HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Mickey Wayne Joyce

1932-2011

Happy 79th Birthday....

To the most wonderful Husband, Father, Son, Brother, Friend, and most importantly, Child of God.

I am so blessed and honored to have this wonderful man as my husband for these 53 years.

Yes, count your blessings, name them one by one, and be THANKFUL

on this Thanksgiving Day -2011.

I posted here in 2007 if you'd like to see a lot of pictures of him over the years.

AUCTION

We have only been to a couple of auctions, and then with others and only as spectators, but last Saturday Marc, Aric, Mickey & I attended an auction with Marc looking for some good furniture buys.

 He was able to get 2 great antique wood chairs:  this one and a smaller one that he put in his trunk and I didn't get a picture of.  The second one was a straight back chair with no arms and solid wood.   He got both chairs for $50 and was very happy with his purchases.

Mickey & I just "went along" but when Mickey saw these two pieces of yard equipment he decided to bid on them.

 This power edger - He got for only $20!!

 This perfect small size John Deere tractor for $175.  Both the edger and the tractor started right up on the first try!!!!

 The edger after he'd gotten it all cleaned up and spiffy looking.

Mowing his front yard for the first time on his new little green tractor.  I am so relieved!!!  I'd been wanting him to get a riding mower as we have a pretty big back yard and it was getting to be a little hard on him, in the hot summer, pushing the push mower.  He always told me that riding mowers were too big and not of any use to him.  Well this one was perfect.

So - Marc was blessed with 2 chairs and Mickey was blessed with 2 pieces of lawn/yard equipment which will make keeping our place up so much easier for him.

Every good and perfect gift comes from our Father above!!!

Thank you JESUS.

NO TEARS IN HEAVEN

  This is a counted cross stitch peace I did back in the late 80's and it hangs in our main bathroom here at our home.  I did this piece during a period when I was healing from a great hurt and shedding a lot of tears and it brought me comfort at that time.

Since our beloved Suzette left us 6 months ago today (May 19th) I look each day at this PROMISE from the Living Word and it brings comfort to know Suzette is in a place where she is not shedding any tears!!  Our oldest son, David, made reference to this on the phone to me the other day and spoke of thinking about how much it meant to him that hangs there and made such an impact that he hadn't really thought about until now. 

More importantly, it is an encouragement to be happy and enjoy the life I have: my wonderful husband, Mickey, the children and grandchildren, my wonderful church, the ministries I am involved in, my many friends.  Just the wonderful life God allows me to live, day in and day out, in spite of the worse loss imaginable, that of a child. 

Since there are no tears in Heaven and we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses it becomes doubly important to me that Suzette is looking down with great happiness, watching and observing all I am doing.  I know that this will not be possible if I am sad or crying because that would make her cry and there are no tears in Heaven!!!!

So I CHOOSE, you know it is a choice, to be happy and grateful for the years I had to be her mother here on earth and the eternity I will spend with her in Heaven.

THERE ARE NO TEARS IN HEAVEN

The King's Kitchen & the blessings

I have been wanting to do an update on The King's Kitchen ministry where we feed between 50-54 shut-ins a hot meal each Tuesday.

Here we made a small change and sent them a fresh salad of lettuces and carrots with cucumber, tomato, and sliced ham on the side.  Dressing choice, garlic bread, a dessert and milk also accompanied the salad.

 Here is our ever faithful Kent getting the hot buttered rolls ready on another occasion.......

 as our faithful cook, Sherry, is taking a second look at the lasagna that is the main dish this day.

 Mickey busy putting some of the milk into the cold chest.  Our delivery teams carry 2 chests:  the blue for cold items and the red for the hot meal.  Earl, 1/2 of the husband and wife team of Earl & Ruthie, standing by for action.

 Betty & Jacki, ready to deliver the meals, but I had to get this picture because we thought it was so cute they both showed up with boots on.  We have 5 teams of 2 people each who deliver for us.

Every post I've done about The King's Kitchen has talked about the way God has blessed this ministry above and beyond what we could have ever expected.  It has been self-supporting, with individual donations, from day one and not 1 cent of tithe money has been spent on this ministry.  That is such a marvel to Mickey & I as we see this happen each and every week for the past 21 1/2 months since beginning.

We were in for a blessing that surpassed our wildest imagination this week, Tuesday - November 15th - when we walked in to the kitchen to find 4 huge garbage size bags and a huge box full to overflowing from Pa*ner*a Br*ead!!!  Our Pastor's wife, Michele, has just launched a new ministry, Right Direction, which is an after school program of tutoring for 1st through 3rd grade children from the 3 elementary schools here in Coweta.  It is being held on Monday & Thursdays and began with 85 students on November 7th. Our church had been on the waiting list for over a year to receive their day old items and in God's timing it became available this Monday, November 14th.

 We had already begun to sort through the bags, which were a mixture of everything before I thought to begin to take pictures.  Here are some of the partial opened and emptied bags.

