~aaaaaaahhhhh~ What a welcomed relief! We had a great Sunday. We had a good service this morning and Sunday School went well with the kids. Much better than the messy, painty disasters of weeks past. :-) AND... a family that used to attend very regularly but hasn't been to church since we've begun having services in homes was there with us!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! For anybody who was at camp, it was Aaron and his family. :-) They've been attending another church, but Mark (the dad) finally said he wanted to find us and come have church with us wherever we are because they're just not getting fed at the other church. Again, PRAISE THE LORD!!! That is just SO EXCITING to me! There is something different about The Church of God. We hadn't even made it through the service (James had yet to preach) when Mark testified and said he's so glad they came, that he could feel the spirit and presence of the Lord and he felt loved and wanted and he felt "at home" and comfortable. Can I say it a third time?! PRAISE THE LORD!!! I'm just so thrilled. We're hoping and praying that they'll be joining us regularly again. They are a special family and we've really grown to love them. We definitely need a place to worship though--we pack out a house when we're all together! What a good problem to have!!! :-)

James had scheduled tonight's ABM service here at our house. Isn't that thoughtful of him?! HA! Since our floor isn't installed yet and the stove is still in the garage, we weren't able to bake anything today. So after church this morning we stopped by a grocery store and bought a caramel apple cheesecake, some fall cookies, and some mini-brownies to serve after the service. We stopped and had lunch at Burger Boy on our way up the mountain, then came home and got busy straightening the house up a bit. Mom had already gotten the kitchen all cleaned up last night--and somehow cleared off the last of the table debris--so that was a HUGE headstart. We got it whipped into shape pretty quick and actually had a couple minutes to lay down before church.

Sister Galaviz is our newly appointed ABM leader and she had a FANTASTIC service tonight. First of all, it was SO GREAT to have a piano during our song service! It's amazing what a difference that makes. God has been good and we've been blessed in our acapulco ;-) song services, but having a piano (especially when Mom's playing it!) just sort of draws your spirit into the worship of it all, you know? I was so blessed. Anyway, Sister Galaviz talked about the ABM department and used lots of illustrations about the human body and how it functions and how WE are to funcion as a unit. She had the kids help her out with the visual aids. She talked about the organs and the seven major functions (is that what she called them?!) of the body...

And she talked about the joints and how they work--two separate parts working together in harmony and such. Lots of good analogies from that!


And, of course, she went through lots of scriptures about the body and likened it to our own local church. It really spoke to me, and everyone else, I'm sure.
It was a really, really good service! Afterward we pulled out all the goodies and just visited for a while, which was nice. This was the first time any of our folks have been up to our house (except Sister Galaviz--she was here a few days ago) and I LOVED it!!! ~sigh~ It's just so nice to have people here. We've been meaning to have them up one family at a time for dinner, but things have been so crazy--and, of course, you feel bad inviting people to your house when it's all torn up! But it was great tonight. Aside from having only half a new floor (the rest comes tomorrow! WA-HOOOOO!), things looked pretty good around here, I thought! Well, not the garage or the bathroom we're only half done with (it currently has no toilet or sink--which is FAR BETTER than the nasty stuff that used to be there, right Jamey and Em?! Ha!) -- but that doesn't really count! It'll all be better next time around, I'm sure. Anyway, we had a really terrific service and it made me truly happy to be able to have it here at my very own little home. :-)

When everybody left Mom and I ran to the bathroom and put the wallpaper border up. Sorry, Amy--this one is at the top of the room! Ha! I generally prefer them in the middle of the wall, too (in fact, I've never put one at the top before tonight!), but it's just the way it had to go in this particular room! That was our one and only job of the day. Then we sat down with a cookie, another piece of cheesecake and some vanilla cokes and PLAYED A GAME! Yippie!!! It's against all the rules (just ask James--this is not a leisure trip! Mom is here to WORK, WORK, WORK! Ha!), but we've been working soooooo hard... and it's SUNDAY, for goodness' sake! So we got a few hours off tonight. :-) I smothered her at the game, in cause you're wondering. ;-) Tomorrow morning it's back to work! We've got quite a list and only time will tell how it will all go. Especially with the floor guys here again--it's hard to function around them. But it will be soooooooo worth it when I have beautiful new floors tomorrow night and can move everything back into place! I'M SO EXCITED!!! :-)