Sweet gifts from Jesus

During the months leading up to our move from Tennessee to Alabama, God showed me five houses that I was suppose to go to and begin forming relationships. You can read here to see how it went - phase 1, 2&3, 4 & 5. It wasn't long before my next assignment came clear. As I met our neighbors I observed a common theme, most of them didn't know many other neighbors...ding, ding, you guessed it...we need to remedy this. God has clearly told us to possess this land (aka our house), but that includes our neighborhood, but how would we do that if we don't know anything more about them than the color car they drive?

So we are planning a neighborhood cookout for this Saturday. It started out with an idea of inviting the five houses I was assigned to, but then it grew to the whole street and neighboring cul de sac, and then up to the entire neighborhood. I'm not sure of the exact house count, but there's likely close to 150 houses in these parts. Now, I know this may sound a bit ridiculous, but we are totally going out on faith here and trusting that God will never ask us to do something and then not provide what we need to do it. So, this week I will buy mountains of hamburgers and hot dogs and should we require more, I am trusting for frozen hamburger patties to miraculously appear in the box. (Secretly, I'm kind of hoping we run into this challenge just to see how God meets the need and takes the credit!) Last week I stuck 45 printed invitations on mailboxes on our street and today we put four signs up...the front of the neighborhood, our front yard and the two ends of our street.

On to my gifts I referenced earlier. Our dear friend and beloved babysitter from Knoxville is on fall break from school this weekend and chose to spend her time off with us in Mobile...a great honor. Nicole flew in on Friday and she has been wonderful company and help this weekend. Haley has really loved having her here and catching her up on all that she's missed and showing her around her new big girl room. Nicole has been a great help in finishing our signs for advertising our cookout. I will (hopefully) use these signs for years to come, and they will always serve as a reminder of our fun weekend together.

Nicole and Haley boasting our sign in the front yard

This weekend held another cool gift that Jesus dropped in our lap...Toby signed up at the last minute to play in a church golf tournament yesterday. Because he hadn't played in over a year and a half, he didn't expect much from his skills, but was looking forward to a day outside with old friends. On hole 7 (ahem, the number of perfection), Toby shot a hole in one. That's right...a hole in one. Toby has never taken formal golf lessons and barely plays often enough to play with dignity. He even confessed that his tee shot was ugly, but still miraculously ended up in the hole. Because of this great shot, his name ended up in the "closest to the pin" drawing for the grand prize of the day...a gas grill and tons of grilling accessories. You guessed it...Toby's name was pulled from the pot and he brought home a huge, new grill. Now, let's count up the unliklies here...1 - Toby decided to play in the tournament just before the deadline, 2 - he hit a crazy, awesome shot which put his name in the pot, 3 - his name was chosen in the drawing, 4 - we have a neighborhood cookout scheduled for seven days later!! Coincidence...of course not! So, while Jesus is certainly in the business of spiritual gift giving, He's also in the business of grill giving! He told us to have this cookout for who knows how many people may show up. We planned to use two of our little grills to meet the demand, which would have been sufficient, but here's a little confirmation and preparation. Whoa! Let's get grilling!

our Jesus grill with all the trimmings

We would really appreciate your prayers for this event in the days to come. Specifically we are asking for doors to open to build relationships with those living around us, for Toby and I to be prepared to share Jesus' love with every person who walks through our doors, for the house work, organizing and food prep required to pull this event off, and for follow up opportunities to encourage these new relationships in the weeks to come. Thank you friends...and you know I will let you know how it goes!