Today I had the great privilege to partake in Princess Tiana & Princess Kennedy’s “Gumbo Night”! Rachel and Kennedy spent all day in the kitchen cookin’ up Princess Tiana’s famous gumbo recipe, choppin’, mincin’, stirrin’ & mixin’! I came home to a ginormous Princess Tiana coloring page taped up on the door that read “Welcome To Gumbo Night” and a little 3 foot Sleeping Beauty princess costume wearing waitress ready to take my order! She is getting so big it is ridiculous!

Kennedy took everyone’s orders, sat us at the table and helped Rachel dish out their creation. It was delish! But I noticed that there was way too many “brightly colored” elements aka vegetables in this dish for Kennedy’s liking, and of course after one bite she let out the infamous phrase, “I don’t like it anymore!” I think she ended up eating about one and a half pieces of sausage and a bite of bread.

All in all dinner was great, I can’t believe my baby girl is big enough to help mommy cook already! Life goes by so fast & so many times I catch myself letting it slip through my fingers while I sit back and watch Baseball or ESPN while the girls play on the living room floor. Its time to change that.

Outie Five

When we moved to Jackson, we were gladly welcomed in by two great folks. It took a lot of arm twisting, but finally, my mom and dad agreed to let us stay with them as long as we needed to…(TOTALLY lying about twisting their arm, but hopefully that was obvious!) So, here we came, with all of our junk and moved right on back into the home that I grew up in. A little bit different this time, but wonderful! As wonderful as it was to have built in baby-sitters, and no rent for the first time since December 2006, we were definitely ready to have a place of our own. We were ready to rent again if that’s what God had in store, but our heart’s desire was to own a home! So the search was on. One of Chuck’s passions, which I’m sure many people can relate to, is looking at homes online. We found so many! But we never went to look at any. The whole time, I tried to tell Chuck that it was gonna be magical and that his searches were useless. My prayer since the beginning was pretty specific in many ways, but especially in one way. If you’ve seen Miracle on 34th Street, you will remember the end where Santa has given the little girl what she truly wanted for Christmas. It was a house. As her family was driving by, she freaked out all of sudden and made them stop. It was the exact house that she had cut a picture of and given to Santa. He gave it to her. And it just was there like BOOM! here’s your house. So yea, that was kinda my prayer. That God would just lay it in our lap, and hear me out…that we wouldn’t have to look for it AT ALL! SO…on we go!

Toward the end of June, I talked to my grandpa about a cute house we had seen online. He took an interest in our wanting to buy a house and started searching for us! While at the library with the girls one day, I got a call from Chuck telling me that GrandBobby’s neighbors were moving out in a hurry & leaving everything behind. So we figured, what the heck it’s worth a shot. Condensed version…we went, we loved, we bought! The elderly couple was leaving and moving into an assisted living apartment. Which therefore meant that everything besides the living room, and bedroom furniture…stayed. INCLUDING but not limited to: tool shed with oh about thousands of dollars worth of tools and man goodies, brand new 4-wheeler with oh about 4.5 hours on it, 2 other sheds filled with camping stuff, generator for the house, enormous hand crafted knife collection, bread maker, meat slicer, ice cream maker , grill, deep freezer, all appliances, extra fridge, washer & dryer etc. It was the perfect 1600 sq ft that our sweet family of 4 needed! I immediately knew that this was no coincidence, and if you for one second think that this is a coincidence, and that we were just lucky…you might be smoking crack! This house and all that came with it, was a complete answer to prayer. Because another of my specific prayers for when we got a house, was that it would be a testimony to how amazing our God truly is. I wanted it to make God look REAL good! Like, there’s no other way but God. And that is exactly what we got. I mean seriously, there IS NO other way but by God’s good grace and compassion, that we would ever fall into something so amazing!

We got the house at a BEYOND ridiculous price. Trust me. We got it for less then what they originally paid, and that’s after the $30,000  worth of upgrades they put into it…yea. So sitting in church one morning, I was reading one of my favorite scriptures. Deuteronomy 6:5-9. Which basically says, Love God with all your might! Commit to His commands, repeat them to your children, surround yourself with them, write them on the doorposts of your house. (Which was why I was reading it again, because I wanted to fill my new home with scriptures, and this is one) and on that particular Sunday, I kept reading. Allow me to share. Verse 10) The Lord your God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give you when he made a vow to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a land with large, prosperous cities that you did not build. 11) The houses will be richly stocked with goods you did not produce. You will draw water from cisterns that you did not dig, and you will eat from vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant. (Did I mention that there is a garden in the backyard, tons of flowers, a fig tree and a pear tree?) When you have eaten your fill in this land, 12) be careful not to forget the Lord, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.

