Praying You Through This Storm!

A wonderful video put together by my friend Kaylin. She lives in Colorado Springs where the wildfires - the fire storms - are bringing danger and disaster. Yet, through it all God can still be praised. As Kaylin puts it - God is for me. Yes, Kaylin, He is. We continue to pray for you from here in Florida. I love you, sweetie! Praying you through this storm!

American Soldier by Toby Keith

In honor of the 31 troops killed in Afghanistan this morning when their chopped was shot down during a rescue mission.
More than twenty of the troops were Navy Seals, from the same unit that carried out the raid that killed Bin Laden back in May.
Laying their lives on the the line every day - for you and for me - the American soldier should be heroes to us all.
Lift a prayer for them as you watch this video.

American Soldier

Since September 11, 2001, my email signature has had an added line requesting prayer for our great military. I grew up in the military, my dad was career U. S. Navy. I know first-hand what it means to be the ones left-behind when my dad left for yet another sea-duty assignment. We were blessed to have had one wonderful tour of duty in Newfoundland, Canada, that lasted many years and we were able to live - together - as a family for quite some time.

That's not always the case when you are a military family. This morning as I checked my facebook page, I saw that a friend had posted the above video with a "happy Valentine's Day" message for her husband. No doubt Mike is overseas - again. I've watched this family for several years, as Mike goes, and comes home, and goes again. I can't even tell you how much time I've spent in prayer for this family. They are such a blessing to me. Not that we spend any real time together, for truly we mostly speak online, but I appreciate so much the sacrifice Celeste and her children have made, do make, on a daily basis so that my family and I can live, and excell, in freedom.

So. Today. Please lift a prayer for our service men and women overseas. Please lift a prayer for our civilian men and women who are overseas working alongside our military so that you and I can live where we do, and live as we do.

Please enjoy Toby Keith's American Soldier. (And if you're anything like me - get your tissues ready before you watch.) May God truly bless and protect our great military!

CFC Fall Tour, 2010

The tour is a done deal and Winter Retreat (Ignite!) is coming up on the 13th. The Interns have done an excellent job! What better way to pull it all together than with a video highlighting their activities on tour. And you get to hear Toby Mac's Tonight because that was the intern's behind-the-scenes-theme song for the Awakening Program. Thanks for a great tour, great labs, great memories, - friendships to build a lifetime of memories with. God bless you on your way! I love every one of you - as if you were my own! (And, Kali, I love you with all my heart and am so proud of you! I thank God every day for putting you (and your brother) in my life!) So. Crank you up some Toby Mac, and enjoy :).

North Point's IBand - Check out this awesome and talented group!

It is all good!
My favorite section comes about 5:30 minutes into the video,
but you really need to watch it all!
North Point Ministries and Church rocks!
Merry Christmas!

Former President Bush Welcomes Home Troops

Borrowed from YouTube, this video shows former President Bush and Laura Bush welcoming many of our troops back home at the Dallas, Texas airport. These troops were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan on August 11, 2010. It's really sad that President Obama is never seen in this type of role. There is so much he could learn from just watching President Bush and seeing the compassion and pride he has for the American soldiers and the American people.

Here is a link where you can say thank you to President Bush for always putting our troops first. http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497560

Set the World on Fire, Britt Nicole

ICC has its first conference of the tour starting today in Acworth. Please pray for them over the next couple days as they reach out to the students of Acworth, in their own version of Set the World on Fire.

Amazing Grace - 7 Year Old Vocalist

Rhema Marvanne - 'Amazing Grace' REVISED 6/11 from Black Olive Media.com on Vimeo.

Rhema is 7 years old and she sings to glorify God. Rhema Marvanne was born in 2002, and lost her mother to ovarian cancer in 2008. Rhema lives in Texas and attends The Branch Church. Sit back and enjoy listening to this - and get your kleenex ready. You will be blessed!

You can check out Rhema's music on her website: www.rhemamarvanne.com.

The Crabb Family - The Cross

My friend, Pam, had this video on her facebook this morning. I love the song (and the Crabbs) and it goes so well with my blog title and thoughts. Thanks, Pam! And, thank you Jesus!

