My mom with our hosts Jim and Louise at the concert

Probably the best looking 18th green anywhere - SC is beautiful!

Last Friday I headed down to SC to sing at Crossgate Church in Seneca. They’ve just completed their new building, and they had a concert to celebrate. What a wonderful congregation! They were so warm, and I had a wonderful time celebrating with them.

I was also so incredibly touched by their heart for missions. They give over a third of their budget annually to missions! I am just amazed by that. Our hosts are very involved in many missions, and had just gotten back from visiting their daughter and her family in Bolivia where they are missionaries. So exciting to hear what God is doing around the world. We loved our visit, and are so excited to return – I will be doing their women’s retreat in the spring!

Got my advance copy of Lifeway’s new Christmas musical The Journey today. So excited to see it! My song “God Loved the World” is in there, and Phillip Keveren did a beautiful string background to a spoken intro that really sets up the Gospel message that we have in the song. It was so fun for me, and also cool to see it set in a choral version. Can’t wait to see what God will do with it!

I was featured on a podcast by “The Need Project”. They are doing wonderful work helping to connect special needs parents with resources and help – they were awesome to work with. We talked about my son Toby’s struggle with Sensory Integration Dysfunction and early intervention. You can listen to the podcast and download it here. Thanks for listening!

Today I went to sing for the finish of the 5K Young Life race at the zoo to help kids raise money for their camp trips. I was last on the line-up – first Chris Graham, then Ryan Wilkins, then me. Holy cow, it was the coldest day I can remember for this time of year in forever! It was 85 degrees yesterday! The stage was right on the water and the wind was totally whipping through there. Chris and Ryan both play the guitar and were having a hard time feeling their fingers. I was not sure how I was going to play the piano, and stuff kept flying through the space with all the wind.

The runners and walkers were troopers and everyone finished, but there was not a lot of celebrating at the end. Mostly people ran for the snacks since they were inside! We were all trying to decide if it was even worth setting up because we didn’t think people would stick around. In the end, I just decided to start a dance party for Ryan and we called it a day. 🙂 Seemed the better part of valor, and hey, the dancing kept us warm!

Got another blogger review today – very sweet! Check it out here!

This review really touched my heart – thanks you so much!

Check it out here!

With Dino and Cheryl at the TBN studio, NY, NY

Taking over NY!!

Awesome noodle bowl at Ollie's

Union Square from the top of Filene's Basement

I was asked to be on the Dino Show on TBN, and I was excited both to do the show, and to get to go back to New York. I went to graduate school there, and we lived there for about 5 years, so it was fun to have a great reason to return!

I was not excited though, that the day before I was really not feeling well. That day was going to need a lot of stamina – flying out early to make sure I would make the taping, getting from La Guardia in Queens to lower Manhattan with all my stuff on public transit (only way to go!!), killing time if my flight was on time (it was), doing the taping, then back to La Guardia and a late flight home. I was feeling very crummy, and also worried that it would affect my singing. Not good.

God is good, though, and He definitely got me through the day. Not only that, but it was fun too! I was totally sick afterwards, but hey, I had the weekend off anyway. Well, mostly. As much as a mom has anyway!!

I loved being back in NY and even got to have one of my favorite lunches at Ollie’s – soup is awesome when you don’t feel good, even if I could never have eaten it all! I took a picture to share. 🙂

One very NY story. Anyone who has been there knows that finding a public restroom is almost impossible (there weren’t even bathrooms in the public library – no joke!). I was told to come camera-ready since the schedule was pretty nuts on their filming days and they didn’t know what the makeup situation would be. Okay, no problem!! Obviously I can fly from Columbus, take an hour of public transit, kill time on the streets of NY, not have access to restrooms, and still look beautifully camera-ready when I arrive. Sure.

So I killed myself and finally found a bathroom on the 6th floor of a Filene’s Basement in Union Square where I hid my flatiron behind my bag hoping no one would kick me out and that I wouldn’t set my bag on fire, doing a curl and then flinging it back behind the bag every time someone came in. Did crazy ridiculous make-up that looks right at home in a TV studio with big lighting, but looks a bit freakish and street-walker-y on a person in Filene’s Basement. Went into a stall to wave the flat iron around and around trying to cool it off so I could put it in my bag and not melt all my stuff. Went down the 6 flights, and across Union Square to the studios where they showed me into… a big makeup room that I had to myself for more than an hour. Mmm, hmm. Welcome to NY!!

Well, it’s begun. Every year I write a play with my playwrite partner, Terry, and we put together a full production show for our Adventure Week (that would be VBS) at church. It’s a serial, so the kids see 30 minutes of the show every day through the week, sort of a “tune in tomorrow to see what happened in Old El Paso!!” kind of thing.

This year we are going back to the Old West, and we had our first blocking rehearsal today. This cast is going to be fantastic – they are so funny! So if you’re in the Columbus area, kiddos, saddle up and join Jiffy, Miss Lilly, Leadbelly, the Sheriff, Flo, and Bad Bart for the rootin’est, tootin’est good time this side of the Rio Grande, yeeeeehaw!!

Sorry, got carried away. But it is going to be pretty fantabulous. You can register here if you’re interested. It’ll be June 21-25th, 9am-noon and it’s free. 🙂

This week has been absolutely nuts. It started with my close friend Linda having her baby, Ben, which should have been wonderful, but there were complications and it got very, very scary. Ben is still in the NICU and will be there for a while, but thank the Lord, it looks like he will still be with us, and it’s even looking pretty good that he will be fine. I’ve spent a lot of time at the hospital this week with them.

My husband left on Monday for the week in New York. He started a new job fairly recently and his first client is Sesame Street (I know, how cool is that?!), so he had to go there for a few days, but they weren’t the best days to miss. On Wednesday, another very close friend had her husband admitted to the hospital, and he may need major surgery. Very tough for them, and I really want to be there for her.

To go with that, I have the three kids and all my regular stuff and all their regular stuff, plus Toby got a double ear infection and tripped at school and tried to break his nose (didn’t quite succeed, thank goodness, but he is a study in purple right now, poor kid), so all in all, it has not been the best week. But Nathan came home, and we went to see baby Ben tonight, and he’s so beautiful, and looks so much better, it’s really hard to complain when you see God answering prayer like that!

On another note, I came out in several more blogger reviews, and it really touches my heart! I’m so glad they are liking the music, and that it keeps them focused on the Lord – that is the best thing I can think of for my music! You can read them here and here and here!

My article about Toby’s sensory processing disorder “A New Normal” came out in a few more places – here is one.
Thanks for checking it out!