So there ya go. A confirmation of sorts. Never has there been a more perfect verse. A promise of what God had promised us. Remember the scripture I shared in the last blog, Matthew 19:29, Any man who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.

God called Chuck and I to leave Sevierville and come to Jackson to help plant a church. That was not in our plans. Sevierville was our home and our family. Everything that we knew and loved. BUT, we left it, for God. And sure enough, the blessings that we have since received just since we arrived have definitely been a hundred fold. We have an amazing peace about where we are and what we have been called to do. As hard as the task at hand may be, we will do it with all our might, and we will rest easy each night knowing the promise of eternal life that God specifically gave to us and our family. Sorry it was long…but ya should’ve known! lol. May God Bless. Hope this was a good testimony. If not, then God’s gonna have a bone to pick with me! hugs and kisses.

Rach

(Please understand that each time I post, it somehow always ends up REALLY long! I pre-apologize, but it will totally be worth it! Promise!)

God. That’s the one word that over the last few months I have found myself saying over and over. Speechless and only able to simply say “God.” Like Chuckles said, our life at The Gathering, and what God did with us there, is really where our lives in general began. My fingers would be broken if I attempted to type all of the ways in which God has blessed us, disciplined us, and matured us in the past 3 years. Because of that, we are able to give Him all the glory, honor & praise for some pretty cool things. Ex 1. We inherited a minivan from an AMAZING family at church who knew we were in the market. (Don’t judge me and my 25 year old minivan driving self!) Yes…I said INHERITED! 2000 black Ford Windstar, in GREAT condition. Problem with that, was that it left us with 3 cars. So, God ALLOWED us to give Chuck’s Acura to one of my loves in the youth group, who was a single mom & had just totaled her car. So, we got to pay it forward, & give this young mommy a car that she really needed. What a privilege to be able to give someone a car in the name of Jesus. Very cool! We eventually ended up putting my car on craigslist to get an SUV. We thought, “what the heck?!” And we got exactly what we wanted for it only 18 hours later. Which allowed us to get an AMAZING deal on a 4runner the very next day, for the exact amount that we sold mine for! WHOA! Yea I know! So that’s our super cool car stories. And if that’s enough…we’re only just beginning!

For all who read the “house” blog that I posted like forever ago, you know now why God wanted us to obey Him in not buying that dream house! We would be one of those families whose house was a foreclosure because a year after we bought it we were called to Jackson, TN. I knew that my God had a bigger plan. He always knows the bigger picture & what is good for us, when we have no earthly idea why He is doing things! So, a few months ago, God started planting some seeds in our hearts and really speaking quite clearly to us about a ton of stuff. For example, I was wondering why God was giving me scripture after scripture about “immediate obedience.” And wondering what He wanted me to immediately obey?! I soon found out that when He called us to Jackson, it would be quick, and even though I didn’t want to leave everything behind, I had to “immediately obey.” And we did. Another example & promise from scripture that helped was Matthew 20:29 “And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.” YO! Sign me up for that promise right?! So to this day, we claim that promise, because we sure as heck packed up our perfect little life over in cute little Sevierville, and left everything behind for Jackson, TN. We would never have chosen to do that. Trust me. (No offense to Jackson, and all of my amazing family in Jackson) But in the words of Chuck’s mom, “Boy Howdy!” have we been blessed a hundred fold since then….BUT I will have to continue later. I have WAYYY crossed the line in my longness. And there is much more to tell. So I shall return soon. As always when I write…..TO BE CONTINUED!!!

XOXO

~Rach

Here goes it…

Back on June 1st Rachel and I along with our two b-e-a-utiful girls packed up and headed west, all the way to the flatlands of Jackson, Tennessee about 5 hours down I-40 from our previous place of residency. God has called our family to Jackson, TN to be a part of Journey Church, a new Church north of Jackson in the town (not sure if its officially a town or a city or just an area) of Three Way, TN. We launch our first service on 10.10.10. If you are in the area come check it out! And if you are not in the area, then get in your car and drive out for 10.10.10 its gonna be bangorang!

My last day as the Student Pastor at The Gathering in Sevierville (where I always tell people I learned more there in 3 years than I did during my 6 year college career…its so true) was June 1st, and my first day with Journey Church was June 22. Therefore we had 21 days to do kinda whatever we wanted, while keeping in mind I was missing a paycheck, so it wasn’t really whatever we wanted, but we took advantage of it anywho! We hit the road and headed to Fernandina Beach, FL to visit some good friends down there and hit up the beach to get our tan on! It was the first time we were able to go to the beach as a family and it was an absolute blast! Kennedy took a few days to get used to the ocean but once she did we couldn’t drag her away from all that sand and salty oceany goodness.

