Almost done!

Today was another exciting day in the life of Celebration Community Church.  As a church family, we gathered together in our building that is almost done! We were able to spend time writing verses & prayers on the concrete floor before the carpet is laid. It was a special time as a family, the 4 of us & the 200+ family we are a part of : ) If you are interested to see the history & hear about the vision of CCC, watch the video on this link.

Here are some photos of our time there today......

View from the parking lot



Jenny with baby Isaac in her belly & sweet little Kar-bear!



Char was SO excited to run all over when we arrived.  People pay her lots of attention....she relishes in it : )



I love this picture of our family....it's so wonderful when everyone can look at the camera at the same time!
Thanks Heidi for being the attention getter!

Here are just a few of the things people wrote......

Robby was the writer for the Valentine family

The picture below is so sweet.  Our good friend & pastor, Chris pictured with Amanda, his beautiful wife to be.  Theirs will be the first wedding ceremony held in our chapel at the end of December. The spot they chose to write on is where they will stand as they commit their lives to one another.  Now that is special!

Eloise made church history for being the first baby to eat in the middle of the chapel ; ) When this girl is hungry, there is only one thing to satisfy her!

As we treasured this moment with our girls,  I was thinking specifically of two things.  One, we moved here with "a womb they called barren" & have since been blessed with Charlotte & Eloise.  Two, only time will tell but, what if they got married in this chapel? How special to be a part of the early years with this church body & building! The girls would walk right over the place where their Daddy wrote our names below a verse ending with "he himself gives to all mankind, life & breath & everything."  The word of God is true.  As we focus on thankfulness this month, we can remember this verse that it is HE that gives EVERYTHING & to him we owe our thankfulness.

Eloise really got the hang of sitting up on her own this week...perfect for picture taking!

I can't help but include a bit more of our story of how we ended up in Florida.  Chris called us in August 2007 to see if we would prayerfully consider moving to Orlando to be a part of this church plant.  We were excited right off the bat to even consider the possibility but took our time to even respond to his initial request. A month later, we called to let him know that we would like to come out & visit.  We scheduled our 10 day trip for November.  It was actually exactly 4 years ago this weekend that we arrived! We spent our time meeting with the Heinsch family & a couple other families within CCC. We were there for 2 Sunday worship services which we very much enjoyed.  We felt so confident that week that the Lord was directing our steps toward pursuing moving to Orlando & shared our hopes with Chris before returning back to Texas.  And oh yeah, of course we spent a couple days at Disney.....here we are in 2007...

Long story short although I must share in more depth at some point, we moved 6 months later committed to serve alongside Chris, Gregg & the people of Celebration Community Church.  We didn't know what to expect & we didn't know what the years ahead would hold but we were confident that God would provide our every need & work all things for His glory & our good.  We have continued to meet in the auditorium of Celebration High School & Lord willing will celebrate with our first Sunday here at the end of the month..... 

Praise be to God!