11 years :)

11 years on 11/11/11 :)

Yes, 11 years ago today I met and starting dating the man whom now is my husband of five years and the father of our three wonderful babies.  At the ripe old age of 15 I fell in love with a skinny little Jacob Scott Lowe who stole my heart with his humor, kindness, good looks :), and compassion towards me.  I was head over heals for that boy, and am so thankful for the years together that God has blessed us with.  I mostly thankful for the path God has lead us on and our journey on that path to this point.  Looking back I think, "Oh, I get why that happened now!"

11 years ago we were kids falling in love, making dreams and plans while star gazing, enjoying each and every available moment together, laughing so very often-to the point of tears, and were consumed with our own little worlds. A little over five years ago, we stood in front of family, friends, and church family and committed our lives to each other in marriage with the hopes and plans of living out the "American Dream."

One year ago, after the birth of our third beautiful child, Livi, we realized God wanted more out of us in our lives... And last Sunday we stood in front of our family, friends, and church family again with our news hopes, plans, and dreams in life... God's hope, plan, and dream :

Our testimony begins with feelings that God laid on our hearts from the beginning of our life in Christ….Is this enough?  How much is too much?  We always felt a pull to become more involved.  More involved with church, with our relationship with Christ, with people.  What we didn’t know, was that it was the Holy Spirit calling us to a life Sold-out to Christ. 

God continued to guide us through our walk by harvesting feelings of love towards ones we once ignored.  Feelings of complete compassion towards those that are starving, homeless, parentless, and lost.  Unknowingly, the Holy Spirit touched both our hearts at the exact same time and we began to feel a call and pull towards missions.

In a whirlwind of thoughts, prayers, and emotions over the last four to five months God has made it blatantly clear that he wants us serving our each and every day in Africa seeking the lost.  God gave us sermons like, “No More Status Quo” and “Be Transformed.”  He placed church leadership in our lives, and gave us opportunities of meeting with Andy and Stephanie Gable, and serving with Rob and Rochelle Denning.  He gave us His Word and encouraged us to read and learn how to live a Christian life every day of our life-not just Sundays.  He put scripture in our minds to live by, like “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2”   Each and every one of these moments in our lives were the work of God “transforming” us and making our hearts open to where God wants us to be. 

During the next two to four years we will be enduring and completing the process of becoming affiliated with CMF International in hopes of long term missionary work in Africa.  This process will include new education towards Christianity and Missions, a vision trip to Africa in the next 6-12 months, cultural training, fund raising to support the mission, as well as homeschooling our children, dealing with emotions of our families, and learning how to live in a completely different lifestyle and culture with completely different languages.   

It is important to know that the “Jake and Taneille” we know would have NEVER decided to leave our comfortable home, our families, our careers, our lifestyle; but through the work of God He has made it so crystal clear that our comfortable life wasn’t enough.  Lives are lost every day to the gates of Hell because there are unreached people who are living life without the knowledge of Jesus Christ while we sit inside the walls of our comfortable home.  We want to be Sold-out to Christ whom is the essence of our being.  God gets all the glory in this.  Our purpose in life has been written…”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” Luke 9:23- We will choose to follow Christ!



November.  Wow, already?  And a beautiful November day it is :)  Thus far its been a day of toast-eating, veggietale-watching (Little Drummer Boy- bc 'TIS THE SEASON!!! Yay!), singing at the top of our lungs, dancing like crazy, bike-riding, leaf throwing, picture taking, bug-hunting, wrestling, missing daddy while he is at work, and finally napping-well 50% of us are napping...that's called success.  I love this day that God has made! 

Fall is here :)

     My favorite time of the year :)  I tend to take deeper breaths, glance longer looks, say more prayers, and think many, many more thougths this time of year.  God is so good....I can't say it enough.  I've been so impatient lately, and somehow God reminds me with this season of weather that during this season of life I've got to become more patient...take more deep breaths during my extra long days, take longer glances at those beautiful/sweet children who will be grown before I know it, say more prayers to the Father that can give me all strength to go on, and think longer about the work God has me doing.  What a beautiful season of weather and wonderful season of life :)

A series of crazy, chaotic events in this wonderful season of life.....



unattended Logan seeks to change the movie...

While Aubrey finds a potty seat and makes it a hat....

Then uses it to make a hat for Livi....

Oh how multi-functional...its now a necklace...

*Disclaimer:  the potty seat has never acutally been used (though I wish)*

Spunky Aubrey

Who LOVES her baby sister...and to wrestle:)

My energetic, non-stop, beautiful, wonderful FOUR year old baby girl!!!

Oh this season of life feels so good. 

Our recent short mission trip was fantastic!!!  And while I can't relay many of the details online, God was working in amazingly, wonderful ways.  The weekend went greater than expected, and God also revealed more possible opportunities for the future.  The future.....while we are not promised our next breath here on this Earth, we are so, so excited for our future.  We are making a "radical" change in our lives.  We are taking Christ's command of the Great Commission to heart.  We have developed a passion for those that don't know Christ's love.  Even more so, for those who have never heard the words of Jesus Christ.  It will be amazing to see where God takes us.  Please pray that we are open to be wherever God wants us.  Here are a few pictures that I can show you from this weekend :) ....

I am so thankful for this time of year.  It's somehow humbling. 

