ME

I figured it was about time that I give a little information about myself and my past. I am the oldest of five children and I grew up in a Christian home. When I was eight I accepted Christ into my heart. Ever since I have been growing in my faith and have become actively involved with my home church. I have a heart and passion for children who come from a broken home and need love. God has shown me that I am to work kids in some way or other. I have still to find out what exactly that intends. As of right now, I have the dream of working with orphan children somewhere. I love doing anything that involves kids, I guess it comes from having so many siblings. I absolutely love having a large family. I am currently a freshman at Johnson Bible College and an intern at Ridge Church as the children's minister. My hobbies are reading suspense, watching movies of any genre, hiking in the mountains, and hanging out with my friends. My favorite author is Frank Peretti. Mmm... well there isn't much else to me. I live a pretty simple life as a college student and a follower in Christ. I try to live a life that is glorifying to God. It doesn't always work out, but I know He still loves me. Anything that goes right or well in my life is because of Him and I give Him all the credit.

2nd

Well, we had our second week of children's service. We triumphed in the new set up and decorations. However we did not have any children come and see our success and the splendor of it all. Oh well, we will have a better crowd next time. God has done some amazing things with Ridge so we aren't too worried about not having any kids this week. He has blessed us with new equipment for a better play area and new equipment for the sound in the main service. We are all so excited. We do have one prayer request that involves one of the girls in our children's ministry. Eight year old, Faith, is in the hospital and may need major surgery. We would like you to keep Faith in your prayers, her family has no extended family near by so they are venturing this scary time alone. Ridge Church has stepped up to be their supportive family. We would love to have you join us in prayer. God can do great things when we come together in prayer!

Beginnings

Well, I have never done anything like this before, blogging or running a children's ministry. New things are always an adventure. I suppose I should start at the beginning of my story. I have always loved kids, I think it helped that I was the oldest of five. When I went off to college this past fall, I met Emily and Kevin Layne. They were starting a church in Fountain City, TN and they were looking for someone who could (and would) run a children's program. I had been looking for a church that I could call home away from home and Ridge Church became the perfect fit. My major happened to be Children's Ministry at Johnson Bible College, so the opening at Ridge was a blessing and perfect for me. I have become very close to the Layne family and Ridge Church. We just had our second Sunday meeting this past week and it was an eye opening and wonderful experience. This past week was the first week that we launched the children's program. We had five children and that was more then what we planned for. It was great! Everything is so new and different when you actually start a church from the ground up and you can watch as the Lord grows and expands everything. So the work begins... new church body, new children's program, new children's minister, and new experiences that are from the Lord.