Sunday afternoon lunch

God is so good!

Today after church, we went out to eat at the Mexican restaurant down the street. We go there pretty often, but I was planning to cook something this afternoon for lunch and Vince knew that, so I thought it was pretty random that he said we're going to eat out instead. (it didn't bother me... less dishes, and I can cook the meal another day!)

We got to the restaurant, ordered our food, and a guy from church was there so he ate with us. The waiter came over to our table while we were eating, and handed us a folded napkin that had something written in it, and he said something in Spanish, assuming Vince understood what he meant. (Vince usually talks to the waiters in Spanish, just to practice) The napkin was from some people in another booth, and it had a few words and said something like "God Bless You" underlined, and then a couple Scripture references and the name of the church they're from. It was some "Full Gospel Church" or whatever... you know, some church that we wouldn't agree with on doctrine, but they probably heard us talking about church and guessed that we were Christians. We went back to eating, and after we finished we were still talking and fellowshipping for a while... waiting for the waiter to bring the check.

After we'd been sitting there a little while... Vince finally stopped the waiter and asked if he could bring the check so we could pay for our food. The waiter said "Oh, those people paid for it... that's what I told you earlier". Of course, we were all totally surprised! Isn't it amazing how God provides for little things like that?? Wow... :-)

Last Night

Jack Patterson came to preach at our church. (in case you don't know who he is... he used to work with Lester Roloff when he was younger) He brought a bunch of girls from the Reclamation Ranch girls home. All of the girls sang... and it was so awesome! They sounded a lot like the Victorious Valley girls. :-) The service was 2 hours long but it just flew by... we were having such a great time!

Our "new" car!

I just thought I'd give a little update. We did finally get a car, it's a 2003 Hyundai Sonata. I found a picture online that looks like our car.

Here it is:
(ours has a little black pinstripe on the side... but that's just a small detail)

Car Shopping

The insurance company finally decided whether the car was officially totaled or not, and it is... so now we're looking for another car.

We went to a Hyundai dealership yesterday and we were both really impressed. The cars are reasonably priced and they have everything we're looking for. We looked at both the 2008 Accent and a used 2007 Elantra. The bank was closed by the time we sat down with them to talk about financing, so they had to let us go home and we'll probably be coming back today.

We both really like the Elantra, but at their markup price, it's out of our price range. If they can take a couple thousand off the price (bring it down to Kelley Blue Book value, or lower... I've done my research!), it might work for us. If we have to get the Accent, I'll still be happy. The 2008 Accent they had is a dark sapphire blue... it's a beautiful car. The Elantra is shiny white, like a Macbook. :-) hehe (the cool thing about the Elantra is how roomy it feels... Vince is tall, so he needs leg room!)

We'll just have to see what happens... we might be driving a new car today!

Trials

I've noticed something. The more serious we (my husband and I) get about being missionaries, the more trials we go through. I'm starting to get used to bad things happening... just knowing the Lord is going to get us through it somehow, but wondering how He's going to do it this time.

Last Tuesday, the car accident happened. The insurance is going to take care of it and everything.. so that trial is basically over, except for the fact that we still need to look for another car (we're driving a rental right now). Now, the next trial is health problems... which is easy to take care of, but costs money. We don't have the best insurance coverage because Vince is technically self-employed until he finds another job.

What's crazy is, all of this is happening ever since we started planning a trip to Chile for February. We really want to go, and the missionaries we'll be working with (The Robinsons) really need us to come. If everything works out, we'll be staying there for 1-2 months. I was a little nervous about the idea at first, but I'm getting excited about it more and more each day.

It's so obvious that the devil doesn't want us to go there. It's like he's trying to discourage us, but I know he can only do as much as the Lord allows him to do. Some of this may be the Lord just testing us to see how much we trust Him. Either way, it just proves that if you're going to be a missionary, you're going to face trials. Somehow, that doesn't scare me though. I'm looking forward to seeing what blessings come out of enduring all of these trials. If nothing else, it's a testimony to other people. It shows that God really does give His children grace to endure trials. :-)

The Lord is so good...

He kept us from getting killed tonight.

Here's what happened. We were going to Cincinnati for a meeting tonight, but on the way there we were talking and Vince was looking down for a second to check if he had his cell phone (which he forgot), and he didn't see a curve and we ran into a ditch. The car got totaled, but we only got a few scrapes. Other people have had fatal accidents on that same curve... so the Lord really protected us!

I'm just so shaken up... that was really scary! Please pray that everything works out and that the Lord can provide another car for us.

Too long...

Wow, it's been a whole month since I last posted!! Yikes!

It's been pretty busy around here. I think my main reason for not blogging as much as I used to is because I just don't think the same way anymore. I'm so much more focused on married life, and not so interested in the internet. It's just a hobby now, less important than it was before.

Anyhow, I'm actually in a blogging mood tonight, so I guess that's a good thing! We just got back from Richmond, IN for a shopping trip. We always do our major grocery shopping at Meijer. In fact, we'd rather drive 15 miles away to get there instead of going down the street to Walmart. (in case you didn't know, we DON'T shop at Walmart!)

I'm really excited right now... because I'm trying to plan what colors I want to paint different rooms in this apartment. Right now I've got the computer room figured out. If things go the way I'm planning, it'll be totally black and white. I want to paint the walls white and the trim black. We've already got some furniture that matches that decor, so it won't be too expensive. Plus, I'm really getting good at finding neat things at garage sales and the thrift store! I'm also going to get black frames and get some of our photos printed in black and white, just to add more personality to the room.

Oh, and speaking of the rooms in our house... my mother-in-law found a really cute clock at the thrift store that matches the coffee theme in my kitchen! We were there during the "50% off week" sale, and the clock was marked at $1.50 so I got it for 75 cents!!!!! It just needed a AA battery and it works great... and looks perfect in my kitchen!

So that's my blog for tonight.... I'll try to keep posting more often. I can't make any promises though! :-)