The Greatest Day of Home Church Yet!

It seems, as I begin to get old and gray hairs begin appearing unwelcomed onto my head, everything... well... okay, scratch that. :P

Anyways, my weekend was truly amazing! We had such a good time with the Bendixens, and then we were able to go to Home Church for the first time in a while! It was, for sure, a phenomenal time, and I made sure not to miss a single moment. :)

Friday
On Friday, we did lots of things, and I took pictures of it all. :)

First of all, we played volleyball!


This was my team. :P


After that, we went to our rental house and raked the leaves:


We collected like 15 bags of leaves!


Then, we all went to the Ice Cream Parlour!


Phyllissa was left out of the picture. ;)


Katie is quite talented you know. :P


And Ele had quite the appetite. :P


Huddling around the arcade games ;)


Levi having the time of his life!


Late Friday night, we all watched [laughing & crying] The Christmas Shoes. It was fun, and here is the group photo. ;)


Saturday
On Saturday, most of us went to the dollar store inside the mall. :)

Levi, Andrew and I walked part way there:


Ele's second favorite part of every store (right behind the candy aisle...):


The three of us in the mall. The Bendixens bought like 25+ bags of beef jerky ;)


Most of the people drove around on our go-cart:


Levi came with me on my paper route:


A video of Levi and I on the paper route. :)



Mr. Bendixen, Levi, Andrew and I played Nexus Ops:


Home Church
For at least a week, we had been spreading the word, and getting people to pray that we would come to Home Church the following Sunday. With special thanks to God, we were able to go! We didn't find out for sure until late Saturday, but we were so excited about it! :)

While having church, and when we would normally be winding down by having communion, people started confessing and asking forgiveness for things. It was really awesome. The last person to do it was Ryan C., who apologized to me for debating him on music. I was really surprised that he would (a) ask for forgiveness (as I did the same as he), and (b) that he'd do it during church. I also did so to him, and that made it the first time I'd ever talked during Home Church. ;)

Also before communion, we anointed the baby Jonathan with oil. As you probably know, he has had bad problems lately, and many people have been praying for him. Praise God, he has been doing very much better! (Though he is still losing weight.) We'll see what God will do! Overall, it was a really awesome church service.

After church, we (of course) played volleyball! But, after a few games, we decided to go witnessing at the mall. So, all of us teenagers (and a few adults) packed ourselves into two vans and drove to a nearby mall. For a while, we mostly just walked around the mall, looking for people to talk to. There weren’t very many people there.

Before we left, everyone stood in a circle, talking and praying:


We decided to go to another mall, but people we scattered throughout the mall by now. We all started meeting in a central place, while Barak played his guitar. He was also reading The Wordless book, and giving the Gospel. We all stood around him, to create a crowd. Once we were all about together, a security guard came up to Barak and said something like, "If you want to jam, that's fine. But not here." Yeah, Barak the Jammer. :P

Ryan C. in the van on the way to the mall:



We then went to a bigger mall. For a while there, I didn't talk to anyone (as well as many others). Ryan C. and I decided to talk to this guy which was just sitting in his seat not doing anything. After talking with him for a bit, we learned that he was a Christian, too. We spent about an hour talking to him. At one point, Ryan said, "Well, it's been nice talking to you," somewhat wanting to leave. Then the guy said, "Why, you aren't going anywhere, are you?" Ryan had to act like he wasn’t think of it. So I wanted to laugh, but didn't. :D

It was a good talk, and the guy was a really good Christian. He even hugged us goodbye. :P It was now mall closing, so we walked out of the building. As we were waiting for everyone else to come out, we had a good time of fun, laughter, and singing. We learned that three people were saved while witnessing! Praise God! Once Jacob and Ele finished talking to a guy, we left. As we were following the other van, we got stuck behind a red light, and lost them. We took a wrong turn on the highway, and fully lost them!

Jeriah at the second mall:


Here is us singing More Precious Than Silver:


Jeriah was a good navigator, so we did get back on track. But, we just decided to go home from there. When we arrived home, they weren't there! We kept calling them, and we thought they went out to a coffee shop or something. Thankfully, they didn't, and were just picking up some ice cream from a store. While they were on their way, I was able to hold Jonathan for the first time ever. I loved it. :)

Ele, Bear and Andrew singing Standing on the Promises:
\

I don't know why, but Ele was sitting on Andrew while singing. ;)




After ice cream and more volleyball, people started to leave, sadly. We sang several songs, and talked in the living room for a while. Still sadly, we soon had to go. But it was an amazing day! I enjoyed it all, from the confessions and anointing of oil during church, to volleyball and being with friends, and having people saved while witnessing at the mall, and it truly was The Greatest Day of Home Church Yet!

---

God bless, J.J.