Club Selah

So a building was donated to Lighthouse Fellowship. We are so totally STOKED! We have been praying about and envisioning a youth center for Imperial for a few years now. It is now going to start becoming a reality! PRAISE GOD!!! Please pray with and for us as these plans begin unfolding and the construction begins and we step out in faith trusting God to go before, behind, and all around us as we seek to obey Him and His desires for this community! It is so exciting! We have a meeting with an architect tonight and we had a cleanup day on Saturday and it was amazing what we got accomplished. Saturday we also got our first monthly pledge. It's so exciting because those of you who know Matt know that he doesn't ask for money. His belief is that where God guides He provides and we don't have to beg people for their money. So true because on Saturday someone comes up to him and said God told me to give this amount of money every month to this project! PRAISE GOD!!! He is providing already!

Breakfast for Jordon

So Jordon has been staying with us for a few weeks now. Austyn makes Jordon breakfast every morning. He even made a menu for Jordon and the night before Jordon writes down what he wants and what time he wants breakfast at. These pictures cracked me up as Austyn was making Jordon breakfast a few days ago!

No Greater Joy

3 John 1:4 says I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. I walked out of my room several mornings ago and this just hit me so neat to see one of the boys Bibles open and they had a piece of paper and a pencil and a scripture written down. It just touched my heart in such an awesome way! Isn't the pocket knife just a boy thing. I got such a good laugh out of that!

New Year's Eve Fun

So a few families from the church came over to ring in the New Year with us. It was a different year in that we had NO TEENAGERS there. Chad and Jordon took them to a youth party and concert in Julesburg and rocked out to For the Few and played a ton of fun blow up games. They had a total blast and ended up meeting another youth group from Ogallala and they all went bowling until the early morning hours. Austyn had a blast and loved doing something on his own and with his own friends and as always he loves hanging out with Jordon and Chad. Meanwhile back at the DuPeire's we were having our normal crazy fun. The highlights of this year were: the mom's all sliding down the stairs with the kids, Guitar Hero World Tour (of course we rocked it with an ALL GIRL band, which included the coolest purple and pink hair), a game of Apples to Apples and no night would be complete without spoons. It was so much fun! We had to put two tables together and it was pure craziness and the guys actually joined us this year. I am proud to announce that there were NO Major injuries this year and we entered the year injury free! We attempted to watch the Ball fall on Time Square at midnight but somehow we missed it. Oh well! Matt started the year of right with a prayer of blessing and that we would be mindful of Christ in our New Year and that we would draw closer to Him! We ended the night at 5:30am which made for just a few hours of sleep before the day actually had to begin! Oh well all is good and we are grateful for the special times that we can have with family and friends! One day we will rest! My prayer for each and everyone of us is that 2009 would be the best year ever for us and I don't mean financially or materially! I pray that this is the year that we draw closer to God then we ever have before. I pray that our roots would go so deep in Him that we would above all and in all keep our eyes on the target and our eyes focused on our blessed Savior and Redeemer! That whatever challenges and obstacles that we face this year that we face it head on fully equipped with God's help and strength and we over come all because we are over comers in and through Christ Jesus our Lord! My prayer is that we fall deeply in love with Jesus every single moment of every single day! I am so excited for 2009 and the promise that God is going before me! How comforting!


I also have a small secret to tell you guys.......Are you ready?????? Matt watched a Nebraska game all on his own. No one pleading with him to or inviting him to a party to watch it he actually watched it in our own home without any prodding!!! I think he is converting but he would never admit that to any of you so let's just keep that our little secret! LOL!!! He even knew the time of the game before Stac did and she is a die hard!

BUNCO

Hi Ladies,

I am writing this to invite each of you to come and play Bunco with us NEXT Thursday 7pm at Cyndi Bahler's home in Lamar. Cyndi has called me and challeneged me to get 40 ladies at Bunco next week. So I need YOUR help to make this happen! I would love for each and EVERYONE of you to come out and join us for this GREAT night of Fellowship. You may say What is Bunco??? Bunco is a dice game. It is a fast moving and fun filled game. It is played with tables of 4 ladies and the the more tables we have the better it is! You may say I don't know how to play? No problem! It is a easy game that can be learned in a matter of minutes. You may say I don't know anyone? That's great this is an awesome opportunity to get to know others in our community and surrounding communities!

We play Bunco once a month and we rotate homes. This month is at Cyndi Bahler's home. We try to start RIGHT at 7pm so we need everyone there NO LATER then 7pm and then we play a round or two and then we have a snack period and then we finish out the night. We end the night with prizes and rumor has it that Cyndi has 40 prizes this time around so you don't want to miss this! My goal is to have the night finished by 8:30- 8:45pm so that you can return to your families. Those who can stay always stick around and fellowship a bit more once the evening is done.

