The Fern

As Jason mentioned, we closed on the house today.  It's very exciting to think about.  I will not longer have to bum a place in someone's living room to sleep when I go up there.  I cannot wait to get some free time to go back and do some painting.  And garage sale shopping for furniture!

I got to see the house last weekend when I was on spring break!  I love it!  I took a few pictures and hope y'all are excited to see them.  We hope to have a sweet housewarming party once we get all moved in but that won't be til the end of May.  But you should come!

I got to see the house last week while I was on spring break.  I love it!!! It has so much space and natural light, which is great.  I took some pictures which are below: outside, master closet, game room, dining room, and kitchen!

On a different but also exciting note, I graduate 50 days from today.  And no, I'm not counting.... hehe. I'm pretty pumped and will be the first to admit that senioritis has kicked in in full force! 

Hope all of you are doing well and thanks for following our blog!

it's closing time

My dad and I will be closing on the house in just over 2 hours. I am still struggling to grasp the concept that the phrases "my house" and "our house" are soon to become a regular part of speech for me.

Ah Spring Break, We Hardly Knew Ye

House-wise, we are closing this Friday afternoon. I am VERY excited about that. Joanna came up this last weekend and finally got to see the house. A certain Maycee got to see it as well. Overall the girls approved of the paint scheme, though a lighter grey is desired in places. My bedroom is currently painted a chocolate brown which simply will not do. We are unsure of what color to paint my room. At some point we will put up some pictures of the house here. :)

Life-wise, we had our most recent Nü Service this past Saturday and the following morning announced that we will be doubling the frequency on our Saturday night service to twice a month. Todd will be preaching every other one starting April 18th, but that means I’ll be doing the one in two weeks. I’ve never prepared two sermons in a month, so I’m a little stressed about that but I know it’ll turn out well.

Fun-wise, we were able to go sailing this past Friday afternoon and it was quite the adventure. We parked the boat in the slip under sail power for the first time ever as the pull on the motor broke while we were attempting to start it to head back in. The crew was very good and handled all the emergencies as well as you could ask for.

That's all for now!

Glorious Spring Break

Time for a quick update. 

It's officially Spring Break! Yay.  I will be leaving tomorrow to go to San Antonio for the bulk of the week. Mom and I are going to make a quick trip to Fredricksburg for some mother/daughter time! While in S.A. I plan on doing a whole lotta nothing. Maybe some shopping, maybe some knitting, a lot of sleeping.  Maybe I can convince dad to start some new car shoppin' :-)

Next weekend I will head up to Arlington to spend some time with the bro, old friends, and family up there. I look forward to hopefully finally getting to see the house! I can't wait to see it in person to start envisioning decoration ideas!  Also, I just remembered that I get a $1000 tuition rebate from A&M for graduating in four years which will be a very nice addition to my "Joanna needs furniture fund". 

I am so excited about the future. That's all for now.

My Half

A dog? Seriously? More like a ball-and-chain!

But I digress.

I never really had any kind of concrete life plan. The closest thing to a plan I ever scraped up was go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, live life, die. You can imagine I never pursued that plan with any great level of passion because at the end of the day it’s pretty unfulfilling. I got as close as being engaged until that relationship ended, and with it any desire I had to pursue my life plan any further.

At that point in time I was delivering at Pizza Hut which gave me extraordinary amounts of time in my car. I tired of music and began listening to podcasts which led to listening to sermons. Before long I was listening to nothing but sermons while out on delivery and through the words of those individuals God began to teach my heart about faith, hope, love, salvation, and the difference between a cool Christian guy and a Godly man. Two truths took deep root in my heart after which I would never be the same. The first was that God the Father loves me unconditionally, and the second was that the accepted Christian lifestyle I had been living for so long was a poor shadow of the life we are intended to have in Christ.

Meanwhile, towards the end of my Pizza Hut career I found myself in a fledgling college ministry at the church I had grown up in. The first time I showed up it was one girl I had grown up with, and two guys I hadn’t. A few weeks into that we decided to study the Bible, pursue God, and never worry about how many (or few…) people show up. We had no teacher or college pastor or anything of that nature, so we took turns teaching. We did start to grow, excruciatingly slowly at first, and somehow or another I moved into a position where I facilitated discussion and learning on a weekly basis in our group. While I don’t remember how that move happened, I remember why. Through that Bible study God had revealed in me a desire and a passion (and a gift!) for teaching His word.

It was about this time God had completely captured my heart by saving my life and I knew my heart would never be happy with anything less than devoting the rest of my days to serving Him. My gift, and indeed my greatest joy, is in preaching and teaching the Bible to others. While my life thus far has done well to prepare me in this task, I long to be thoroughly equipped and so decided to pursue a seminary education after my time at UNT is done. I will be graduating from UNT in May 2010.

Fast-forward a year or so and the Bible study is still doing well, but beyond that the people who make up the Bible study are having a huge impact in our church. Represented in our young adult group is the Awana Commander, four directors, a (very helpful!) secretary, and other leaders. Additionally, we facilitate a Saturday night service for the church which includes a worship time, a sermon, and dinner for everyone. I have been blessed to preach these services and look forward to every opportunity I have to speak God’s truth.

Like Joanna said, we are very excited about living together and having a house, and I hope you’re a bit excited about getting to follow along!

Blessed

Welcome to the brand new Kelley Kids blog!  We are so incredibly blessed to be embarking on some exciting things in our lives and want you all to be a part of it.  

Let me give you a little background to get you up to speed on the changes that are about to take place for me and Jason.  I am currently in my last semester at Texas A&M.  I will graduate on May 15 (whoop!) with my degree in psychology. My plan up until about a year ago was to go to nursing school after I finished at A&M. 

But God had other things in mind.

Through my classes in psychology, the Lord sparked a passion in me to help people struggling with mental issues.  There are so. many. hurting people out there. They have no where to turn, no answers, and no one to bring them comfort.  God put many people just like this in my path while at school and my heart broke for them. I could point them to the Word and to God's truths but I longed to have formal training in how to help people find God's peace in troubled situations.  I know that psychological problems are real. But I also believe that Spiritual warfare is at hand in many of the mental problems people experience.  No amount of medicine or therapy is going to help without Christ. So all that to say, I decided on Easter weekend of last year to attend Seminary after I graduate to pursue a degree in Christian Counseling.  I want to learn to combine therapy with biblical truths to be a light to hurting people. 

I will be moving to Arlington in May and plan to start at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall.  I will be in a three year program to get my Masters of Art in Christian Counseling and will then become certified as a Licensed Professional Counselor.  I'm not sure where it will take me but eventually I would like to work with military personnel and their families.  Military life and war cause large amounts of psychological duress and there are new programs starting left and right to provide counseling services to our armed forces. 

Jason can tell you all about how the Lord has brought him to where he is currently and where he is headed. But what I can tell you is that my amazing parents just bought a house in Arlington where me and Jason are going to live together starting in May! Get excited! I will hopefully post some pictures within the next week or so of the house but needless to say it's pretty baller. It's 3 bed/2.5 bath in South Arlington.  We will have a guest room so if you want to come visit after we're all settled, let us know!

I live in a fully furnished apartment currently so the only furniture I own is a futon. Jason has one too. And that's about it. Soooooo, if anyone has any furniture they're hankering to get rid of, feel free to contact us :) Couches, tables, beds, dressers, bean bag chairs, ANYTHING really. haha

I'm currently thinking about getting a dog once we get into the house. Outside dog of course given Jason and I are highly allergic.  I haven't mentioned it to Jason yet.... haha surprise! 

That's all for now! 

Joanna