Building Memories

We celebrated Thanksgiving with these guys. For Demi (in the white shirt), this was his first Thanksgiving in America.  Not only did he get to experience Thanksgiving and hear the reason behind the celebration, he too got to experience putting the CHRISTmas tree up and doing some CHRISTmas decorating.  Actually, we had planned not to put up a tree this year, but before we knew it, we brought out the tree and and the young men found the lights and within 2 hours, we had gone from being the Grinch to being the Griswolds!  

So Much Going On - So Little Time To Blog ...............

Hanging out with some new converts.

She said this was the longest sales receipt that she had ever seen.  I only purchased 180 items.   Thanks for your help!

Arlene Allen at Up The Creek prior to our recent Step Into His Presence Conf

3 Weddings in 1 week .............

Gina & Dewayne 

Don't judge a book by it's cover......

Don't let the tattoos and piercings influence who you think they might be!  This couple stayed pure, no sex prior to marriage and no kissing other than a peck on the cheek throughout their 2 years of dating and engagement.  They are also responsible for bringing many other young people into the body of Christ.   Monday prior to their Thursday noon wedding, they were legally married in a neighboring state but it was important to them to be married in a church wedding and in the eyes of God before they chose to consummate the marriage.  This couple is very evangelistic in the gifting and calling and such a blessing to the body of Christ.    

Mike & Emily's Wedding

60th - Nigerian Style

Dupe looking beautiful as ever!!

The lovely lady in the center was able to pull off a weekend of celebration and thanksgiving, without her husband knowing about it!  

We were able to get a moment of the guest of honor's time and pose for a photo.
About 170 people honored him with a dinner.  What an occasion!  Friends and family flew in from the USA. Greetings came from several countries.  Brother Joesph and his family are a true delight and a blessing from the Lord.

A Few Happenings In No Particular Order.....

Two Dupe's Are Better Than One! 

58 lb plus...Tootsie Williams Watermelon, ahhhhh it was so sweet! 

Ever had that favorite piece of clothing that you enjoy wearing?  Actually, you found yourself wearing it everywhere and for most every occasion. My hubby asked me to stop wearing this blouse so often, so I thought I would put a few new accessory's with it.  Thanks to the foam packing from a box, this gave me the creativity ideal to spruce up my outfit!  (When the boss was away, I couldn't help but play) 

107 Degrees
 

Why would toilet tissue be a seasonal item?

Placing new flowers & flags on Dad's grave. 

Seems likes old times 

Beaches of Mississippi

Daniel On Beaches of Mississippi

Daniel "caught" a fish......

While visiting the John Stennis Space Center, we took the opportunity to check out the beaches of Mississippi Gulf Coast. Due to the oil spill, activities on the beach were slim to none except for the hazmat workers in the green vest. Within a several mile stretch, we saw maybe 15 people playing in the sand along the beach. What should have been a beach bustling with business, was a tragic reality to the businesses and the people who make their living along our coast. Oh BTW, we didn’t see any tar balls or oil. What we did see was several clean up boats on the horizon sweeping our waters for oil. As I stood on the beach and looked out over the waters, my prayer was "Lord, heal our waters".......

John Stennis Space Center

The John Stennis Space Center is located on the Mississippi Louisiana border in Hancock County.  Construction of the 13,500 acres (55 km2). The test area is surrounded by a 125,000 acres acoustical buffer zone. The facility's large concrete and metal test stands were originally used to test-fire the first and second stages of the Saturn V rockets.
Shuttle main engine test site was selected because it was thinly populated and it was possible to create barge access to it — the rocket motors to be tested for Apollo were too large for overland transport. The chosen site also had to be between the Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, where the rockets were made, and the launch facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida. With the end of the Apollo program, use of the base decreased, with economic impact to the surrounding communities. Over the years other government organizations have moved to the facility, providing a major economic benefit to the communities. Two 250,000 gallon water tanks at the facility, used to test equipment for the Navy, were used to film the underwater sequences in the film Double Jeopardy. The facility was damaged in late August 2005 by Hurricane Katrina but seems to be in full operation now. 

Catching Up.......

Enjoying Girl Time @ Rustys Riverfront Bar and Grill

Vicksbrug MS

9 jars of strawberry figs

Cross Culture and Crossing Generations

Ain't Yo Mamma's Chow Chow

One of my favorite meals that my Mother in Law would put on the table was called "Chow Chow Meal".