I do need to know NO LATER then Monday if you plan on joining us. We need to know ahead of time so that we can make sure that we have ladies in increments of 4 so that we can fill the tables and we need to plan for snacks and make sure we have enough tables and chairs. So INVITE a friend or two or four and let me know by Monday if you would like to join us and I will make sure you are added to the list! If you commit to playing and something comes up I need you to let me know ASAP or you need to find yourself a substitute because we must have tables of four to make this game work!

I hope to see each of you there!!!!!!!! This will be so fun!

Gift of Friendship

So part of the Buffington clan showed up to suprise us at church last night! It was the most special suprise! This morning we got to hang out and have breakfast together before they headed back home. I just was reminded how special friendships are and how neat it is to have those special friends to share our lives with. Even though we may be far apart we are always near in our thoughts and prayers and it is so neat to see God blessing and using each of us where He has us planted. This isn't always easy and it is many times a SLOW process but none the less God is working and we rejoice in HIS goodness and His faithfullness! May we continue to press on and press forward not growing weary in doing good knowing that we will reap the harvest if we DO NOT give up! Thanks Buffingtons for the special morning and the special gift of friendship that you are to each of us! We love you guys!

Mongollian Grill

So we got to see the Towns on Friday. We went to eat at a Mongollian Grill!
We ALL piled our bowls so full that we all had tons of leftovers! We had a great time! Thanks you guys for the GREAT visit! We love you guys and appreciate the time that we have with you guys whether it be ONE hour or 6 hours it is always precious time!

Family Christmas

We had a great family Christmas this year. We had our family meal on Christmas Eve and got up early Christmas morning to do our gift exchange. I am just so thankful for my family and the wonderful times that we have together! After we opened gifts we headed into town to help serve a meal to those who had no one to spend Christmas with. It was THE HIGHLIGHT of our Christmas it was a JOY to be apart of and to just serve alongside so many great people! We served over 250 people it was AWESOME!!!!

Christmas Fun

So this year at church we changed things up a bit and did a pancake feed one night. It was so fun. The guys did all the cooking and the kids made gingerbread houses and chocolate and then we had a white elephant gift exchange. It was so much fun!

Twas the Night Before Christ Was Born!!

So I am going to try and get this blog caught back up. Things have been busy. Below are the pictures from our church Christmas program. It was so much fun. Lynn directed it and Teresa played the music. The kids did a wonderful job. I was so proud of Austyn and Bubba. Austyn played the Innkeeper and Joseph and Bubba played the mouse. They did a SUPERB job. I am so thankful for kids that just get in there and serve. I did have to twist their arms in the beginning but they got in there and just did it. I think this is Austyn's last year though. He has done this for 12 years and he is feeling like he is getting a little old for it. Especially when he was told he was going to wear purple. That just didn't set well with a kid who is turning into a man and purple is just not a man's color in his eyes.

Crazy but Fun Week

Well this week has been a crazy but overall good and fun week. I forgot to take any pictures though. Steph and I went to Omaha for a quick 2 days. It went by so fast but we had a great time and we got to go shopping at Kohls, Target, and Walmart and we got to eat at a wonderful mongollian grill called Hu Hot. It was so fun! On Wednesday Steph had her checkup appointment and the doctors were so pleased with her progress and said to come back in 6 months for another MRI. We are so happy and so praising God for the miraculous healing that is taking place in her body.

Then Wednesday night the boys had their friend come over to stay the night. Anthony is a great friend that the boys met just over a year ago. Anthony comes here several times a year from Texas to visit his aunt and uncle and he always gets to spend some time with the boys. They always eat way too much junk, stay up way too late, and play way too many video games, and play and do dangerous boy stunts but they have such a good time. Anthony left this morning and the boys are very sad! I am thankful though that they have such a good friend and that we get to spend the time with him that we do get to spend!

Squeakers

So Austyn has aquired a new nickname. His voice is changing and so he has the occassional "SQUEAK" We tease him to no end and he dishes it right back. It is hard to believe that our baby boy is turning into a "man" YIKES!!! Our time left with him is so short and we pray that we can treasure each and every moment!

More Baking Pictures

The girls and Irma did such a great job of decorating the cookies! Our last batch of Spritz cookies for the evening got burnt so we had to toss them. Morgan just loved me taking her picture! LOL!!

Baking Night at Church

We had a great night of baking last night at the church. I think we set a record for how many women you can have in one VERY SMALL kitchen. It was craziness but it was so much fun. I just have one question though for Tiff....what's that smile about? Does it have something to do with baking soda??? Did you just maybe forget an ingredient?? Thanks to all the ladies who were there. I had a great evening with all of you!

Quizzing

So I forgot my camera last weekend but we had Bible Quizzing. The boy's team got second place and they were able to take the 2nd place traveling trophy home. They were SOOOOOOO excited! We were so proud of them and all the hard work that put into memorizing God's Word! We know that all the time and the driving and the money that we put into this will all be worth it. We know that God says that His word will not return void!