A New Venture

As of June 5 we now own T.P. Fencing. After spending the past year working with his good friend building barb wire and pipe fence Jess is now building residential and commercial fencing. Mostly we do wood picket, chain link and split rail fencing. Our good friends started this business 12 years ago and we had an opportunity to buy it. The previous owner is going to be working with Jess for a few months helping him make the transistion and we have one other guy that has been with the business for long time that is going to stay on. We are excited about this new direction in our lives and the flexibility it gives Jess as we continue to lead the new church we started several months ago. You can read about our church at www.gcbfclaude.org .

God is good and continues to bless us in unimaginable ways and we are grateful for all He is for us in Christ!

Spring is in Full Swing

Spring has arrived and life is full speed ahead for us these days. These last 6 weeks of school are always our busiest of the year. The girls mowing business is going fast and furious, awards assemblies, banquets, horse shows and rodeos; not to mention mom and dad's work on top of all that. Lauren works her reining and cow horse a couple of days a week and Morgan ropes 2-3 days a week and they have yards to mow in between practices. Saturdays are filled with horse shows and Rodeos.

Morgan is just a few points out of making the Tri-State High School Rodeo finals. If she does good at here last Rodeo she will qualify for the Finals. At the Big 5 Horse Show in Dumas this past weekend Landry won the grade mare halter class and was 2nd in the Registered Mares class. Lauren won the reining and was 2nd in the Working Cow Horse. So they are off to a good start for the Spring/Summer session.

Donna is counting the days until school is out. Next year will be a big change for her. For the past 6 years she has been teaching PPCD in the Special Ed. Dept. at Claude Elementary School. She has decided to take on a new challenge and will be teaching 4th and 5th grade Science next year.

Our new church start is going great. God continues to bless this work and we are grateful to be a part of what He is doing here. You can read about our church at www.gcbfclaude.org .

Life may be busy but it's good. God has provided for our family in every way imaginable and we continue to find great satisfaction and delight in Him.

He Is Risen!

Today is Resurrection Sunday(Easter) and a great day to spend time contemplating our relationship with God and what He did to make that possible. Today was a day of firsts for our family and our church family. Today Grace Community Bible Fellowship had it's first Easter Service and observed Communion for the first time together. As a family we enjoyed worshipping together and celebrating the reality of Christ's Resurrection and our benefit from that.

God has been good to our family and we are grateful for the promise of Irrevocable Joy in John 16:22 that is available through Jesus Christ!

Life Goes on With a Teen Age Driver in the House

Well, Morgan finally went and took her test to get her driving permit. She had been doing her driver's ed. via home school and was eligible for her permit back in November on her birthday but she drug her feet and finally went and got it. We've been letting her drive in the country and the pastures for a few years...but now she can finally drive on the highway. Jess and the girls went to his folks for the weekend and he made Morgan drive half way there and back while he slept. Funny thing, she was all excited to get it and claimed she would drive everywhere. But now that it's here she's not quite as gung ho as she was.

I guess it's just one more step in her growing up.

Life goes on and we are enjoying our girls more and more. They are a blessing to us and we thank God for them.

Another New Chapter in our Lives

Back in November of 2008, at the request of several families, we started a Bible Study in our home. As we continued to meet it became evident God was doing something special in our group. As time went by we begin to sense God was leading us to start a church. So after much prayer and seeking God's leadership and timing we started Grace Community Bible Fellowship. Having outgrown our living room we rented the community center and had our first meeting on February 1st. You can learn more about our church at www.gcbfclaude.org .

For many years we (Jess and Donna) have felt that someday we might start a church. We never dreamed it would come to pass like it has. It has been great and we are enjoying seeing God work in our lives and through our ministry. After 20 years of pastoring established churches Jess is now starting from scratch. He is still building pipe and barb wire fence for income.

The girls are doing good in all phases of life and continue to be a blessing to us. God has been good to us and we are grateful for His grace and mercy that is new every day.

Annual pictures of the "Little Women"

Every Fall for the past 10 years Jess has taken pictures of the girls. We use them to decorate our home and share with grandparents and family and friends. With his new work schedule and the weather it's been hard to find the time to do it this year. The girls always enjoy this and know how much we like it and so they surprised us this year during their Christmas break by secretly arranging to have their pictures taken by a family friend and giving them to us for Christmas. We were blessed by their ingenuity and thankful to Emily for taking time out of her busy Sr. year schedule to help them out.

Our baby, Landry, is now 10 years old! She has maintained her whole life that she was not going to grow up but instead stay our baby girl for ever--well, her plan isn't working out so well.

Lauren is now a teenager at 13. She is the comedian of the family and keeps us laughing.


Our "Little Women"

They must have gotten their looks from their dad--because their mom still has hers!

Morgan is our oldest at 15. She is in High School now and is growing into a young woman. She is becoming more and more responsible and it blesses us.

Family Pix

Christmas day we went to Odessa to spend a few days with Jess' parents. We had a great time and enjoyed the time away.

Donna's family gathered at our house for Christmas over New Year's week. We took some pictures and thought you all might enjoy seeing our family.

Our family: Lauren, Morgan, Landry, Donna and Jess

Donna's family and all the kids.

Our girls and all their cousins on Donna's side of the family.

A New Year and New Opportunities...

It's hard to believe January the 1st has come and gone once again. In many ways 2008 seems like a foggy memory. The last half of the year we were in the biggest transition our family has seen. Jess resigned from First Baptist Church in July and immediately began looking for work to help support the family financially. We were faced with needing a place to live since our time in the parsonage was limited. God worked it all our and Jess found work and some friends were moving out of their house and offered to rent it to us. All in all things have settled in to somewhat of a routine finally even though we continue to adjust to our new life.

January begins the third month of us having church in our home. For sometime several families asked us to have a Bible study in our home and we finally decided it was what God was leading us to do. In reality it is far more than a Bible Study--it's church! We meet and fellowship, worship and pray together. The best I can tell that's what a church does. We are not officially organized or anything but we are growing together and doing life together. Our aim is to love God supremely and love others sacrificially. This little group of people have help our family though this transition time and reminded us of what church should and can be. We are so thankful to God for all of them.

The girls are out on Christmas break and go back to school on Monday. We are enjoying the time together as a family. Christmas was a great time of counting our blessings and thanking God for Jesus and one another.

As the new year unfolds we are confident that God will provide us with all we need to live for His glory and minister for Him. We don't know what this coming year holds but we are confident God will provide the grace to embrace it and be glad in it.

We trust all of you had a great CHRISTmas and will strive to live for God's glory in 2009!