The month of July... it flew right by!

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that July slipped away so fast! It's been a busy month for all of us!

One thing that kept us busy was packing and moving. As of August 1, we are officially moved to Green Gambrels! After all the driving we've been doing recently, it's a relief to stay put in one place finally.

July 16-19 was the Follow-Me conference, held in New Hampshire. It was a great time of fellowship and challenges to follow Christ and be obedient to Him, no matter what the cost. There were three main speakers who spoke during the sessions. Jesse G. did a series on Spiritual Gifts, Jeremiah M. spoke on different New Testament principles, and Roy W. spoke on the role of works in the lives of believers, and how truth and love go together.
In between times we enjoyed talking, singing, and playing Pass the Story. The last evening several of us went door to door, inviting the neighbors to a gospel meeting on Sunday afternoon.

Two days of the conference, during the lunch break (which was about 2 hours!) a bunch of people from the conference took a walk up the road. When I say up, I mean literally! The house the conference was at was located on a road that was pretty much a hill from beginning to end. However, the view the top was well worth the walk!


We brought a friend with us from Follow-Me, and she spent a few days in Maine with us. It was so much fun having her here. She jumped right in and helped with chores - mowing a considerable part of the lawn the first day she was here! It was a fun but short visit - you'll have to come again soon, Sarah!

Then Mom took Julia, Sarah and I to the K's house, where we spent the remainder of the week. Mrs. K kept us busy with gardening and cooking. We weeded almost all of their large garden - it took all day, but we felt quite a sense of accomplishment when we finished!

The week after that we joined a bunch of friends from the New England area and traveled to Maryland in a 15-passenger van to attend BUCKIT week. BUCKIT stands for Bible University Christian Knowledge Intensive Training, and is a week-long classroom style conference that lives up to its name. This is its third year; I've been to all three BUCKIT weeks, and this was Julia's first.

The teaching was excellent. Craig S. took us through John 11-21 (we covered the previous chapters last year), shared some tips for better speaking, gave us a few illustrations to use when sharing the gospel, and numerous other things.
Jabe N. spoke on a variety of things. He gave us a tour of the continents during which we learned a lot about the countries in them, and the gospel work going on and the needs in each country. We also learned what Jesus thinks of our $tuff, and what He says about forgiveness. We were challenged to take the Lord at His word, and decide whether we'll follow Him whole-heartedly or not.

There was plenty of time for fellowship during the breaks and meal times. We met new friends, and got to see people we haven't seen in a while. One afternoon several of us BUCKITeers went to a park and played Ultimate Frisbee! That was a lot of fun.

The week seemed to go by too fast! The last day of BUCKIT week was Friday the 31st. We had our last session, had a late lunch as a group for the last time and then left.

Since then we've been slowly unpacking in Maine. Finding places to put things in our limited living space is a challenge, but Mom is doing a great job. Of course we're helping too, but Mom has a special talent with that.

Dad has been working on clearing out a spot in our backyard where he hopes to plant apple trees. He's been using his Kubota to pull out stumps and roots. We had quite a pile of them, so Mom got a 3 day burn permit from the town so we could get rid of it all.

Before:

During:

After:

The flowers are looking very nice! Mom and Mrs. H have painstakingly watered, weeded, pruned (and picked!) all the flowers in the garden.

Also, there has been a new arrival in the barnyard! The Japanese bantam, Poquito, and the brown bantam, Brownie, have a chick! The chick doesn't have a name yet, since we don't know its gender yet. But right now its unofficial name is "Chickie".

It's been getting bigger and bigger every day! Chickie follows Brownie everywhere she goes, and Poquito can often be found nearby, keeping an eye on his family.


Well, that's all from Green Gambrels for now!