Giant peach on side of road

We drove to High Point, NC to spend the night with our dear friends, Michael and Annette Kelly and their very sweet kids. We love hanging out with them and laughing very hard at all our “church stories”.  We pastor churches 1100 miles apart and there are so many things similar.

Central Triad Church in High Point/Winston-Salem

Sunday, we were given the opportunity to speak at their church and instead of Robin preaching solo, we decided to speak as a couple and tell our story about life with Kennady.

getting in and out in the RV with Kennady.

It was our first official time to speak like this and speak of God’s meaning throughout this process.  Wow. What a great service.  The praise and worship was anointed! What a great presence of God in that place.  After the singing and offering time, there was a special guest singer that began to sing powerfully and people started coming to the front for prayer.  We were introduced around an hour and a half into the service.  (They are used to 2 hour services!)

We spoke about Kennady’s story. Pregnancy. Tests. Surgeries. We talked about the doctor’s comments.  We spoke about the Apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” and we also spoke about 1 Peter 4 suffering.  God was revealed in the place and we ended with prayer for people.  We brought Kennady to the front and gave people the opportunity to pray with her. What a great moment.  Two kids came up and put offerings in her hands.  It was so surprising.  What makes a child want to give another child their money?  God.  For these two children, this is what was immediately available to them, when God gave them a compassion for another person, they responded.  It really touched our hearts.

Kennady and the offering she was given

After a great lunch with our friends, we headed to Concord, NC.

I banned Robin from driving this afternoon.  He ran over two curbs and barely missed a tree or two.  I can only sit by quietly for so long (quietly is basically me not yelling, which does not exclude the occasional outburst of “what on earth!!” or “baby, watch the road!”)

We arrived in Concord at the Families for HoPE conference and were immediately greeted by a slew of handicapped vans!  Home sweet home.

We got in the building and saw lots of other families just like us.  It was so soothing to really, truly feel like we were just like everyone else for the first time.

There are 38 families here all with children that are currently living with Holoprosencephaly or have passed on.  That makes for a whole lotta kids and parents.

One of the first things we got to do was go around and get to know everyone.

We all got together and took a giant group picture.

During the group picture, Kennady reached over and grabbed her new friend, Chloe.

We wrapped up the evening with a very touching balloon release to honor he children who have passed on.  Each balloon had a name and a sweet note attached to it.

Avery finishing the milk off. mmmmm

We got back to our new campsite, got the R.V. all leveled, and set up for the night.  The boys had their obligatory bedtime snack and then hit the sack.