After the beach we returned back to Jackson and attempted to get in the swing of things while crashing with the in-laws for as we searched for a place to shack up the Van Hook family. As soon as Kennedy and JulieAnne started getting accustom to life at GeeGee (not sure how to spell that one, but that looks like how it sounds) and BoomBoom’s (Kennedy’s name for grandpa because whenever rachel calls, his ringback tone is the Black Eyed Peas “Boom Boom Pow”) house we were on the road again! This time we loaded up the new Swagga Wagon and headed north…16 hours north to Rochester, NY for a family wedding. We had a blast seeing all of our family and experiencing the upstate New York lifestyle. I also got to take all three of my girls to see Niagra Falls! That place is just as amazing as it was the last time I was there when I had a sweet bowl cut and wore a fanny pack, high socks and florescent shorts!

After returning from the wedding in New York we hit the ground running with Journey Church. I feel like we have been going 10,000 mph these last few weeks! Church planting is no joke! And I’m only the sidekick for this launch (Jeremy is doing a kick booty job at getting this launch going and reaching people who are far from Christ! Check his blog out.)

Quick run-through of what alls been going on with Journey and the Van Hook Family. ONE: We have been raising support that allows me to serve on staff here at Journey, we have spent a ton on stamps and envelopes and if you have not gotten a letter, chances are its in the mail or on its way in the next 5 days or perhaps I do not posses your mailing address. If you would like some info and don’t receive a letter in the next week hit me up with your address. TWO: I have been working like crazy to get this Family Ministry shaped up and ready to launch! God is good and He is giving me a lot of good ideas, Journey Kidz is gonna be the new hotness!! THREE: I have been sweating a whole lot. Seriously. It might be abnormal. FOUR: Last week I had the privilege to lead a mission trip here in Jackson with the awesome folks from the Student Ministry of New Hope Christian Church which is based out of Bryan, OH. I cannot put into words the amount of work we got done last week, but I will try real quick. We canvased most of the houses north of I-40 with door hangers (I referred to it as “Getting our Jehovah Witness On”). The students did a great job at getting Journey Church out there to the public! They helped us save 5 to 10 g’s easily! Thank you so much to everyone in that group, you guys were awesome! (Remember to keep your eyes out for those intense double rainbows!) FIVE: We are heading to Nashville next weekend for a conference, it should make for a good time.

Awwww Shooooooot. This post is long as Lindsey Lohan’s wrap sheet and I haven’t even gotten a chance to mention all of incredible, mind-blowing craziness that God has done in our lives this summer! Seriously it is redonkulous what all God has done for me and my family this summer, but Rachel does such a better job at putting it into words so I will have her post up here tomorrow and share all the blessings God has done in the last two months! Here is a table of contents for her post tomorrow.

-Someone gave us a van.

-We gave our car away

-We prayed for a house that could be a testimony

-God gave us a house, furnished, with tools and a 4 wheeler

-We needed a car to help with a Church Trailer & Prayed God would provide

-Sold our car in 18 hours

-God provided us a car to meet our needs the next day

-We are healthy and our girls love God

This is long…sorry…its good stuff…Rachel’s posting tomorrow…Check it!

Outie Five

Enjoy a little Sho Baraka on me today, and pick up his album Lions & Liars.

Im Outie.

Needless to say Joey and I were enthusiastic about hanging out at the ER till 530 in the morning the morning we were leaving to return to Tennessee. It was dandy!

So on this trip I informed everyone from the get go that if they were planning on jumping from any second story windows not to call me or request any assistance from me because I would not be providing any sympathy. Praise God all the students kept windows closed and did not pull any escape tactics out windows…that I know of anyways.

Here are some highlights from the trip…

-12 people + 12 passenger van + 2 snowboards/2 sets of skis & everyones luggage = a very congested and personal space invasion-ish 6 hour ride. Thank you Jesus for deodorant.

-SHEETZ!!!!

-The students crashed with current Liberty Students for the weekend. On the whole trip up there Tyee was hopeing that their roommates would be huge World of Warcraft Nerds. His dreams came true. But they were cool nerds. With a Ukulele.

-Jordan & Jonathan were not so lucky, they were greeted by half naked roommates who were dead asleep at 5 o’clock in the evening. J&J were not to thrilled with this, however their roommates turned out to be pretty cool dudes in the end.

-The girls roommates…didn’t hear much about them except one of them was like a 6 foot 4 redhaired chick that made them sleep on the concrete floor…life is so hard.

-SHEETZ!!!

