Finishing up

WE are finishing up here in PA… We have been for 6.5 weeks. During that time.. Jon put on a new roof; put new wood beams in the floors; reconstructed some walls; hung sheet rock in the dining room, office, kitchen, bathroom and laundry room; finished the sheet rock; primed; hung all new trim; put hard wood floors in two rooms; tiled the laundry room; put in new flooring, new cabinets, and counter tops in the kitchen; stomped the ceilings; hung new doors; put in new windows; and other odds and ends.. I think that sums it up pretty good.. So needless to say its been busy.. Jon the past couple weeks has really put in some long hours.. So pray he can get caught up on a little rest. Very thankful that no one was hurt during all the construction. We had the privilege of working with many men from the church who were a tremendous blessing to work with. Bro. Dale also helped almost everyday. One thing is for sure I dont believe that we will ever come across another man like him. He truly is a servant of God and a crazy character… We’ve heard many jokes.. With all the work we were able to help save the church a little more than $20,000 just in the labor part of this project. Thats a lot of money that would have had to have been spent and now can go towards missions and help in other areas. We have meet some dear people here who I know will be apart of our lives for ever. I thank God for all of them and how good they have been to us. We will miss them.
We will be heading out early in the morning to spend a couple days in east Tennessee then on home for a few days. We will start a roof at Cornerstone baptist next. Thank you all for your prayers.
BTW i went over to take the last of pictures but I was in the way so you will have to wait on the pictures of the finished project.

working in PA

Talk about busy we have now been here six weeks and Im telling you it has been a busy 6 weeks. The floors in the kitchen and bathroom were starting to rot out. The wood loggs that were the support had rot and beetles had eaten away at them. This house dates back to 1915, So there was a little more work than we initially thought. Since getting here we (Jon) has put on a new roof, put in supporting beams, knocked out walls, built in some more closest, hung new doors, hung new windows, put up sheetrock, finished the sheetrock,etc….. We (and yes we now..lol) just finished priming the walls. Today we are hanging trim and putting in the hard wood floor and kitchen floor. the cabinets and appliances are coming tomorrow. So there is light at the end of the tunnel. I cant wait to show you all the before and after pictures.. God is so good. There are so many things that could have gone wrong and God has had His hand in all of it and given everyone safety doing the work.. There have been many men coming and helping with this project. We so appreciate it. We know that most of them work full time jobs themselves then come here on days off and saturdays to work. I know that God will bless them greatly for it.
One thing about our ministry that I do love is being able to spend time with the people of the church and “really” get to know each of them. But it also makes it sad because we have to leave.. Jon Caden has made a dear little friend here. Her name is Ivy. He even had to wear cologne to go see her last night..hahahahaha NO WE ARE NOT PROMOTING THEM TO START THIS YOUNG, BUT IT IS SOOO CUTE..lol So he is already sad to have to leave her.. I know I say this over and over, but God is so good. I just can’t thank him enough for what he does for us. I am so humbled by His calling on our lives.

Summer

We left Mississippi and went home for a week. We then had to be in Johnson City at our Mission agencies annual meeting. It was great to finally meet many of the other missionaries who are on the board with us.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago. We knew that he was going to have to have surgery we were just waiting to find out when.. Jon and I were praying that it would be before we headed to Pennsylvania. Thankfully dad had the surgery the week after our meeting at Beacon. So we headed to Vanderbilt for his surgery. Dad’s surgery was a success and at this point it looks like they got all of the cancer. His cancer was in stage 3 and it was cartilage cancer. We found out that if it had been much longer when we found out that it could have been much more serious. the Cancer was trying to come out of his hip and it would have instantly attacked the liver and heart. So thankful for the Lords protection over him.
He is home and recovering very well.
We pulled in to Moscow, PA August 1. We will be here this entire month and I am sure some of September. Jon is helping remodel the church parsonage. We have been here almost 2 weeks and they have already fixed all of the flooring problems, gutted everything, most of the elctric is done and the house will have a new finished roof here is a couple of hours. God is doing some great things in our lives and we are so thankful and excited. We will share more about that Later.. We always thank you for all of your prayers. Here are some pics of some of the work thus far.. and a few pics of the kids..

Immanuel Baptist Church —— this was supposed to be posted a month ago..

We are in Dennis, Mississippi right now. We are helping with some of the remodel of their gym. This past week has been tearing out and jon re-did some of the plumbing and electric. They have also had VBS. Jon Caden was excited to be able to be apart of it.

Isabella Alisa Keeling!!!!!

Jodi was induced that Friday morning at 5:00 a.m May 20, 2011, At 9:00 p.m. that night the doctor informed us that Jodi was not making the progress that she should and worried that we might possibly have to have a c-section. That was something that we did not want to do. Seconds later Isabella’s heart rate dropped and they had to do the c-section immediately. We found out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Isabella’s neck twice and that’s what was causing the non-progress of labor. If the doctor had pushed it, there would have been a very good chance that Isabella could have been born with brain damage or even possibly died during the delivery. Also, during the c-section the doctor found a huge hernia in Jodi’s stomach. So the doctor was able to take care of that too. We are just so thankful how God protected both of them. She arrives May 20, 2011 at 10:36. She weighed 8.6 lbs and was 21 inches long. Thank you for all of your prayers and concerns. Jodi and Isabella are both doing good. Can’t believe that she is already a month old.
We are in Dennis, Mississippi now. We are helping a church with some demolition and a little remodel in their gym. We will be here a couple of weeks then head to East Tennessee. We will be in Pennsylvania the end of July and all of August working on a church remodel.

