Worship in the City 2011

A few weeks ago {YES I am oh so behind on blogging!} we attended a 2 day event in Knoxville called "Worship in the City". I left speechless except WOW!! What an amazing weekend we just had praising God through music & feeding hungry kids! I left reminded that serving & praising God can be JUST PLAIN OUT AWESOME!

This beautiful God sent lady, which happens to be my younger sister boss, had a vision to bring all "brothers & sisters" of God together.....setting aside all denominational views to PRAISE GOD through music! Cause no matter what church we attend we all love some music right?!! She worked countless hours to put this 2 day event together.....and the most humbling thing about it.....she never once got up on stage & said "hey look at me...I'M THE ONE WHO DID THIS"....no she worked hard all weekend behind the scenes. Gives me chills just thinking about how happy God must have been watching all her hard work!

That wasn't the end of her goodness....NOPE! I've made some mention on here before that we have a HUGE desire to adopt a little boy. We still are unsure of all the timing & location of it all but in God's perfect timing all those details will work themselves out. In the mean time I continue to sew & sell pencil rolls to go towards our adoption fund! They had vendor booths at this event & hearing about our story Lori graciously offered to cover the cost of our booth & allow us to be a vendor!! I was overwhelmed to say the least! Thanks to the help of my mom everything came together perfectly!

"Pencil Rolls for Him"........2 meanings: For Him {God} & for him {our little boy}

Pails with vintage pictures from children's books......can be used for all kinds of things....lego's, crayons, blocks, nature nuggets....oh the possibilities!

{found this old ladder many months ago & despite my husbands uncertainty it fit in perfect!}

"Our Story" framed so that people could read the meaning behind selling the rolls.....the globe symbolizing that God has a child picked out for us....we just do not know where that place is quite yet!!

Friday night we were blessed with music from both "Shane & Shane" and "Mercy Me"

Following the concert my younger sister had secretly picked up a variety of cupcakes from her restaurant & had a little "Happy Birthday" celebration back at the hotel!

Kristi was SUPER windy that night & managed to get a head start on blowing out ALL the candles before I could even spit on one!

Hence "THE LOOK"!!!

As mentioned in the beginning of this post hungry children were fed because of this event! The money from this event went towards feeding 1 million children in Africa.....is that beautiful music to your ears?!!! They asked for volunteers to come & spend as much time as they wanted packing up meals for these kids! So for a couple hours while I was "manning the booth" the rest of the family packed over 300 meals! If my memory serves me right they were packing up: rice, dehydrated veggies, powdered soy milk, & soy protein powder.

I was told that once they got into a rhythm Jon started timing them & it became a race!

NOT surprising if you know Jon!!

A few special guest from Veggie Tales were in attendance!

Both days were full of clear skies & sun! Saturday was exceptionally pretty for a hot August day!

Lots of running barefoot in the grass.....

playing with daddy.....

doing flips....

smiling.....

& swinging in circles occurred!

The weekend quickly came to a close & we found ourselves DANCING the night away to "Third Day"......probably the most fun I've had in a while praising God! I was quite certain that in the middle of dancing & being surrounded by hundreds & hundreds of other christians dancing that God certainly wasn't standing still!

A certain someone danced till she fell asleep!

I am thankful for SO much.....1. for a selfless lady living in Knoxville who gave so much of herself & time to serve God! 2. For the 12 rolls & 1 pail God sold for our little boy! While to some that doesn't seem like many I left happy! 3. For the opportunity to be a vendor & get my name out there a little more! 4. That my girls were able to experience a fun weekend praising God through GOOD music! 5. That my girls were able to slightly understand that there are kids SO VERY hungry that dried up veggies, rice, and powdered "stuff" was gonna make them SMILE! 6. That my husband was able to hear "cool" christian music....no matter the genre of music you enjoy.....guarenteed you can find it in christian music! He came home & scoured i-tunes for all kinds of new music! 7. That I was surrounded by hundreds of people who love God & love to serve Him! 8. That I was able to be with my entire immediate family enjoying this event together. 9. That I serve a God who can laugh & have fun 10. That I sat next to an organization call "Haiti Serve" {a blog will be devoted just for them!} & meeting the kindest lady! ........& that list could go on & on!

COME NEXT YEAR! You will NOT be disappointed one bit!