Sunday Blessings

A few pictures to share :)

Sunset in Downtown Vancouver



Right after we'd gotten out of the outdoor pool that is right off of the beach :)


Downtown Vancouver


pretty much what the view looks like anywhere around here :)


this picture is for KIMBER...haha! I LOVE ya! (STOP...ALL WAY)


Sunday was full of "God moments". Let me share with you :)

One of Richards coaches told us about the church he goes to and invited us to come check it out. So yesterday we decided to go. Before we leave the house Richard receives a phone call from one of his teammates asking if Richard was going to church and, if so, where. Richard tells him where we're going and he decides to join us. At the time I wasn't aware that it would be him, his wife, his son, and his mother-in-law! I was so excited to finally meet a teammate and a WIFE! We met them at church and they were really nice and seemed really easy to get along with. And their little son, whose 4, is absolutely adorable! :)

As we entered the church we could already tell that it was VERY different than what we were used to at Experience Life. But we had already prayed for the Lord to give us an open mind and not be closed off to something different. It was very diverse in cultures, which is always fun to see. It wasn't a very large congregation. But it was very evident that they all LOVED Jesus. Worship was SO different that what we're used to, but everyone was getting into it! People were dancing, there was a lady with a tambourine, and some of their praise music sounded Jamaican! :) There was a guest speaker yesterday. A black man, but I'm not sure where he is originally from. He had a really strong accent, which made it difficult to understand him at times, but he preached a great message. Oh, at the beginning of the service, they asked first time guests to stand so they could welcome us and so we could tell them our names and where we were from! We all thought they were joking about the second part, but they were NOT! HAHA...they passed around a microphone for us all to introduce ourselves! They were super sweet and welcoming, though, so we didn't feel too uncomfortable! :)

After church, Richard and I headed home. I told him how excited I was to meet a wife (who is very evidently following Christ) who I can know at games and hang out with sometimes! We talked about the church service and what we thought about it. We will probably still look around, but it's definitely not ruled out. :)

When we pulled up to our house, someone's car was parked in front of our spot so that we couldn't pull in. We were confused, b/c our landlady was out of town so we didn't know who it could be. But it was her youngest son, Grant. He was outside washing his car. So we had a chance to meet him and chat with him for a little bit. Grant has been battling cancer, but is in remission right now. He is the last of the 3 kids for us to meet, so we were glad to run into him. All of Mrs. Dolly's kids are super friendly (no surprise, considering what a sweetheart she is). Richard had a chance to talk to Grant for a little while. Through his conversation, he could tell that Grant is not following the Lord, so Richard tried to say a few things to indicate that he is a Christian.

Later on yesterday, I had a chance to sit outside with Mrs. Dolly for an extended amount of time. We had a more in depth conversation than usual. I told her we went to church yesterday morning and I had a chance to tell her a little bit about Campus Crusade and I let her know that I think that she is truly a blessing from the Lord. I was excited to have a semi-spiritual conversation with her. Richard and I are truly excited to be in this home! This is one of our missions here in Surrey! To share the gospel with Mrs. Dolly and her kids! Pray that the Lord really uses us to minister into their lives! Pray for courage and the wisdom to know what to say!

Yesterday afternoon, Richard went to work out with the teammate who had joined us a church. After they were finished working out, Richard called to tell me that JR and Karen (his teammate and his wife) wanted us to come over and hang out with them! WOOHOO! I was finally getting to hang out with other people! (I love time with Richard, but we need to see different faces every once in a while...haha) JR and Karen decided they wanted to treat us to dinner! We head out around 8:00 to go eat at a nice little restaurant in Surrey. (FYI: My salad was AMAZING!) We end up hanging out at the restaurant until 11:30. We had such great conversation that was so glorifying to the Lord! We talked about our faith, we talked about how good God is, we shared stories about how evidently God is at work in all of our lives! It was SO fun and so refreshing to meet another couple who truly LOVE the Lord and are fully pursuing Him! I was really encouraged by their faith and their wisdom and their desire to honor God with their lives. I really believe that this is the start of a special friendship! Praise the Lord!

Today, we are going to the beach with them! I'm just so grateful that the Lord is in every detail of our lives. He brought us here to Canada with purpose and with every detail planned...from Mrs. Dolly to JR and Karen! All Glory to God!

Thank you for all your prayers during this transition in our life! We know the Lord is interceding!

MUCH LOVE!
the jones'

thoughts from my time with the Lord today...

"What union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God." 2 Corinthians 6:16

I am the temple of the living God. Christ dwells in me. He resides in me.

I would be appalled if I walked in the Temple of God and found idols there and even more if there were people there worshiping those idols in His temple. But that's what i do every day of my life. I build up idols in my life (God's temple) and I worship them!!! Right alongside my worship of the living God! If I could visually see that I would be disgusted with myself. I would call myself a hypocrite.

