Family Fun Night at SBTS

Pulled pork, inflatables, hamburgers, forts, hot dogs, tanks, popcorn, dress up clothes, nachos, carousel, ice cream, Ferris Wheel, peanuts, live music, candy, glow sticks, pop (soda), sky divers, snow cones, balloons, chocolate covered bananas, silly bands - we enjoyed all this and more last night at Southern Seminary's Fall Festival. It's all FREE for seminary students and alumni. We look forward to it every fall. It's like a big carnival with all your friends at no cost. The kids love it. Who am I kidding? We'd go even if we didn't have kids! You can't beat all you can eat free food!

Three skydivers landed right in the middle of seminary lawn.
This year they had a section set up for "frontier days." This is inside the tepee.

Happy little Indian

Standing outside the tepee

Carousel

Daddy got kicked off this ride but Owen had no problem going alone. He's having fun!

Going up on the Ferris Wheel. The wait for this ride was ridiculous. Thankfully Owen had fun so it was worth it. You can't see him, but he is sitting next to Ben.

Getting on the Ferris Wheel

Aubrey and her friend, Nathan. You know all that free food I mentioned above? Yeah, that wasn't enough apparently. Here is Aubrey stealing snacks from Nathan (after eating two hot dogs of her own no less)

Lana and Owen

I love spending time with my family!

SBTS Commencement

Ben is FINISHED! Friday, May 14 on the Seminary Lawn the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary had their commencement service. The entire ceremony was so special and was truly a time of worship and praise. All the glory was given to God as many people gathered together to celebrate the accomplishments of some 200 graduates.

You can read about our journey to Southern by clicking here. I continue to be thankful to the Lord for bringing us here. It has been such a wonderful experience! Ben received a great education. I too have learned so much in the Seminary Wives Institute. We have met some really great people and have developed very special relationships that we will treasure for years to come!

These are our good friends (and neighbors) Josh and Diana.

This is Mark and Jennifer. We are in the same small group at our church.

Yes, graduation day is a big day for the graduates. But it's also a big day for their wives! We are so excited to have our husbands back!

We had several family members and friends join us for this special occasion! I had 12 people in my little apartment for three days (they spent the night at the hotel). It was so much fun to feed, entertain and spend time with these special people!

Ben was the only graduate from the state of Michigan.

Dr. Albert Mohler gave the commencement address. It was fantastic. You can read it here

I'm so proud of this guy!

Ben & his parents

Ben & and his sister, Sarah

Ben and I with my dad. This picture makes me smile because it's a typical picture of my dad!

Ben's two friends from Michigan, Dave and Chris, came down to surprise Ben.

Ben with Dr. Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

After the ceremony Ben and I took everyone out to eat at Logan's Steakhouse. Aunt Jane stayed home from the graduation to watch our children. What a blessing!

Aubrey apparently felt pretty comfortable with Aunt Jane!

FINISHED!

It was just over four years ago when I wrote this post announcing Ben's decision to sell our home, quit our jobs and move to Kentucky to pursue higher education. I asked many of you to pray about these things, and you did. It was excited to share our journey on this blog, to show how God had answered our prayers and directed our paths. And it was a real blessing to have so many loyal friends who went to the Lord on our behalf. Our faith was stretched and we grew as we waited on the Lord to sell our house, which He did just a couple of weeks before we needed to leave for Kentucky. Once we moved here God provided us with work. Ben got a job at a Jewish Temple and I landed a teaching position at Whitefield Academy. We were here less than six months when God answered another one of our prayers and I was able to get pregnant after dealing with infertility. Once we had our first child we knew we could not afford to live on one income while Ben was in school, but we also knew that we did not want Owen in day care. Yet, again, God gave us the desire of our hearts and allowed me to get a job that I could bring Owen to. I could write a book about all the prayers God has answered!

Do I write all of this to boast about how great our life has been? Not exactly, though I admit God has been exceedingly kind and gracious to us. I write all of this to show that God is good. He is faithful. He provides. He answers prayer. He's not a genie that gives us everything we ask for. In fact, He loves me too much to give me everything I ask for. As I look back at the last four years I am in awe of all that God has done. I didn't always see God's hand in the moment, but it's so clear to me now.

And now, as I write this, Ben is finishing his last exam - in Greek. He's not finishing easy! Many of you who faithfully pray for us have asked where we are going next. We don't know. Just like we didn't know how we would get to Kentucky, how we would make it through school, how we would pay our bills, how we would be able to have children. BUT . . . God knows. And once again I call upon my friends to pray for us, that God would show us where He wants us and continue to direct our paths.

Family Fun Day at SBTS

Today was Family Fun Day at the Seminary. Normally it is held outdoors but because of the cold weather it was moved to the gym. It's a nice time for little ones to get out and play games and have a good time. We went with our good friends, Diana and her two kids Nathan and Lana. Diana's husband is a seminary student as well and because our husbands are typically at work or school we do a lot of things together. It works out great! They also live right below us. They have a baby six weeks older than Aubrey and their daughter is six months older than Owen. They are great buddies! The Bounce House

Playing ball - he's practicing so he can beat Uncle Drew on the court some day

Cookie Walk

They are both winnersThe duck pond, or whatever this game is called. Owen is no dummy. He just kept picking up ducks until he found a winner. Although later in the day I caught him crawling ACROSS the pool. He was soaked!Bean Bag Toss. It didn't take long for Owen to find a short cut to getting the bag in the holeWhat's the point in standing way back here when you can just walk right over to the hole and put it in?Face Painting

Spring Celebration

Southern Seminary has a great program for women that Mrs. Mary Mohler, wife of Dr. Albert Mohler, founded several years ago called the Seminary Wives Institute (SWI). Several classes are offered each semester that are designed specifically for the wife of a man in ministry. Each class is worth so many credits (much like regular college courses) and these credits can be transferred to other schools and are accepted by mission boards for those training for ministry. The classes are very inexpensive and are taught by either the faculty of the seminary or their wives. I have completed four courses so far and have loved it! Unfortunately I will not be able to complete the program before Ben is finished with seminary. This semester I took "The Ministry of Hospitality" with Mrs. Mohler. One of the final projects for the class was to organize the annual Spring Celebration. Only women who take part in SWI can attend this event and about 200 women do. I was part of the decorating committee. This year it was decided that it would be "fun" to decorate each of the 20 tables with a different theme. Well, that's only "fun" if you're NOT on the decorating committee because that multiplied our work by 20 times and there were only a few of us on the entire committee! We had to have 20 different sets of plates, 20 different center pieces, etc! Let's just say that as much as I loved the class and as much as I enjoyed Spring Celebration, I am so glad it's over! (And I can admit now that it was kinda fun). Here are a few pictures I took of some of the different tables:

Okay, I don't really know what the theme is here. How about, "Plain and simple, we were out of ideas"?

Theme: Kids

Theme: Hearts

Theme: Tea Time

Theme: Plaid

Theme: Movies/Films

Theme: Stars

Theme: Sports (You probably can't tell, but those are golf balls on the bottom of the chargers)

Theme: Sewing

Theme: Books/Study

The Decorating Committee - three of us did the actual decorating

(I should definitely be standing in the back, this picture is awful!)

Heritage Hall at Southern Seminary