What We've Been Up To....

Sorry I haven't posted lately! The corn maze opens in two weeks and we are swamped so this won't be a wordy post just mainly a quick over view of what we've been up to...

The maze is totally cut and the paths are GREAT! Us kids are having a blst going through.

Here is the concession stand which has been taking up most of our time and energy the last two weeks.

We are almost done and hope to finish this weekend!

We are all getting a good work education.

We have so many AWSOME friends that have given of their time and energy to help us. Thanks guys!

This is our road side signs that arrived yesterday.

We are going to have a sort of petting zoo at the maze so we brought my sheep down from my grandpa's. Sarah and Jenny came over to help me shear them.

We have also purchased some chicks...

and some piglets!

Ok, for pigs, I think they are pretty cute. Their names are Sausage and Floyd.

Earlier this week Caleb, Jenny and I got to go up in an air plane to take the arial photo! It was so fun and the maze looks just like it's supposed to!!!! YEA!!!!

Jenny took the pis. cause she has a nice camera. ;)

This is a pic. I took so it's not the nicest, we'll probably post the edited one later on.

This is how flat IL really is!!!

Please keep us in your prayers!

Watermelons & Pamplets...

Here is a corn maze update with pics.! (I know.. finally!) ;)

Last week we passed out pamphlets about the corn maze at our county wide Rt. 66 garage sale! The pamphlet also has a $1 off coupon in it so hopefully a lot of people will come and use them!!!!

Here mom and the boys are folding them.

And last night at 8:00 we went out and planted watermelons in the you pick sweet corn, watermelon, pumpkin patch!

It was pretty fun though, out in the middle of a corn field at dusk planting watermelons. Not something you see everyday! ;)

Mom dug the hole.

Ben stuck in the plant.

I covered it with dirt.

And James watered. ;D

Oh! And for those of you who so sacrificially gave of your time and energy to help plant those 3,000 pumpkin seeds the other day... they are coming up and looking great! Thanks for your help!

Corn Maze Update

Thank you all for your prayers. It did rain but they did get a little over half the paths cut! We are going to try to cut the rest this Sat. so please keep us in your prayers. We are such a needy people aren't we?! Isn't so nice to know that we have a God that is always listening and that is powerful enough to answer our requests?! hope to get more pics. soon!

Urgent Prayer Request!!!!

Hey all! Today we are cutting the corn maze!!!!!! Caleb is helping with 5-Day Clubs with Uncle Jerry down south for the month and he was able to fly here just for today in order to cut the maze so it is VERY important that they get it all cut today. So the reason we need you all to pray, is one... that the cutting will go smoothly and two.... we have a 30% chance of thunderstorms at 1:00 this afternoon and they are still working! So if you all could send up a prayer that the Lord would hold off the rain til they are done that would be a huge blessing!

I have a lot of pics. on the things we have done on the maze but we are having technical difficulties with the computer that has all the pics. on it. So I will post them as soon as I can!

Hope you all have a blessed weekend! Thank you for your prayers!

S.M.I.T.E Camp!

Sorry all for not posting last week! Caleb, Ben, & I were at S.M.I.T.E camp down in balmy Louisiana all last week! We had a GREAT time! S.M.I.T.E camp, for those of you who don't know, is a camp were "fun goes to die" as the director, Uncle Jerry, says. :) It's a place were they train you to lead 5 Day Bible Clubs and to lead kids to the Lord! A 5 Day Bible Club is like a 1 hour VBS in someones backyard or at a town park. We do songs, a memory verse, and Bible lesson and a missionary story. Plus a game or two here or there.

S.M.I.T.E stands for Summer Missionary Institute for Training and Evangelism. It has four levels that you pass by taking tests at the end of the week. The 1st level teaches how to use the wordless book to lead someone to the Lord. Level 2 is how to tell the Missionary story, level 3 on how to tell the Bible lesson and to write your own outlines, and level 4 is on teaching in general. After you pass level 4 you "graduate" from SMITE, which I (Jordan) did this year! Caleb passed level 3 and Ben passed level 2.