He's Alive

Dolly singing at the 1989 CMA Awards. Grab your kleenex. You're going to need them before the end of the song! (Thanks to my dear friend Cheryl for letting me hi-jack this from her facebook page!)

Lost Generation ...

A palindrome reads the same backwards as it does forward. This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite.

Make sure you read, as well as listen, forward and backward.

This 1 minute, 44 seconds video was a contest submission by a 20-year old. It won 2nd place. The contest was titled "U @ 50" and was sponsored by AARP. At the viewing of the video, everyone in attendance was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch it. You won't be sorry.

Elderly Couple Play It Up at the Mayo

An elderly couple walked into the lobby of the Mayo Clinic for a checkup and spotted a piano. They've been married for 62 years and he'll be 90 this year. Check out this impromptu performance. We are only as old as we feel, it's all attitude. Enjoy! They certainly do!

Oogie Boogie's in the House (or Castle

Father's Day Drum Line

This came from Heather's blog. Her husband is the second from the right. Heather said they made this song up on their own and put it together for Father's Day at their church. I love it! Great job, guys! (You can check out Heather's awesome photography here - she will be homeschooling this coming up year, too, so you might want to touch base and give her some encouragement :O)).

Perpetuum Jazzile Performs "Africa"

What an incredible group! They are called Perpetuum Jazzile. This musical group provides all the instrumentation with their voices. I had to turn my volume all the way up at the beginning of the video, then turned it down as I listened through. Awesome. Listen to it a second time with your eyes closed!

Now listen to this Slovenian choir perform Eres Tu. They do add in a keyboard for this one. Beautiful!

Last one. This one takes me back to my disco days - with a BeeGees medley. They have other YouTube videos if you want to check them out. Perpetuum Jazzile, Slovenia's only jazz choir.

You Capture - I'm Late Again

The You Capture challenge this past week was joy. As you know, Kali and I were out of town this past week for the speech and debate regional tournament in Georgia. The above photo shows two of our debate friends. Normally I don't post names here on my page, but the young lady at the top gave me permission to use her first name in this post - her name is Joy. Besides that, both these young ladies have beautiful, joyful spirits. My intention was to spend the week getting a couple really good shots of Joy and posting those here. Those of you who follow my blog already know that my father-in-law passed away while we were at regionals. That pretty much ended my photo taking. I am back home now and I went through the pictures I did get at regionals and pulled out a few to make a "joyful" You Capture post.

' Joy' is finding out that the wonderful Mrs. Teresa Moon was to be our tournament director. I love Mrs. Moon and all she has done for our children through Communicators For Christ and the Institute of Cultural Communicators. What a Godly woman for our sons and daughters to look up to and learn from.

'Joy' is seeing your name for the first time ever at Regional Competition.

'Joy' is taking your shoes off between speeches because you have been standing in them, walking in them, running in them, and living in them for ten hours a day for the past few days.

'Joy' is walking into the judges hospitality room and finding a huge jar of M&M's. Yummo!

'Joy' is eating chicken strips with your very best friend :O), then going outside to do a little light reading on How To Be a Lady.

'Joy' is finding out that you qualified for Nationals! after a year's worth of hard work. Way to go, girls! Whoot! Whoot!

'Joy' is saying good luck to graduating seniors, wishing them well on the journey, and praying for them to continue to be witnesses for Jesus Christ - both on and off the platform.

'Joy' is celebrating with your friends, congratulating each other for a job well done, and being recognized in front of your family and peers.

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I will leave you with a video of a 'joy'ful game - simply called the Cup Game. We could only find 7 cups, you'll notice there are 10 girls playing. This is what you do while you wait for Mrs. Moon to make announcements telling who has advanced to the next round. Turn the sound off on my playlist so you can hear the pattern the cups make as they bang against the table.

To check out more You Capture 'joy'ful shots, click here.