But it's not visual. I'm not a beautiful building that you can walk into and see worthless idols invading God's Holy place. Mine are hidden, which may even be worse, because then I can walk around and act like they're not there. But God knows. He knows that my heart is divided between Him and all these other worthless things. What a shame. I am a TEMPLE of the Most Holy God and I am dishonoring him by worshiping other things in HIS dwelling place. How selfish I am.

I wish I could be like the "good" kings in the Old Testament who demanded that all the idols be removed from their cities, but I can't visually look into myself and see if they're gone. I have to allow the Word of God to be a light into my life to make me aware of the places I'm still worshiping idols. I have to allow His Spirit to move in me so that in HIS strength and power I can remove those idols from His Holy presence. What a discredit to the name of God. Telling Him that He is not enough. Telling Him that He isn't satisfying my soul. When the truth is, He is more than enough if I'd go to Him and only Him. He's more than enough to satisfy every longing of my heart, every need, every desire.

I am a temple of the living God!! If only I'd listen to God's demand to remove the idols in my life, then God would have room to fill me through and through. He wouldn't be stifled by the box I've put Him in. If I'd remove the idols, I can only imagine how the presence of God would seep through the temple doors of my life. What a beautiful thing that would be. :)

Let God's presence fill His Temple today. Amen!

Pictures of our HOME :)

The back of the house where I park and enter the back yard through the gate.



Our cute little yard


Down to la casa


Living room



kitchen




different view of the living room


little hall area with our desk and dog cage, and the door to the landlords basement where we do our laundry


bathroom



bedroom




That's our home! :) Almost everything here was given to us to borrow while we are here. The couch, coffee table, tv & tv stand, microwave, desk, rug, curtains, bench, padded lawn chairs for the yard...all lots of other stuff was either our landlords or her daughters. We rented the bed and the dresser...that's it! What a blessing our sweet little landlord is! :)

A week in and I am still enjoying it here! :) I've been getting the house situated and getting settled since I've been here, so I'm sure I'll begin to experience some boredom pretty soon. Richard has been taking the car to practice, so I sit at home all morning til the mid afternoon. I may have to start taking him every once in a while so I can have the car to get out of the house a little more during the day. But for now we're managing. :)

Hope all is well in the states! Miss everyone, but I'll be back soon! I fly into Dallas on July 22nd! (Dad, we'll have to go celebrate your birthday when I get into town!)

LOVE!
the jones'

diet dr.pepper

So most of you know about my addiction to diet dr. pepper. Well I've been in Canada since Wednesday and have not had a diet dr. pepper. So yesterday, I had a hankering to get diet dr. pepper wasted (if you've seen Grown Ups, you get that...haha). I pull up to McDonald's to order my large diet dr. pepper for $1. I place my order, and the lady says "excuse me?". Then I look at the menu and to my extreme disappointment they didn't have diet dr. pepper!!! So I just said "never mind" and pulled away with tears in my eyes....I'm mean not really, but almost :)

So now I'm on a quest to find a fountain diet dr. pepper somewhere in this country. I'll let you know what I find out. Stay posted.

Pictures :)

Pictures on the way to Canada :)






a pretty storm we went through




SNOW!


lots of stuff growing in Idaho!




downtown Seattle


stuck in traffic in downtown seattle


Downtown Vancouver






I promise I'll post pictures of our home soon...but we're waiting for our furniture to arrive :)

Happy 4th of July! Richard and I are going to a beach in White Rock tonight to watch fireworks you can see over the beach from people in the states! I'm sure it will be so pretty! :)

adventure to Canada

I've been in Canada for almost two days now and I think I'm really going to love it. Allow me to share with you my adventure to get here. Bear with me, this first post is long!

Dad flew into Lubbock Sunday evening and we headed out early Monday morning. We decided that we would just drive as long as we could each day and then find a hotel once we started getting tired. So Monday, we drove and drove and then drove some more. I thought we would never get out of New Mexico. The scenery there was NOT the best of the trip, for sure! As we drove through Albuquerque, there were a lot of dark clouds around us and we were sure that we were going to go through a crazy rain storm. Of course that would be our luck to drive through Albuquerque on the only day of the year that it rains. Luckily, we went through a little rain, but nothing severe. Funnily enough, though, not long after passing through Albuquerque, we heard the radio saying there were flash floods and rocks falling on the road we had just driven on. Praise God for allowing us to avoid that!

