Chicago Family

My mom, Hadassah and I are in chicago right now visiting my "Chicago Family". It was such a joy to meet little Grady for the first time. Hadassah was very expressive when she was with him. I love this family... they each in their own way remind me so much of Art. I will post more later but here are some pictures for now... off to sleep.

Happy Sukkot

Several years ago, we dreamed of the day when congregations in our city would come together to celebrate the Jewish holidays ... and this year it happened. We have been celebrating the fall holidays with House of Messiah and All Nations congregations. Above is a picture of us celebrating Sukkot in their Sukkah. Sukkot, also known as Festival of Booths, is one of the coming up feasts of Israel where they came up to Jerusalem. It celebrates God's faithfulness to Israel: even while they were in the desert God provided for them and brought them into their Promised Land. It is a holiday of JOY! I say amen Lord... in this desert we have been in, we have seen your faithfulness, and now we are asking for you to bring us into our Promised Land, our transformed city of Merriam.

Some wonderful people in our community asked if they could build a sukkah in our backyard for the community to use. We said, "Great!" We have been enjoying it. Today Noah, Cassie, Hadassah and I had lunch in it and had a blast. Below is short video (fyi: the videos that show up on the bottom of the screen when the movie is over are not mine do not click on any of them). Feel free to come on over and eat in the Sukkah!

New find

My friend Cassie posted a cool collage on her blog a couple of weeks ago and made it really big. I asked her how she did it. She said she uses draftblogger.com and clicked on the x-large size. I had never heard of this, apparently it has a lot more features on it because they are testing things out to see if they will put it on the blogger.com. As you can tell from the last couple posts, I have been using this feature. Then yesterday my sister in law, Susan told me on draft blogger you can view Stats as to how many times your page as been viewed. When I looked yesterday, it showed that on Monday there were 93 pageviews. I don't know how many people that actually means but I was shocked by the number.

So my question to you out there who read this is who are you? I would love to know if you follow my blog on a semi- regular basis. You can leave a comment on the blog below, or via facebook or send me an email at kingdomlivingchurch@gmail.com .
Also I just wanted to say thanks for reading my blog... it inspires me to post more.

Family Update

Harrison has decided to run cross county this year. Here is an action picture of him.

Hadassah is starting to eat oatmeal and we are trying to get some in her mouth.

Noah got wear a suit coat for the first time and be like Papa for Yom Kippur service

But really this post is about a different part of my family... the kingdom living family this group of people who are passionate about the Lord and loving people in a holistic way. I get the privledge to see many of them twice or sometimes more during the week. Each person in our community has impacted my life in a profound way. I can really not express in words what this community has done for me. Last night during our service, I felt like the Lord showed me just a little of His heart towards this amazing group of people. In the middle of worship I felt like the Lord almost wanted us to stop because He was so overwhelmed by our worship to Him. I don't really know how to put it into words. When I looked around the room at all these precious souls my heart was humbled that my husband and I get the privledge to do this as our living. We love what we do because we love the people in our community and the Amazing God we serve. Here are some pictures from Rosh Hashanah of some of the people of our community.

Guess what I discovered?

For God

About a week ago, I gave Noah some markers and papers to color. He made about 5 pictures. I asked him to tell me about what he made. They were a dolphin, a shark, a baby dolphin, and a mama shark and then he came to this one: He said this is the ocean and it is for God (he had not designated the other pictures for anyone) . I was so touched by this that I put the picture on our refrigerator. A couple days later, he saw it on the frig and said, "Oh mama, remember that is the picture I made for God...when He comes to our house can I give it Him? It will make Him very happy!"

This statement is so profound in so many ways. I am inspired by my 3 year old to the real tangible presence of God, to take time to make something just for Him, to expect Him to come to my home and that His emotions towards me and what I do for Him make Him happy.

my prayer for the new year

Rosh HaShannah starts this Wed. night and ends Thurs. evening. It is a time to celebrate a new year. It celebrates when God created Adam and Eve. It is time of reflection and repentance. here is a little poem I have written for this new year:

Love is like a vapor

Lost in time

A treasure to behold

Lost and found

Deeply Mysterious

And full of simplicity

I love you

And you love me

Love surrounds me

It engulfs me

It gives me breath

It sets me free

For God is love

A profound complexity

The Holy Trinity

United to me

Draw me away

Into your divine Romance

Let's dance the dance of love

One step at a time

Your foot in front of mine

Hold me close

Let me feel your breathe

Blow new life into me

So that I can hear

Your whispers in my ear

This is my prayer

for this new year

Happy Birthday Oma

harrison is now a man!

We celebrated Harrison's 13th birthday this week. Paul, Paul's dad, and Harrison's uncles did a special ceremony, knighting Harrison into manhood. They each shared different aspects of what being a Godly man entails. Then Paul knighted Harrison, letting him know that he is going to have to fight to be a Godly man in this generation, but that he is not alone because he is part of this family. Then he gave him a sword which has engraved on one side the Blake name and Exodus 15:3 (which says, "The Lord is a Warrior, the Lord is His name.") On the other side are the names of four generations of the Blake family, from Harrison up to his great-grandfather who established the Blake family in a Godly heritage. It was a really special evening.


 Here is short slideshow of it (It is my first time putting music behind the picture I didn't know how to cut the song off so when the screen turns black it is over even though the music keeps playing, also didn't know how to make the pictures switch faster next time hopefully I will figure it out).



In addition to the knighting, there other surprises that happened that evening. Harrison was ecstatic to discover that the Texas Blake family came all this way to be a part of the special day. It was such a blessing for everyone to get to spend time with them.

Additionally, Paul's brother Tom and his wife Leah gave Harrison a Woody and Buzz (from the movie Toy Story). These were not from a toy store though ... they were Wyatt's. If you have not heard, Wyatt was one of Harrison's best friends, and he went to be with the Lord on May 21st of this year. The whole room teared up simultaneously when he opened them. It was just such a special moment.


We also let Harrison spend the night with his Texas cousins. The next day he had a lot of fun staying home from school, going to the park and the pool with the family instead.




That night he even got to watch his dad and two uncles play in a soccer game together and they each scored a goal. But to be honest, it was DeAnn who was really watching the game the most intently and who was the most excited when all three of her boys scored.