a trip to the zoo

on monday, eric and i took molly to the zoo. this is the first time just the 3 of us have gone together. it was a lot of fun! we bought a zoo pass earlier this year, and we have really enjoyed using it. i thought i would share some pictures with you all. oh and one more thing, molly is walking everywhere!

august update

hey everyone! we hope you all are doing great! i just wanted to update you all on some things going on at the ridge. on aug 13, eric took 7 high schoolers and 5 volunteers to the lake for an overnighter. they had an awesome time! the kids are still talking about it. they rode the jet skis, tubed, water skied, and had a campfire. they also ate very well. jim, the guy who owns the house they stayed at, cooked for them, and they ate ribs, chicken, gourmet desserts, and a bunch of other great things. so next year we plan on going to the lake probably 3 times or so, just for all of the kids who didn't go this year, and also for the kids who had a great time and want to go back.
this past wednesday, eric took 8 jr. highers and a couple adults to six flags. they also had a great time. so student ministries is getting rolling. come the end of sept. we will officially launch, and start small groups. so please be praying for our official launch, and for our volunteers. also, for the kids and that we can have an impact on their lives, and ultimately for a relationship with christ.
eric is very busy with neighborhood groups too. thankfully he has some help. the ridge just hired 3 more staff. well one staff member left to start her own business, so we were able to find a replacement, and then we hired a part time worship guy, and another lady as our director of details. the ridge also will be moving into some bigger and better office space next week. so they all had fun picking out "new" used office furniture. we have a lot more office space, and a warehouse to use now. so we are pretty excited.
other then that, things are going great here. i am still plugging away at school, and molly is almost walking. she walks a little bit, but it's still faster for her to crawl. so after about 6/7 steps, she will get down and crawl. at her one year check-up the doctor said she was pretty much perfect, which we all knew that. molly is also talking a lot. she doesn't really say too many words, but lots of babbles and squeals. we have a lot of fun, me and her. i feel so blessed to stay home with her, and watch her grow and change everyday. thank you to all of you for allowing me to stay with her. thank you for your continual prayer and financial support too. we have almost been here a year! it's gone by so fast. we are gearing up for the ridge's 2 year anniversary on sept. 28. we have an awesome speaker coming, and it's going to be a great time. if any of you want to come up and celebrate with us, we would love to see you!
well that's all for now. again...please keep in touch. we love to know what's going on where you are! thanks for everything!

ps-how could i forget?!

oh, another thing happened when we were in ohio, our niece, mandy got baptized!! it was awesome to be there with her! it was on molly's birthday too. so now both granddaughters were "born" on the same day! we love mandy so much. she is an amazing girl, and god is going to do great things through her!!

august, so far

hello everyone! we hope you are all doing just great. eric and i just got back from spending 11 days in ohio. i know what you all are thinking, "you guys were in ohio, and you didn't come to visit!" we tried, but the day we set aside to visit, molly got her top tooth and it was an awful night and day! so we will hit you all up the next time we come to ohio, or we may just plan a special weekend trip to go only to cincy. trust me, we wanted to see you all! we just ran out of time. we were so busy running around visiting family, and friends. but trust me, we will see you all next time!

while we were in ohio, molly turned 1! i still am shocked that she is 1 already. this past year really flew by. we had a big party for her at grandma and grandpa's house. it was so much fun planning for it, and it was great to have all of our family there for it too. we made a plate at a pottery store and painted it, and then had everyone at the party sign it. so now she can eat off it on her birthday every year.

also in ohio, eric performed the wedding for his best friend, ryan. we had a great time! we got to see a lot of people we haven't seen since college, and just seeing ryan get married was truly amazing. he has always said he was never getting married, then karis came along, and bam! now he is married. they are awesome together. god is going to do great things through them.

i can't really remember all of the other things we did in ohio, but we were busy. eric played a lot of golf :) i will leave you with some pics from our ohio visit.

also, please be in prayer for our student ministry. tomorrow eric is taking the high schoolers on a lake trip. it should be awesome. we have been planning for this for a couple of months now. and then next week the jr highers are going to six flags. but in sept. we are launching our small groups for students. we are trying to do everything with excellence, and more importantly, with gods timing, and help. since most of our adults have not been "churched", it's hard to get their kids involved in activities. so please pray for participation, and encouragement for our students.

if you are ever in the area, let us know. we love visitors, and love to hear from you all!

just checking in

hello everyone!

eric and i really have nothing new to share, but we wanted to say we hope you all are enjoying your summers! we can't believe summer is half way over aleady! we are busy getting student ministry ready to launch, and starting neighborhood groups back up for the fall.

have a great rest of july!!

4th of july parade

so up here in milwaukee parades are very popular. the ridge has had the opportunity to participate in new berlin's 4th of july parade for the past 2 years (this year being the 2nd). last year they won best entertainment, and this year we won the highest honor, the council award. very exciting. the council award is presented to the organization that best represents the community in the parade. how exciting for us. we all had a great time. the only word i can really use to describe the whole thing is...fun. eric and i had so much fun, and i think molly did too. we passed out beach balls, candy, cards with our info on them, and had a trailer pulling a live band. i mean seriously, who could not have fun there?! enjoy the pictures, and we hope you all had a safe and fun 4th of july weekend!

and the grand total is...

hello! well i have been bursting at the seams waiting to tell you all our grand total we gave to the dominican republic...we gave...$27,400.00!! yes, you are reading it right! isn't God amazing! i was totally blown away when i heard the total, and i know our people were too! on tuesday the service will be on our website www.theridgecc.com and you can watch and hear the reactions of our church.

i think one of the amazing parts about this offering is that our weekly need as a church is like $6500.00 and we barely, just make that every week, sometimes we don't make it. and for people to raise up and be so sacrificial means a lot of people are getting it. they understand that we should "hurt" for Jesus, and for his people. i know there are a lot of stories of what people did to make their offering truly sacrificial. some people gave up cable, kids sold popsicles, kids gave their allowances, some people even gave their stimulus checks away. wow! i am still so excited about the offering, and mark's trip down there last week, and just the impact of all of this.

for our supporters-this what you are a part of! how exciting for you! thank you for your financial support and most importantly your prayers! i want you all to take ownership in this offering too. God is so exciting and wonderful. i know we all know this, but when he shows this greatness and faithfulness, it still amazes me.

yesterday we wrapped up the oneprayer series. we heard from perry nobel, and let me tell you, he was so funny! and a good preacher, but he was hilarious! you all should watch him. you will learn a lot and laugh a lot. he talked about being dangerous, and you should be excited to see what God is going to do next, and we all should be anticipating his next move. his sermon was very fitting for the day we announced the grand total. this was all orchestrated by God, because we chose to listen to perry like a month ago, and there was no way we knew what the offering would be, so this is another example of God knowing the plans for us.

a little recap of our oneprayer prayers...

mark-lord, we are blessed to be a blessing
craig groeschel-lord, make us one
ed young-lord, wake us up
perry nobel-lord, make us dangerous

this oneprayer series was awesome for me, and for the ridge!
i am so excited about what God is doing here, and all over the world!