We drove almost 700 miles on Monday (approx 12 hrs), which seemed like only a small dent in the 1782 miles total we had to drive. But the speed limits on the first day were constantly changing and were hardly ever over 65 mph. But we drove all the way to Monticello, Utah Monday night. It was a cute little town and we found a little Inn that allowed us to stay there with the dogs. (By the way, the dogs did great the first day!) We rested up and headed out by 7:30 Tuesday morning. After leaving Monticello, about 25 miles later we came across Moab, Utah, which we decided would have probably been a better place to stop the night before, but we didn't know. :)

So we drove and drove and drove some more. The scenery gradually got better and better and we went further north and west. We saw SO many beautiful rivers and bodies of water. I was amazed at how full they all were....NOTHING like Texas "rivers" or the playa's in Lubbock :)

Tuesday we drove through the rest of Utah, through Idaho, and into Oregon. Here's a fun fact for everyone...if you don't already know....the brand of potato's OreIda (like frozen fries, hash browns, tator tots) comes from potatoes in OREgon & IDAho! Haha...that should've been an easy one for me to figure out without having to drive through those states. :)

We were able to drive about 12 hrs again, but we put in considerably more miles on Tuesday because we were able to drive 75 mph or more during a large portion of Tuesday, so that was WONDERFUL! Tuesday night we ended up in Baker City, Oregon. It's a historical city, so it was old and cute. Again we found a little Inn that allowed the pups and we set up shop for the night. And we headed out by 7:30 on Wednesday morning.

(Side note: For those of you who were concerned that dad and I might kill each other during this trip, we did GREAT!! haha! :))

Wednesday, we only had about 400 miles left to drive to get to Seattle where I was dropping dad off at the airport. Looking at the scenery made time fly so much faster. The mountains were beautiful! And we were finally seeing mountains with snow on them! Crazy for me to see that in middle of summer! Oh and by the way, dad and I had to turn the HEAT on in my car on Wednesday morning...that was too weird for me to be doing at the end of June! :)

As we got closer to Seattle, I started getting more and more anxious. Anxious excited, anxious nervous, just anxious. We arrived in Seattle with time to find a place to eat before dropping dad off at the airport. It wasn't too difficult getting into the Seattle airport area. The GPS led us a little astray, but we quickly got where we needed to be. It was so strange though to pull up to the airport to drop dad off, though. I felt so bad to just drop him off after driving 3 days with me. He said it was like taking his football players to the game and then leaving. He wasn't getting to experience the end result of the trip: Canada and my new home. But we parted and I began the last stretch of my drive to Surrey.

When I was leaving Seattle, it was about 4 pm and traffic was BAD! I got SO nervous. At one point I called Richard and made him pray for me because it made me so nervous to be in a total foreign place to me, in CRAZY traffic, with no idea where I was going. Plus I was just anxious to finish the drive on my own. I was so afraid the GPS was going to lead to some random place I had NO desire to be. But it didn't :) Thanks Darla (that's what dad named the lady on the GPS)!

Two hours later, I'm pulling up to the Canadian border! AAAHHH! Now this part made me nervous. I was so afraid they were going to tell me that I couldn't cross the border. I pull up and the man starts asking me all sorts of questions. He wasn't the friendlies person I'd ever met. He made me pull my car over to this area where they were checking vehicles and he told me to go into some building...at this point I didn't really know what was about to happen. Luckily, a really nice officer just asked me some more questions and let me go on my way! No one checked my vehicle at all! (Praise the Lord, b/c it was packed top to bottom and window to window! It would have been such a hassle!) They didn't ask for the dogs vaccination certificates. They didn't check the dogs! NOTHING...it was WAY too easy! So this was it! I was only 7 miles from our home!!

These last few miles were full of excitement and anticipation to see my sweet husband! As I pulled into our neighborhood, I was so pleased to see how beautiful it was! Then I see Richard standing outside waiting for me!!! :)))

We reunite and all is well. THE END!

Just kidding! When I pull up he's so excited to show me the basement suite he rented and for me to meet our precious landlord, Ms. Dolly, from Scotland!

So, we head down the stairs and into our new home! It's adorable! And suits us perfectly right now! God is SOOO good and so faithful! (I'll post pictures soon!)

Our landlord, Ms. Dolly, is about the sweetest thing you could imagine. When she found out that Richard and I were arriving with no furniture, she brought us a few things she wasn't using: a little desk with a stool (where I'm sitting now), a cute bench to put at our small bar in our kitchen, and a couple of padded lawn chairs to use until we go rent some furniture. She also left some dishes for us, a shower curtain, 2 bath towels, a bath mat, a rug in the living room, hangers for the closet, and window curtains in the kitchen and bedroom. She is precious! She sounds a little bit like Mrs. Doubtfire! :) I LOVE it!

She brought us upstairs to see her home, which is beautiful, and she kept offering us coffee, tea, and wine! She told me to call her or come visit her upstairs if I need anything or if I get lonely while Richard is working! :)

Oh, and our basement suite doesn't have a washer/dryer in it, so initially she had said that we would just need to go to the laundry mat to wash clothes. But after meeting us, she gave us a key to her home so that we can use her washer and dryer anytime we need to! Goodness, she is such a blessing! We're already trying to figure out a way for us to live here again next fall!

The dogs are doing great here. We have a small little yard that is perfect for them and I can't wait to find a park/walking trail to take them to.

We went to the grocery store yesterday and barely got anything and it was OUTRAGEOUS how expensive it was! Just gonna have to get used to it, though!

I suppose that is all for now. I'll update again soon with pictures.

LOVE and MISS y'all!