my action, my Redeemer is bigger than my failure. Action is all I could do. Working. Feeling I was attempting to do. something. to right this wrong.
Day one of aftermath was overwhelming to say the least. Swirling questions of God's sovereignty.
Before accomplishing anything close to what I wanted, I left to grab my babies for lunch. I nursed and snuggled my baby. I hugged and gave extra grace to my bigs. They napped and I tried to tackle the mounting text, Facebook notifications and messages that were flooding in from family, local friends, long-distance friends, and heart friends from across the world.
I am a cog. I am just a cog. I am just a cog for the great work Christ is starting in this time and place. Bring on the pain. Bring on the mountain of request to help that I am unqualified to assist with. Bring on the challenge of learning to love this broken, scattered, hurting place. I am thankful that we can find Hope, Joy, and Peace amidst the storm even when we don't understand it. Now its time to put to action the hope, joy, and peace that I have and can only be found in the One who made me.
I have always heard great things about buying in bulk to save money. With four children 5-years-old and younger, I am desperate to save money where ever I can. Living frugal is essential for my family BUT I've also learned, being a recovering hoarder means buying in bulk is not always cost-effective.
I'm confessing all and hopefully helping those who are also recovering hoarders on the Homemaker's Challenge today. I'll be covering 3 things that may cause hoarding rather than smart bulk shopping, 3 signs that you may struggle with hoarding as well as 3 questions every hoarder should ask themselves before buying in bulk. Won't you jump over and give it a read?
The Lord is our protector.
The Lord is our shelter.
We have asked to be used. The time is now.
7:15pm We calmly had our children prepare for bed: PJs, potty, brush teeth. Then they gathered their “sleeping stuff” and headed to the playroom where we had cleared out the school table and doll house and replaced it with a futon, flashlights, a shelf of boots, water bottles, pull-ups, and sugar cookies. They sat and goofed off while we attempted to stay self-controlled as we watched and listening to the weather reports of a quickly approaching tornado.
The power went out.
We snuggled together on the futon, nursed the baby, and read a look-n-find Elmo book by flashlight as Matt and I glanced at each other as we heard the storm silence and then the train approach.
A few minutes passed. The kids finished their book. I strapped the sleepy infant in her carrier and we waited. I can only imagine the wait Noah and his family has after God shut the arch door and they waited for the rain to begin. The unknown.
…
8:30pm Matt snuck out to see if he could get a radio with batteries and signal on his phone. We began playing music for our kids and by no coincidence, the song proclaimed:
“Oh Lord my Lord, you keep us safe. You will protect us. You will keep us safe and watch over us in our coming and going, forever.”
9:00pm Matt headed out to check on dear family-friends. We got word that the tornado passed through their side of town and there was nothing left. The neighbors told me the by-pass apparently looks like a war-zone. The houses behind the sonic in the middle of town are pretty badly damaged. The neighborhood less than ½ a mile away has some damage.
And here I sit. Home intact. Family safely sleeping. Writing. Listing to the terrifying sound of sirens while I have no signal to the rest of the world.
We, like Noah, sent out our birds to check for safe ground. My Matt-bird hasn’t returned. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear what he found. The thought of death and destruction are making my insides cringe.
I just got a text from the family we set out in search of.
“Are y’all ok? Our family is alive. The Lord spared us. All the houses are gone. Many on our road are missing.”
10:00pm The kids' music has stopped. I think they are all 4 finally asleep after the nervous whimpering stopped. I’m sitting here in a big house with a single flashlight lighting the hall for the kids room and the bathroom. I don’t know where that big tub of emergency candles is. I don’t know where my husband is either.
I sit and wait. I’m a worker bee who likes a plan of attack. I don’t know what to do in the silent wait listing to cars and trucks roam up and down near our house in search of people, damage, and destruction. I don’t know how to prepare to be the help God has sent me here to be.
Writing is focusing my thoughts. I want to take captive my thoughts and not let satan run ramped with them through the muck of fear.
My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty. There’s nothing my God cannot do!
        |
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
|
|||
  |
The Valley Church was planted on Easter 2013. Our church was NOT destroyed by the tornado because the church is a people not a building. Our meeting space may be gone but we will continue to be a light for Jesus in this community!
Clicking the image above will take you to our fundraising site. 