-Dr. Erugan Caner spoke at Chapel on Friday and it was stinkin’ awesome! Worship was pretty beast as well. I really enjoy Dr. Caner, I’d like to hang out with him some day.

-Tyee won a free Wii just for filling out his application to Liberty. He filled it out in like 2.5 minutes. That was pretty sweet.

-Although no students were injured on the trip I did have to make one trip to the Hospital. Liberty has this thing called SnowFlex. Its the equivilant of the rough side of velcro, with sprinklers in it that you can ski and snowboard on year round. Apparently it takes some getting used to, and also their are apparently some dry spots on the run. I found one, caught the toe side edge of my board and jacked up the knee pretty good. All in front of about 200 folks chillin at the lodge who decided they would laugh and clap for me as a source of encouragement. Thank you for that encouragement. It really made me feel good about myself….

-SHEETZ!!!

-Got to introduce some of the students to my good friends Salvation Army and Goodwill. While Jordan and Jonathan introduced all of us to fake mustaches from 50 cent machines(50 Cent Gumball machines not 50 Cent the Rapper). I believe thrifting will now be  a weekly youth outing for anyone who wants to join!

-Skillet put on a killer show on Saturday night, I wish I could say the same for TobyMac, but I think he wore himself out playing 1 game of basketball a few hours beforehand. It seriously took him 40 minutes to get his show going after the Skillet show. So we heard one half of a song before we bounced back up to SnowFlex to check out the Mt. Dew Rail Jam and Big Air Comp. Those guys were much better than me on the VelcroFlex! Kudos!

-SHEETZ!!! I think we ate at SHEETZ at least 8 times during our 3 day stay. Its amazing. If you don’t know SHEETZ, Get to know them.

-We left with about half of our students interested in possibly attending Liberty University to further their education. Pretty pumped about that.

-Oh Yeah. How could I forget! Katie made Danielle wear her yellow rain jacket all week so that we could keep up with her and she would not get lost! It worked we didn’t loose her once. Good Job Girls!!!

There are some pics up on my Facebook if you are interested in checkin em out.

Time to be Outie Five Thousand.

Any who this past week we had a pretty bangorang Easter-esk Wednesday night service. I spoke on Matthew 9:9-13 (Go Check it Out). The band played an awesome song with a powerful video playing behind them & Brotha Andrew Rup gave his first ever invitation. Using this sweet video…

The Result? We had 11 students give their lives to Christ! Praise God. Wednesday was followed up with a stinkin’ incredible Easter Sunday Service upstairs where somewhere around 300 people got saved! It don’t get much better than that.

Be Blessed. Keep Raising HIM Up!

Outie 5

Sorry.

Back to the story. Before our Ihop stop I took Kennedy to her mothers day out, the trip was going great, like it always does, a little Itsy Bitsy Spider, a little ABC’s, you know, all the good stuff. Well in between songs, out of no where I hear what sounds like a 400 pound man blowing a tuba in the back seat! I aint talkin’ about no little 22 month old tuba either! More like a 65 year old, awww Crap! It slipped, I’m older and I can get away with it kind of tuba.  Very impressive.

At this point I am stuck between the feeling of amazement and disgustination! For those that have not quite caught on yet, Kennedy let one rip. An air biscuit. A toot. As ladies always say, a fluff.  So I turn to her and say, “Kennedy, what was that?” And in response I get this…

What kind of 22 month old already knows how to shift the blame of a fart onto someone else!? After I heard that, I lost it, laughing so much I began to cry. This however was not the correct way to react, because for the remainder of the 10 minute drive to Mother’s Day Out Kennedy repeated the word “Fart” and thought it was the funniest thing since people taking men’s figure skating seriously!

I hope and pray her mom can instill some manors and lady like qualities in my little girl since I have already started her off on the wrong foot. But just know, if you ever find yourself in an awkward fart situation, you can always pass it off on someone or something else… that just makes it 10 times funnier.

Outie 5Thousand

Therefore, I going to begin combining two things I love so I can get back on top of my blog game. From past posts you may have witnessed that I am pretty much the best cartoonist since Yakko, Wakko and Dot. (Don’t know em? Get to!) Also I really enjoy telling little short stories about my life and the adventures I seem to always find myself in.

On that note, every day I will try my best to post a simple sketch of an event that took place in my life that day, along with a simple explanational (big fake word) story to let you know the details behind the pic. Some stories may be funny events from my family life, stressful yet enjoyable events from my experiences working with Teenagers or even some deep stuff from my spiritual journey God’s got me one.

So I hope you enjoy the new swag I am about to unleash on you, welcome to Sketchical Stories From the Life of 3zie.

Enjoy!

Outie 5