Amazing Voice

Susan Boyle wows them on Britain's Got Talent 2009. Listen and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luRmM1J1sfg

NCFCA Georgia Qualifier Highlights

This qualifier was held at the Technical College in Acworth, Georgia. I believe I remember the number of competing students being about 225. The above photo was on opening night before the students changed over to professional, tournament attire.

Qualifiers are a time to catch up with friends. All of whom shall remain nameless, because I never post names of minors on my blog. The only exception is my daughter.

Above, my daughter Kali is in the middle of a debate round. Her opponent is presenting at the time. Kali was the Negative side. (I am getting better at taking photos through the windows on doors - lol! I was hall monitor at the time. All the windows had wire mesh on them, I got decent at shooting between the mesh.)

A friendly critique after the debate. Kali won this particular round.

The story about Georgia is this - it rained the entire time we were there - four days! I posted this shot earlier on my blog, but I reallly like it, so here it is again :O).

Seas of professional, business attire. It's a requirement and a great thing for the students to learn at this point in their lives. I wish I'd had something like this when I was their age.

Meal times were also gathering times to discuss how your speeches and debates were going. You could hear students all over the building bouncing ideas off each other, searching for ways to make their speeches and cases better, asking their friends to listen to their speeches as they practiced. It's amazing how they all work together, help each other, and get excited for the ones that do so well - even when their own events don't always go as well as they would have liked.

These two guys are best buddies! And, they both like to have their photos taken. I am guessing this is going to become a tradition at every tournament/qualifier. Oh, wait! I think the older one is graduating this year. No!!!

I mentioned we were at the Technical College. As such, they had some interesting rooms. With as many competitors as we had - we needed all available rooms. I found the room shown above to be the most interesting. Two covered stretchers in the back. Wow! As you look at the photo, the debaters sat at the table closest to you. The judge and timer sat at the table closest to the stretchers. Not my cup of tea - lol! Thankfully, I didn't have to judge in this room. We would have been rearranging the furniture for sure.

I did get to judge in this room, however. There were skulls lining the shelves around the room. Interesting, but not as creepy as the other room. These guys are in the middle of an interpretive speech - My Fair Lady. In interps, you take parts of the literary piece, string them together and act them out. There's a lot more to it than just that - but that's a definition in a nutshell. This was a great duo interp. They were hysterical. (I need to point out that I was not judging, I was invited in to watch.) I need to find the video and add it at the bottom of this post. I took photos during some of the piece, then video'd the rest of it.This is a common sight at qualifiers. The students are milling around waiting for the next event list to be posted. Typed assignments are taped to the walls and list where each student should be, what event they will be in, and who they will be competing with. Then it's a mad dash because the events usually start in five minutes and the judges are already in the rooms wondering where the students are - lol.

There are always lots of siblings at our events. No one is too young to come. The moms with toddlers or newborns get special assignments that they can handle with their children. No one gets turned away. Many siblings act as timers in the event rooms, of course, this little sweetie is too young to time. She won't be for long, though. She's from our chapter :O). Isn't she precious?

Listening with great intensity to the Finals round for Team Policy debating. This is where two teams, of two persons each, debate the foreign policy between the United States and India. The debate topic changes each year.

Then it's on to awards at the end of the qualifier. We started out with some praise and worship music. Have I mentioned this is a Christian organization?

Just one of many photos I have of students receiving awards. You can find more on Facebook.

Congratulations all around! You survived and made it through!

Then, on to the after party at Fuddrucker's. I posted some different shots earlier in a post about something else. Here are just a few new ones.

OK, the balloon lady was officially awesome! She could make anything you wanted - and did! Some of her creations really reminded me of Dr. Seuss.

Even some of the parents enjoyed the balloons :O).

I don't know how they got these things in their cars - lol!

We had a great time in Georgia. Now I need to edit shots from North Carolina - O.o!

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To watch the following videos, turn the sound off on my music playlist. It's in the sidebar towards the bottom. Thanks :O).

White Tiger Twin Cubs

See some photos of these little guys in the following post. If you live near Tampa, you can see them at the Lowry Park Zoo in the Asian Gardens.

Sky Angel Cowboy