Sunday, September 11

What a great service! I was able to attend my first service for StoneWater Sunday. It was great! A big thank you to Christy for taking the 2&3 year olds (especially since we had even more than usual - 15).

According to offical counts, we had 145 people attend! That's great. Statistics show that the week after the Grand Opening, attendance will drop by 50%, so the more people we have now, the better. We have membership class the next two Sundays, and we already have 23 for the 18th and 17 for the 25th. We're still taking people, so, hopefully those numbers will continue to rise. People are also beginning to volunteer for Camp Stepping Stone. That's really good, because based on last week, we need to add a 2&3 year old class! I'd rather have too many than not enough.

Check out some pictures (it's dark in there):
Here is the nursery. We had to move a tent in front of the fence so that the little toddlers wouldn't see out and scream to be free!
The worship service.
The band.
2 & 3 year olds.
Camp SteppingStone Tents
SteppingStone class

50 Strong!

Last night StoneWater had 50 people in attendance. We were packed, and it was wonderful. Jeremy continued to look at Acts 2 - focusing on fellowship and discipleship. Camp SteppingStone focused on Jesus has power and the story of Lazarus.

We had several new faces in addition to those who are now regular members of our Sunday night meetings. We continue to meet new people in the community and receive phone calls of inquiries.

Please continue to pray that we will raise money for sound equipment and that a place for us to meet regularly will open soon!

Camp SteppingStone

Here are some pictures from Camp SteppingStone last night. Unfortunately I was busy during the actual teaching time, so I don't have any pictures. However, here are pictures of worship time.

Amazing Night!

Jeremy just gave me the tired yet happy title. We are off to bed (just got Jenna down) after our Sneak Peek service for StoneWater. 94 people, including children, were in attendance. I didn't witness the service as I was with the children, but I heard it was great. I'll let you know after I watch the video. There was a lot of excitement as we set up and welcomed the first people in. We only wish we could have met everyone - so if you were there, and we didn't meet you, please come back so we can meet you and talk to you personally.

As for Camp SteppingStone, it was great. We had 9 kids K-3rd grade, 2 babies, 13 one year - pre-K. It was sheer craziness, but the kids learned "Jesus is my friend." We sang songs, had our lessons, ate snacks, took potty/restroom breaks, and finished the night off with a VeggieTale and game of ball. A big thanks to the Shirley Hooks Century 21 office for hosting us in their meeting room.

Pictures and stuff tomorrow...
(posted by Misti)

Crazy

Wow! We have had one crazy weekend. Friday morning we began the major finishing touches for our outreach/promotion of StoneWater. Jason, a lifelong friend of Jeremy's who will be helping us with the church, went and picked up 5000 bottles of water - yes, 5000. About 10:00 Team Church from Fort Worth arrived to help with various projects throughout the weekend. That meant that we averaged 10 people in our home at all times from Friday until Monday afternoon. We had 10,000 business cards which promote our Sneak Peek service on July 10 to distribute along with those bottles of water. Friday afternoon the Team church team set out to various locations around Granbury - downtown, the park, the beach, Wal-Mart - and began giving out free water and cards. At about 4:30 the team returned to our house to begin setting up for our Neighborhood Party. We sent out 159 postcards on Tuesday to invite all the homes in our neighborhood to our house for a "get to know everyone" party. This wasn't a church event, but it did allow us to meet some new friends. Team Church brought a bounce house, snow cone, cotton candy, popcorn machines, did face painting and we had hot dogs, drinks, and chips. It was GREAT! We ended up having about 100 of our neighbors come over and hang out with us...some even came on in after it was over and stayed until about 11:00! I am really excited for our family that we have some new friends, and so do Jenna and Hudson.

Saturday morning the team set out again, all over Granbury to give out water. The day was spent distributing water and cards to continue to promote the Sneak Peek night on July 10.

Sunday things calmed down, a little...we cleaned house and began to prepare for our first church service, Sunday night in our home. I prepared a lesson for Camp Stepping Stone. At 5:30 I was still running around in an old t-shirt and shorts and people began arriving. We had 40 people (29 adults and 11 kids) attend our first service! It was packed! After the service we unloaded water and began preparing our "float" for the parade.

Monday morning we began early to prepare for the parade. Jeremy and I decided we could have a cool float or decorate moms and kids really cute for the ride. We went for the moms and kids. So, we loaded up thousands of bottles of water, ice, and families, and went on the parade route. It was so CRAZY! You can see in the pictures the water troughs that were filled with water bottles and ice. We actually ran out of both, and reloaded on the route - running in convenience stores for water and having a team member meet us on a side road with cases of water. Funny aside - several kids needed snacks and potty breaks along the route, which took about 2 hours to finish. After a quick lunch and nap (thank goodness), we re-grouped for supper at our house and left to finish handing out water at the fireworks.

A big thanks to:

• All of our helpers over the weekend.
• Team Church
• Jay & Debbie Mills

Future events and prayer requests:

• Sneak Peek - July 10, 6:00 pm at Celebration Hall downtown we will have our first public service. Please pray for details and people to come!
• We are now meeting weekly in our home on Sunday nights (minus Sneak Peek night). Continue to pray we find a more permanent place to meet - we're hoping to be in the schools, but no decision has been made.
• Pray for people to serve - we need children's workers among others.