Shh.. its a secret!

To quote a friend of mine, last night I was "in a secret place, doing secret stuff."

Several people in my church are reading a book called Radical by David Platt. Wade is reading it too. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard it is amazing. One of the sections in the book is called "Secret Church".

Wednesday I got a call from my Secret Church leader who disclosed the location where I was to meet my secret church group on Friday night. Wade and I got to the house at 6pm. We ate together and then sat to talk about the things our brothers and sisters experience all over the world. Persecution, abuse, death, imprisonment, banishment. We then prayed for them. The thing that overwhelmed me was the idea that all over our county, groups of people were doing the same thing. I know that God honors the prayers of his people and I feel confident that in those moments, our persecuted family around the world felt the power of those prayers.

Next, we talked about how in many places, the Word is inexcessible. So we opened up 1 Peter and took turns reading through the epistle without the luxery of following along in our own Bibles. We had to really listen. When we finished, we started to disect the text. Our leader told us that 1 Peter could be bullet pointed in two: 1Peter 1:1 - 2:10 Who we are, and 1Peter 2:11 - 5:14 What we should do.

By 9pm we had finished 1 Peter 1. wow. We ventured on and finished chapter 3 by 10pm, so we had to quickly finish up the rest of the book. I saw things I had never seen before. I've read 1 Peter countless times, but I couldn't believe how much I had overlooked. It was an amazing experience to exhaust the text so much with a group of believers. Studying just a few chapters for 4 or 5 hours might seem like it would be difficult, but the time really flew by. I wish we could have had even longer.

At 11pm we relocated to a secret gathering with the other groups in an abandoned warehouse. No electricity, just candels, accoustic guitars, headlamps, and open doors to provide a breeze. We stood together in this Secret Church location and prayed for our brothers and sisters who have no choice to meet anywhere but in secret. We praised God for our freedom and I prayed for God to take away my distractions. Keep me from forgetting, from becoming numb once again.

For an hour we worshiped God together. We filled the warehouse with his praises. And then our pastor at Lifepoint read through the book of 1 Peter again. No extra sermon needed. God's word is more than enough. We ended by getting back into our study groups and praying. Again I was struck with the idea that people in India, Africa, China, North Korea, all over the Earth were feeling the power of our prayers.

I could also note that as we began to leave, we had to re-enter due to shots being fired. Remember, it was 12:30am! I knew we were not in danger, but it was a reminder that the sounds of gunshot are probably commonly heard by others participating in worship.

This was an unforgettable experience and I encourage you to read the book Radical and have your own Secret Church experience. God will reveal much.

chair tutorial

Its not great, but this is my first furniture renovation! I got this chair for free, cause it was going to be thrown out!



I tried to sand it, but didn't have the required arm strength, so my loving (extremely hot) husband did it for me :)


I bought fabric and reupholstered it with my staple gun. It was suprisingly easy! I got white spray paint at Lowes for the finish and went to town! I had to do a few coats, and its got some imperfections if you look up close, but I am happy with the result! I took a boring old chair and turned it into something that looks like new! I love it!

From Zero to Hero!

wow, seriously it has been a LONG time since I've posted.. Want to know why? Because for like a month I have not had any decent internet source! My laptop was in the shop forever!! We finally got fed up with it and ordered a new one. Ooh how nice it must be, a new laptop! Well, I dont know yet, because the day AFTER we ordered it online, our laptop suddenly was fixed! lol AND I just got a droid, as did my hubs. So, we went from only my blackberry, which lets face it, has limited internet usage, to having 2 laptops, a new *free* printer, and two Droids! We are linked people!

So, to update from my last posts, I should just rip the bandaid off... I quit. Running. Yep, A lot of people couldn't believe it, but I'm not going to make any excuses, I just quit. Why? Because I hated it! haha I know I was proud of myself after I finished each time, but I always dreaded going again and wanted to jump off the treadmill while I was on it! So, back to just two days a week of weight training at the gym. My biggest problem with running is there was no change-up! It was the same thing over and over just for longer and longer periods of time! I need change! YES WE CAN! ok, maybe I'm getting a little carried away here.

Lets see... what has happened lately that is noteworthy.. I got tickets to go to the So You Think You Can Dance tour in Orlando next month!! I'm pretty syched about that one! Wade and I are planning two trips to Mexico and one to India this fall, I love foreign missions :) OH! AND I remodeled an old chair! I'll post a tutorial soon, it turned out great!

Here are some photos from our last Mexico trip (Summer 2010) that I was unable to post due to laptop sickness.

Our Family!



Congratulations Mayra and Mauricio!


My and my long-lost amiga Cynthia! (We hadn't seen eachother since 2007 and she still remembered my name. This was the biggest blessing of the trip for me!)


Dulce :)


The day after the Hurricane


Prego Marya about to pop!