Here are some pictures of our sweet little Bella!

New Camper

WE GOT A NEW CAMPER!!!! So many of you have been praying with us about a new camper. We were really praying that we would have one before miss Bella got here.. We found one in Atlanta, Georgia that we loved. but needed to sell ours first. Well we did sell ours.. The first person who even called about it came and bought it. We were so grateful! As I always say there is a big difference between our needs and our wants but sometimes its hard to filter them… God not only gave us what we needed but also what we wanted.. It even has a washer/ dryer in it. We went from or old camper being a 28 ft with one slide, to now having a 38 ft with 4 slides. We feel like we’ve moved in to a house.. Jon Caden now has a huge room and plenty of room to put Isabella in there also. It also has a half bath in their room. Jon Caden thinks he is big stuff now!! Thank you all so much for praying with us about this. We are just excited now that we are now able to travel year round and we have plenty of room now even with a new baby! AND DID I MENTION THAT WE GOT THIS CAMPER HALF OF WHAT WE WOULD HAVE HAD TO PAY!!! SO WE HAVE NO PAYMENTS!! ITS PAID FOR!!! OUR GOD IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO THOSE KINDS OF THINGS!!!!!!

Jon is grouting the last bathroom now at Cornerstone and we will be pretty much done. Things always take longer than expected but thankful that everything is almost done here and are eager to see all the things God’s going to do here at Cornerstone!
I will post pics of the camper and the finished church tooo!!! THANK YOU ALL!!!

Prayer request and Huge Blessing

As you all know we have been working at Cornerstone Baptist in Jackson, Tn. Bro Wade Cash is the pastor.. Well on Thursday night they got a call that Mrs. Alisha’s (pastors wife) 13 year old nephew had died from a freak accident. Losing a child has to be the most horrible thing to have to go through. His Name was Ethan. I ask that you all please pray for the entire family as the next few days are going to be heart wrenching. We love them all very much and pray that God gives them peach during this time.

We have been praying and praying over a new camper… Well about 2 weeks ago we began to get very serious about looking for one as we know its getting closer to our little gal getting here.. As we told you in our last post that a storm had come through and did quite a bit of damage to the camper. We had no idea what the insurance would or would not do.. The damage was only on the exterior walls of the camper.. Hail damage! We got an estimate for the damage and the insurance adjuster came out today and wrote us a check. Its just amazing to see how God works and that we were right were we needed to be. God had all of this planned. When we got the camper he gave it to us at such a great deal and it was what we needed. Now at the time we are needing something bigger God brings a storm in-order for us to again get exactly what we need with no payments. Some people think that thats just by chance but we know that God had a plan and it was all in his timing. We are so grateful for the blessings he gives us. It is so humbling.

Cornerstone

Well things are looking like Cornerstone will get to hold their first service in the newly remolded sanctuary this Sunday! There will still be a few things here and there to be done but for the most part its done. There was a lot of damage on the roof and some in the auditorium but most of its okay and can be done after being moved in.

We have been asking you all to pray with us about a new camper. Well during the storm last Thursday we had a lot of water come in the camper. Most of it we got out and dried before hopefully much damage. However, the outside of the camper got quite a bit of hale damage. So insurance hasn’t decided just yet what will happen. so please be in prayer that everything will work out and will be able to find us a bigger camper. We are really wanting to find something before Isabella gets here. Thank you all so much for your prayers and faithfulness.

Almost done and storm

Well the platform is pretty much done, the pew chairs are in, all that was really left is the carpet… While the men were putting in the carpet last night we had a pretty heavy storm blow in… So the very fresh glued carpet had water all over it. The Men had to jerk a lot that had been glued down yet up and try and soak up the rest. There is also quite a bit of roof damage. We were planning on moving in on Sunday so it looks like that may be delayed now. I ask that you pray that all the rest can go smoothly.. I know this is the last thing that Cornerstone wanted to happen right now, but God has a plan and a reason. Although, there is the damage to work out now the church is looking great and very excited for them to be able to have services. here are some pics of what has been done and a few pics of the water…

Cornerstone Baptist update

I thought that I would share some pictures of the progress of the sanctuary. It’s so amazing to the people of the church so active in helping with this remodel. The members here truly care about their church and want to see God do great things here. You can tell when there is a good leadership! I made the comment the other day that the pastor and his wife and the members are a team. When there’s good leadership people respond and are proud to do their part too.. It’s a group effort and this church is a great example of that. Heres what is going on this far.. next week the hardwood on the platform and carpet should be put down als

o.