So the schedule (just so you can see what it's like) is... you get up at 6:00, eat breakfast, then you go to your classes til lunch. After lunch you have a study hour to get ready for your club then everyone goes out to there assigned club and practices what they have been learning. After that everyone gets back, gets ready for evening services and goes to dinner. After dinner the service starts at about 6:30, with a 1/2 hour sing time, and doesn't get out til the Holy Spirit lets us! :) Which this week was about 11:30 each night! It is so cool because there is such a sense of revival in that place that is just awesome!

This year there were over 1,000 kids enrolled in the clubs and over 400 saved!!!! This is a camp to definitely look in to! Hope I didn't bore you all! Now to the pics...

On the way down we stopped at Lamberts!!!!

We had a little wait so we bumped a volleyball on the grass to get all our energy out from driving.

On Sun. after church we went to the Bass Pro Shop down there!!! COOL place!!!!

(Love this truck!)
Here's Britt and Jenny in one of the services.

Here's Ashley! She's so cute!

And Natalea, she's so fun! And there's our guys in the background.

This was one of the preachers.

And some of you may know this one! "I love my pastor!!!" :D

This is a movie of one of the songs we sing down there. The song time is just incredible!!!!!

Please keep us in your prayer this summer as we do Bible clubs around our area! For safety and the Holy Spirit to convict and change lives!

Staking Out Parking

(Sorry, these pics. were taken last month so this is a little out of order of how things happened but still thought I'd post them anyway.)

This is the field were, Lord willing, in a few months there will be a corn maze!

Here's Mom and Caleb measuring the parking area and placing flags so that they could tell were to plant the grass seed.

Oh! We also have a web site! It gives the info. about the in's and out's of the corn maze!

It's http://www.lincolncornmaze.com/

Hope you give it a visit and tell us what you think! If it's clear, not clear, or needs something that we didn't mention! We'd appreciate the comments!

Planting the Corn

Here are the pics. of the farmer planting the corn in the maze area!

Most of the plants are coming up and are about an inch tall! We are sooo excited!

(Hope this isn't boring you all!)

The tractors are so fun to watch work! We never really appreciated them till we moved up here.

Have a great day!

Scripture Sunday

"Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established."

Proverbs 16:3

Maelee

Here are some pics. of Maelee that Ben took. She is really growing up! And she is soon to be a big sister! We love taking care of her. Her bright spirit brings joy to our day.

She is such a good helper! She loves to help me with the laundry, especially when we hang it outside, and has even learned to fold the wash clothes!

Ben took some really cute ones of her outside.

"Enough pictures!"

She is soooooo smart! She knows her alphabet, well most of it, can count to 11, and can recognize letters!

We're Back!

Wow! Thank you all for the great responses! and for reading our blog! It's nice to meet those of you who we don't know! It's an encouragement to me to try to update more often!

While we've been gone we had a fun and relaxing trip down to Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. (But unfortunately I forgot to take any pics.!!!! :( But you can take a look on the blogs of the two families we went with! their blogs are on our blog list on the side bar, greenpasturesfarm, and cool-com-collected. They're good at taking LOTS of pics. ;)

If any of you have never been there I really encourage you to go! It's an historical theme park with fun rides for all ages and also old time crafts like blacksmithing, glass blowing, knife making, and candy making! (Just to name a few.) It's a great place to take your family and just enjoy having fun together! And what's even better is it has a great christian element! :D

Well, things are still REALLY crazy around here but we are going to try to keep you up to date on the Corn Maze happenings! And if any of you have any questions along the way feel free to ask! (And we'll do our best to answer! ;)

For those of you who are wondering what in the world a corn maze is anyway... it's a field of corn that has a design or pic. cut in it. The lines being paths for people to walk on, there being a start and finish!

Our maze, Lord willing, will be a pic. of Abraham Lincoln christening the town of Lincoln with water melon juice with a background of a hot air balloon!

Below are pics. of Caleb, and a farmer down the street from us, planting grass in the parking section!

And Ben just came in and told me the grass is starting to come up!



Please keep us in your prayers!