:)

God is moving us :)

     Well!  I had good intentions of starting a blog!  But, such is life, things got busy :)  So many things have been happening in our life and we are doing our best to adjust, breathe in, and realize we are where we are for a reason.  God is at work, and my oh my is He working!  Here's one thing God definitely had a hand in....

A win!!! 

These boys work so hard everyday, and its so great to finally have some good feedback from all their hard work :) I will never forget the image of Logan on Memaw's shoulders with seconds to go, both with fingers crossed, screaming at the top of their lungs.  "Go Afenians!" in the words of Logan's.  What fun memories :)

     In the past month, Aubrey has also started her last year of preschool.  She, of course, loves it and is a learning fool.  Where she struggles learning letters and numbers, she makes up for loving shapes, colors, animals, insects, and lots of movement...she never stops moving!  I've decided after this year we will be starting home schooling.  So another adventure is in our near future!  God has brought this to my attention numerous times over the last year, and I have finally realized this is what He wants from me.  So many doubts come to mind.  Will I be good enough?  Will Aubrey, Logan, and Livi miss out on things?  Am I structured enough to encourage learning and not chaos?  We shall see! 

First day of school



     Miss livi is developing quite the personality!  My quiet, complacent, happy 95% of the time baby is becoming the giggly, "I think I'm big," girl who tries to play constantly with her older brother and sister.  She's developed a little temper too.  If Aubrey and Logan get out of her sight, she gets MAD.  And she's got a new trick...

Yes, I would say her leg is 100% healed :)  Let the walking begin!  She took her first few steps on Sunday, and continues to take more each day.  What a blessing she is :)

Here are some quick pictures of a few things we've been up to over the past four weeks....

Frankfort football game on Friday night

(so nice to spend a fall Friday evening together)

This is the first picture that even remotely looks like big sis Aubrey....but man, oh man they look identical here!

Backyard picnic :)

Oh the irony :) 

Miss Emma... I had to take this! :)

Logan and his buddy Landon

Love, Love these three people

And this is why its so hard to get a picture of Miss A :) 

So we are loving life, embracing where God wants us to be, and praying for guidance to Glorify Him.  I am overjoyed with gratefullness for all the blessings in my life.  God is so good.  I will praise Him all of the days of my life :)

     What a week its been!!  Its been unusually busy...which in our world, means really busy :)  But this business has created many, many blessings.  Our weekend was filled with family time and  birthday parties!  My sister, Teigha, and I combined our little one's birthday parties into one....which was fantastic!  I finally realized that the party is nothing to fret over, its mearly an opporunity to spend time with those near and dear to you.  Which is exactly what we did :) 

    We celebrated the birthday girls at Church and then headed over to Sean and Cheryl's for smores and swimming :)  Such a blessing to gather around a campfire with family :)  Then Sunday started my work weekend....after a great Sunday school and church service I headed to work.  This weekend marked a wonderful moment of sharing Christ's love to a patient that I will never forget.  How rewarding. 

We also started small group this week....and oh it was good!!  Again, such an awesome thing to gather together and talk about God!!  How blessed are we that we can just do that?!  I know I take that for granted some days.  I've never felt real persecution over Christ.  What's that like?  How awful that some people feel REAL persecution every day for knowing and showing Christ's love. 

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  John 15:18

This just makes me soooo much more thankful for where I am in life right now.  And I am SOOOOO thankful for small group! 

And finally, we added a new friend to play with each day to our household.  Miss Emma Stephens.  She is 7 months old and so much fun to have around.  The kids are loving her.  The adjustment for me has been the hardest, but also rewarding.  I, for the first time in years, am getting up prior to the kids.  Instead of the pitter/patter of little feet on my bedroom floor, I am waking up to an alarm clock, sitting in peace and quiet with coffee in hand, and spending some quiet time with Jesus.  What an amazing thing to start the day!   

I hear laughter, crying, screaming, giggles, more crying, feel hugs, watch cuddling, kicking followed by apoligies, forgiveness and hugging, receive kisses, give kisses, wrestling, jump, play, dance, sing at the top of my lungs, feed little ones, change little ones, comfort little ones and know that I am so very blessed by each and every one of these chaotic moments in my day.  What an amazing, crazy week.  God is so good, all the time. 

  

One year ago today...

     One year ago today, our beautiful Alivia Eden entered this world, and my previous thoughts of, "motherhood is EASY," went out the window.  I realized shortly after coming home from the hospital that life with three children was dramatically different.  I went through a whirlwind of emotions, impatience, and discovered that I did not have enough hands to hold, grab, pick up, snatch, and/or save three children from any dangers that might come our way.  It was, however, an amazing event that took place in our life, and one year later, I am able to realize that God had a purpose with sweet baby Livi. 

   

     God taught me perserverance through the hard times.  When I felt more overwhelmed than I ever had been before, He was there to pick me up.  The sweetness of children is proof of Christ's love.  They are amzing.  I have been blessed more than I have ever deserved, and through this blessing our family has felt the tug to go bless others.  God had a plan for our little suprise blessing :)  Our relationship with Christ would grow to something its never been, and our true purpose in life has now been revealed.  Thank you Lord for blessing us with sweet Livi.  She is the perfect, amazing addition to our family, and it feels as if she has always been with us. 

    Happy first birthday Alivia Eden Lowe!  Our family is truely blessed to have you be a part of us:)  Let's embark on life and live it to the fullest.  Let's spread the good news of Christ's love to all and help 'the least of these.'  I pray for many more happy memories and birthdays!