 Kathy, who works in both The King's Kitchen & New Directions ministry as she is sorting and bagging the bagels.

A huge tray of muffins, cookies, bear claws, etc.

 Bags of sliced loaves of breads.

 An assortment of round breads and bagetts'.

left to right-KENT w/King's Kitchen - MICKEY director of King's Kitchen - STEVE Pastor - JACKI Children's Pastor - NANCY Kid's Pastor - JENNIFER w/The Food Pantry & New Direction - SHERRY w/ King's Kitchen

Some of the staff and team as we rejoice and celebrate the Lord's abundance to not only New Direction but The King's Kitchen, The Food Pantry, Thanksgiving with the Humphrey's and other ministries of our Coweta Assembly of God.

You can see the wonderful time we have as we serve our Lord and enjoy His abundant blessings and each other.  Mickey & I are so very honored to be part of this Body of Christ.

THE BEAUTY OF AUTUMN

 The beautiful Autumn Blaze maple tree in our back yard as it shows off it's beauty in the bright morning sun on an autumn day in November.

 Another view showing the contrast between the green honeysuckle and the bright yellow Silver Maple tree in our front yard.

As I looked at this Autumn blaze of color I thought of Mickey and I being in the Autumn years of our lives (soon to be 79 and 74).  I pray that as we live out this period of our life spans we will bring joy and the beauty of our Lord to those who look upon us.

He also took a picture of these two roses, close together, which are all that are remaining of the climbing rose bush which is usually covered with blooms.  To me this was a symbol of how God is allowing the 2 of us to remain , side by side, into these autumn years.

Thank you JESUS

THE POWER OF BOOKS

I've posted a lot about the books God has used over the years to influence me in my Christian walk.  On September 9th I blogged about the book Forgotten God by Francis Chan and commented on this very thing. 

What has been equally as interesting is that a young man, who helps us with The King's Kitchen, Kent has been instrumental in my reading all but two of the last 11 books I've read.  During our time in the Kitchen I discovered Kent loved reading as much as I do and he began sharing his recent "finds" with me.  I just LOVE the way God works, because some of these books, especially starting with Not a Fan, Radical and the two I am going to share today I probably never would have picked off the shelf myself because of the titles and the covers.  Thank you Lord for using Kent in my life in such a way. 

This is the 15th book I've read this year.  It's another good one but, in my opinion does not measure up to Not a Fan or Forgotten God.  After reading Forgotten God, by Francis Chan, I had to immediately go to the Christian bookstore and buy Francis book, Crazy Love.  Kent had been telling me about it and I knew it would be one I had to own myself and will read many times over what years I have to come. 

This is absolutely one of the most powerful books I've read to date.  Of course, as God does, it has come into my life at just the right time!!!  My WOW (Women of the Word) Tuesday night Bible Study group was just finishing up the book, Born For Battle, which we had been studying since I began the group on January 18th. 

After reading Crazy Love I knew it was the next study for us.  Here is a recent picture of the WOW Woman as we begin this newest study.

(back row) Sandra, Britney, Cindy O, Kathy R, & Betty

(front row) Connie, Thelma, Wantha, Susan & Jeanne.

(Absent and not in the picture) Norma & Carmel

(Also participating with us from afar - in AZ) Kathy W

We are all excited about what God has done in each of us already this year and know He has just begun in molding and making us in the vessels He wants us to be. 

I'll keep you posted............GET THE BOOK and find out yourself. 

COOKING PUMPKINS

Last year Mickey & I tried cooking the pumpkin to use it for baking.  We had a terrible time and when we were finished it was a lot of work and did not taste good at all.  At my bible study Tuesday night I asked the gals if they'd like to have my pumpkins and immediately 2 of them told me I should cook them and make puree to cook with.  SO......with their instructions we decided to give it another try.

First Mickey cut the top off, and cut it into 3 pieces. 

  Then I took the pieces and cleaned out the pulp and seeds.



Mickey cut the large cleaned sections into these smaller pieces ......

So we could boil them.  It took about 45 minutes until they were soft. 

Then we dumped the first pan full into the sink and let them cool as we began boiling another pan full.  This food grinder that we used to puree was my mother's and has to be probably 50 years old and it works like a charm!!!  They don't make appliances like they use to.

Mickey is using the food processor as I am peeling the skins off and handing them to him.

This is what the wonderful result looks like as we puree each pan full.

Four pan fulls later here is our finished product, ready for the freezer and to be used for delicious pumpkin breads and I might even try a pie, although I'm not a very good pie baker.  We ended up with these five 3 cup containers and the one 2 cup or a total of 17 cups of pumpkin.  Thelma told me pumpkin was selling for $2.50 a can this year and this would be equivalent to 11 cans or $27.50.

Thanks Thelma & Betty for encouraging me to take the time and effort to prepare this!!!

When I bake the first item I'll let you know if the final results are good.  I'm believing they are going to be great!!!