IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

YAY!! I'm heading home to spend Christmas on the ranch with my sweet family! I hope all of you have a great holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus!! I am going to be sending a little 'UPDATE' if you will to give you an idea of what has been happening this fall if you haven't been able to stay up to date. Also, I am going to give you a support update and how all of that is going. 

By the way, my Dad is doing better!! His visit at MD Anderson last week went well and he got a good report! No sign of returning cancer!! PRAISE GOD! And he has a new mindset on recovery! He is still taking it one day at a time and trusting the Lord for strength and energy! 

Thanks for all of your encouragement, prayers, and support as I have been walking through this new transition in my life! I PRAISE THE LORD ABOVE FOR ALL OF YOU!!

Blessing to you and your families!! 

Merry Christmas!!

Joy

Seeking Strength...

Hey Y'all! 

Since Thanksgiving, things at work, my family, and just my personal life has been everything but calm! This is me being transparent about things...Anyways, WORK at Family Legacy is just busy as always. There are lots of projects each week and high goals set to reach. I have never been challenged this much in how to tackle major things all at once. There definitely have been days of me being overwhelmed and feeling very inadequate. God has been good though through it all because of the little glimpses of what is to come for HIS kids in Zambia. I am still humbled to this day of being able to be a voice for these precious children and be a part of a ministry that is striving together to bring the name of Jesus and full restoration to so many children! Praise God for what HE is doing! At the beginning of December we had a FLMI Staff Christmas Party at my ranch and here are a few pictures...

*This is everyone who was there! Kids and spouses included!

*The FLMI STAFF!

(Greer, Susan, Sommer, Holly, Me, and Josh)

~ MERRY CHRISTMAS ~

On top of work being a bit crazy at times, I have been learning so much from God's Word! The Lord has been constantly refining me and bringing me to where HE WANTS ME! I have wrestled through numerous issues and wanted to do things on my own...but I have soon realized that that is a pride issue. I hate to admit that, but it is. Not dealing with things, not letting people help me, not stepping out of my comfort zone...all connect back to pride. The Lord pointed that out to me the other day and I have been slowly processing through what needs to happen. I'm not quite sure what all this will entail but I do know that I am learning more of the character of God and His restoration process. As I work through my issues and allow His word to fill every part of me, I am being made more like Him! Praise God for His unending love and grace!! 

Lastly, things with my family have been great!! However, things with my sweet Dad have NOT been so great. Sadly, he is not doing very well. We all thought that he would be progressing much more further than he is right now. He has now lost over 50 lbs. He is have a difficult time eating again, which this hasn't happened since his very first symptoms about a year again. My Dad has also been choking again whenever he eats. This past weekend my Mom told me that on Friday night that my Dad was choking for about 3 hours after they ate dinner and she almost had to take him to the ER. We are hoping that it is scar tissue building up in his esophagus and not a new cancerous growth. They left today to head down to Houston to return to MD Anderson for tests. He has tests Wednesday and Thursday. 

PLEASE BE PRAYING! 

Pray for strength, comfort, peace, wisdom, and encouragement! 

Both my parents are exhausted from the past 8 1/2 months of dealing with cancer and the recovering process of surgery. We all are hoping that the results will be words of encouragement and not the other. I will know more at the end of the week. 

Oh Lord...we need You!! 

Thanks again for keeping up to date! You all are a blessing! Have a great week!! 

Desperate for more of Him,

Joy

A Video from my Kids!!

Hey Everyone! I just thought you might like to see my kids! They left me a video wishing me a Merry Christmas! It may be hard to hear but hopefully you can understand enough of what they are saying! (I turned my music off but after you watch the video and you want it back on then scroll to the bottom and hit play!)

Praise the Lord for ALL that He has done! Enjoy...

Loving the Holidays

I just love the beginning of the holidays...

I have so many memories of good 'ole traditions and one of those is waking up on Thanksgiving morning and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with the entire family. All of us girls grab our cup of coffee and sit together on the couch as we watch the long parade...so thats just what we did with kids running around us! Jamie, my second oldest sister, came up from New Braunfels and we just had so much fun!! We missed JJ this year...she was actually hosting her in-laws at her house, but we are really looking forward for Christmas so that we can ALL be together!!

We had a good group for Thanksgiving...everyone (extended family on my dad's side and few from my mom's side) came over and we ate, relaxed, ate some more, and watched football, especially the TEXAS GAME! :) That has been another tradition to watch football throughout the Thanksgiving weekend...what can I say? My Dad brought me up well... :)

(I am going to be adding some funny videos soon of my nephew playing football with my brother!!)

Then once Saturday hit...it was decorating galore! Mom, Dad, and I all worked together to get the house decked out for Christmas. I just love getting ready for Christmas!! Mom and I exchange memories of past Christmas' as we were bringing the house to life with the touch of the holiday season. This is by far my favorite time of year...I uploaded this video to give you a glimpse of the end of a day of decorating...Me, Dad and Mom made a fire, turned on Polar Express and drank hot chocolate under our Christmas lights...can't get better than this!! :)

As I got back to work this week, it has been busy as always, but such a fun week!! We launched our new website tonight! It looks so good thanks to our tech guy on staff. You need to check out the new changes: www.legacymissions.org . We also launched a Christmas Project for our precious kids in Zambia! Holly, my co-worker, and I had several people call in requesting to send their child a Christmas gift and with the Lord's guidance we developed a way to distribute gifts to the children!! It's all on our website through the Father's Heart Program....http://www.blogger.com/www.legacymissions.org/christmas . It is going to be incredible and I can't wait to see how it's going to bless these kids!! They are going to love it!!!!!

Well by now, I am hoping you have heard a song or 2 automatically playing on my blog. I wanted to share with y'all some of my favorite songs that have ministered to me in the past week or so. I just love how God will use music to speack to us! Take time and listen to them...all of them are really powerful! Oh...and...I have changed the title of my blog. I have noticed that a lot of things I have posted about have to do with my life, what I'm learning, and what has been happening...so I wanted to make more of a general title to share ALL aspects of my life along with my passion for Zambia!

That's it for now! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and a good week! YAY for the holidays...go grab some coffee, sit by a fire and watch a good Christmas movie...or drive around and look at Christmas lights!! All of it is just sooo fun! I hope to be doing ALL of that very soon...

Blessings,

Joy