Blog

  Yesterday was our Community Church's annual BBQ, and this year it was at our house!  Recent years have had heavy rain storms on our late June event and we thought it might happen again this year, but as it turned out, it was only a 'spitting' rain!  Not enough to keep the kids from having a great time in the back garden or for many to sit around outside!  Here's a bit of a photo journal of this event:

                 Tim A. helping out at the BBQ with Pat G. waiting for his burger and sausage!

                  From the young to the not-so-young, everyone was having a great time!

                   From good discussion in front of our world map in the kitchen . . .

          . . .  to birthdays for three, all on the same day! Congrats David, June & Sam.

                               The teenagers were having a great time as well!

Take a look at this photo I snapped yesterday.  I did not use a flash. I didn't use a tripod or any other 'photo trick'.  This shot reflects the darkest part of the sky at 10:02 pm.  It was not truly dark, dark until around 11:15 pm . . .

The photo was taken of small trees in full blossom in our front garden!  The sky lights up again in the morning around 3:45 so we have a total of about 4 1/2 hours of 'night time' this time of year! The only down side is that it's hard to get to bed before 1:00 am, and the sunrise wakes you up by 4!  

On another topic I wanted to give you a brief update on Kathy's sister, Pam, now that it has been 3 1/2 months since her stoke.  We know many many people around the world have been praying for her.  She has been moved again to a less intensive rehab centre much closer to her home; about a 40 minute drive instead of more than 2 hours, as before.  Her progress continues to be incredible, we were even able to talk to her directly over the phone last week.  She is learning to walk again and is struggling with double vision and short term memory. She desperately wants to go home but there still needs to be lots more improvement before that will be possible.  A huge Thank You to all who are thinking of and praying for Pam.

No pictures yet, but Jack Henry Laughlin was born yesterday evening, 15th June, in Sacramento, California to Mark & Aubrey.  The little guy weighed in at 7 lbs, 8 ozs and stretched to a whopping 20.5"!  Mom Aubrey is doing well, though exhausted.  Mark called us this morning around 4:35 am, our time, to 'deliver' the good news.

We can't wait to see him, but that will have to wait for a while.  We are so grateful to The Lord for this new little one and we promise to post a pic or two as soon as we can!

Also, I wanted to let you know how Sarah's fund raising BBQ went last Saturday evening . . . we had about 53 friends show up to enjoy good food and to watch the USA take on England in the World Cup!  Sarah had a donation box set up in the kitchen and that was about it.  The last friend left around 12:45 am and we decided to see how the donations went.  Honestly, Sarah was hoping she might be able to raise around €500 but when she finished counting, it was €1,304!  Absolutely amazing, we were all blown away with the generousity of so many.

Sarah was able to buy her plane tickets and is not to far from the total amount she needs to raise - all from one BBQ and 50 wonderful friends that want to support and encourage her as she serves in Guatemala this summer.  A huge Thank You to all who came or donated!