It consisted of homemade chow chow, saltine crackers, mayo, ham, coon cheese (a sharp cheese) and ice tea. I can still image the smell of her house and visualize the image of us sitting at her table enjoying such fine cuisine while engaging in interesting conversation! What sweet memories!  Unfortunately, when the Lord called Mom C home, no one had made sure that she had left behind the recipe for her Chow Chow.  

Recently Tiff and Jason came to visit and brought us a jar of Louisiana chow chow, it got me to thinking that I should try my hand at making chow chow.  I can't make Mamma Courtney's recipe, however, I have affectingly named my version of Chow Chow "Ain't Yo Mamma's Chow Chow"......so 21 pints later, here is my recipe.  

Easy Chow Chow

Grind the following ingredients:

1 Gallon Green Tomatoes

1 Gallon Cabbage

8 Large Onions

2 – 6 small hot peppers (diced and seeded)

4 – 6 Bell Peppers

4 Bell Peppers

Put the ingredients listed below in a sauce pan and let it come to a boil for a few minutes. Then pour it over the ground up vegetable ingredients and let all of it cook until good and tender.  (Mine cooked about an 1 – 1 ½ hours on medium high , stirring from time to time)

1 ½ pints white vinegar

2 ½ sugar (or splenda)

*1 tsp allspice

*1 tsp dry mustard

*1 tsp turmeric

Pack in hot jars and seal.

 *****I cooked my chow chow till it was a consistency that I thought was good and then canned it the traditional way of boiling my lids and putting mixture in hot jars.

Also, I didn’t use the allspice, dry mustard and turmeric.  Instead, I used pickling spice and put it in cheesecloth and made a seasoning packet.  I boiled it in the vinegar / sugar mixture and continued cooking it in the chow chow mixture.

**Disclaimer - inside of one of those jars of chow chow you will find one of my cheesecloth seasoning packet.  Oops!

** Also, I used 4.28 lb onions, 3.67 lbs tomatoes, 10.46 lbs cabbage, 1 1/2 lb green peppers and it made 21 pints. 

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary Eric & Juliana  

E- Life Small Group

Even though summer attendance at our small group is down, we continue to enjoy our time of fellowship and studying the Word.  Yesterday was what we call "our Wing It Topic Night". So we chose to discuss  Pastor's sermon on "Shaking it Off".  Taken from the Holy Bible, Acts 28: 1 - 9.  In these scriptures  Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta and as he was gathering wood to build a fire, he was bite by a venomous snake. It was interesting as we all pulled out our notes and discussed the sermon.  One point that I struck me was, "Even though I've not always like what I've been through, but it's made me who I am today." Another one was that "God calls with purpose, we have gifting and all the bad times and good times will work together for the fulfillment of God's purpose."  Here is a question to ponder.  "Why didn't Paul get upset when he was bite by the snake?"  One of the reasons that was brought out in our discussion was that it was not his destination.  It was a mere inconvenience.  It was only a distraction. (You should have heard Pastor's sermon!) 

During the fellowship time,  we had a thunderstorm warning issued and we all went outside to see what the weather was doing.  As there was no rain, the weather was perfect for a tornado, but soon the weather settled and two rainbows appeared.  However, one soon faded and then we were able to see the beginning from the end of the rainbow that remained.  I remarked that one end of the rainbow was over River Of Life and the other end of the rainbow ended at Wal Mart.  What sweet fellowship we enjoyed with those that attended.  

YOUTH CAMP

This is the gang that we drove to youth camp.  As Ed parked one van and walked across the ball field to join me in the second van, he said for a few minutes he was thinking, "wow, this would be fun as he was enjoying the excitement and energy as the young campers were arriving."  It reminded him of  when we lead teams of youth into many nations.  Then he was reminded he had to return to his area of ministry as many folks were counting on him. Reports were that camp was AWESOME.  As we drove the kids home on Friday, there was hardly a peep from the behind the driver's seat.  They were snoozing on the way!  What an incredible experience for these youth! 

State Parks

We had the opportunity to get away a couple days and we were able to go to J P Coleman State Park.  It is located on the Mississippi / Tennessee state line, next to the Tennessee River.  What a beautiful place to relax.  The terrain was quite hilly, and the Tennessee River is perfect for water sports, if you have the water sport toys.   We tent camped and the days were hot and sultry, but the nights were cool enough that we slept under sleeping bags.