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Archive of "Uncategorized" Category
Big Apple Adventure!!!
We are so excited about Lifeway’s Vacation Bible School theme, “Big Apple Adventure”! This means that thousands of churches all over our nation will have their eyes and hearts turned toward New York City next summer during their Vacation Bible Schools. If you are familiar with our story, our vision, and our needs then you realize how significant this could be for our work here in the Big Apple. We are so excited about the possibility of churches designating their VBS Missions Offering in 2011 to us here in NYC! Please pray that God puts it on the hearts of dozens if not hundreds of churches to partner with us in this way!
If you are a children’s ministry leader, please consider partnering with us in this way! Leave me a comment or simply email me at freddy(at)gallerychurch(dot)com to express interest.
Below is a little video of a good friend whose church actually designated their VBS offering to us the past 2 years. We are sincerely grateful!
Big Apple Adventure! from Freddy T. Wyatt on Vimeo.
Lots Happening in NYC!
We are experiencing God’s grace on a daily basis here in NYC! Thank you for your prayers and ongoing support. A few of the recent exciting happenings.
- We’ve baptized a handful of people in the last couple of months.
- Nathan and Erin Patton have arrived from TN with their precious boys. (they are loaning me a scooter that I am absolutely loving!) The Patton’s seem to love the city and their boys are fresh energy!
- Corey and Leann Boyd is back with Ezra and new baby Elias. It is so good to have all of them back.
- We had a birthday party for the twins on Saturday. Lots of friends over. Tons of fun.
- We had an awesome silent auction to help send a team to Vietnam. A few objects can still be bid on.
- Aaron and I had a great meeting this week in Atlanta preparing to serve as facilitators @ Passion2010.
- I’m looking forward to being @ First Baptist in Clarksville this weekend for their Great Commission Conference. Jack is coming with me!
- Stoked to be in New York for Thanksgiving. We’re having lots of folks eat with us here.
Much more to come. Pray that we continue to reach new yorkers with the love of Christ.
We’re not home yet
A good friend and former member of the Gallery Church invited several people to participate in a blog blitz or so I call it where several people blog about “home”. Thanks Elizabeth. This is fun.
Perhaps one of my greatest memories growing up was how we celebrated thanksgiving at my home. It really was amazing. My mom’s three sisters, their husbands, their children, my grandparents, and a close family friend couple would come over and spend the night. We’re talking 21 people as the norm. My cousins and I loved watching wrestling and often ordered the pay-per-view special that night (wrestling has dramatically changed these days). Back then Hulk Hogan was still telling us to say our prayers and take our vitamins. We had so much fun doing things like playing Monopoly until 2 in the morning (thanks Aunt Brenda). One of my most vivid memories would be having a fire burning in the fireplace, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade while eating a big breakfast. Often times Thanksgiving Morning fell a few days before the big slumber party. Either way, whether it was Thanksgiving morning or the evening of the big family slumber party I was always perfectly happy that I was home. Safe. Secure. Loved. Family together. Home. It is hard to put into words how cool it is to have the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in our back yard errr city. Cool doesn’t really describe what it does for me. The Parade heightens my memories of Thanksgiving and feels as though it transports me to the past in such powerful and nostalgic way. It is crazy that such a trivial thing as a parade can have such an emotional impact on my thinking…but it really does energize me and flood my heart with joy as I remember my family and all the amazing times we had together.
Shifting gears…It is always interesting leaving TN (where home was/is for me) for NYC and saying something to Jack about going home. I usually get tickled. It is still a little awkward calling NYC home around our family in TN because that is not their reality. But calling TN home wouldn’t really make any sense to Lillie, Elliott, and Jack.
When we think past the minuscule blip of history that is this present world is in light of eternity, “home” takes on a whole new perspective. We are all too often blinded to the reality of eternity. In our blindness we seek to construct, create or cultivate the most comfortable earthly homes and wonder when are hearts seem so restless. Isn’t home where we ought to be able to rest? Yet in the most wonderful homes there is a lingering homesickness for another place. Able, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah all knew they had no home here. They “acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth…seeking a homeland…desiring a better country…a heavenly one…a city God was preparing for them.” Hebrews 1:4-16 We too, as we celebrate the holidays going “home” or leaving “home” or trying to figure out where “home” now is, must remember as Stephen Curtis Chapman penned, “We are not home yet.”
A home full of hope awaits all those who put their hope in the one who has promised to go and prepare a home for us with many rooms. We are not home yet.
Latest video for SEBTS’ helping us in NYC!
Gospel Encounters - George from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.
Elias Boyd is Born!
an email I just received from Corey…
All,
Elias Gregory Boyd was born at Gateway Hospital at 11:07pm October 5, 2009! He weighs 7 lbs 13 oz and is 20.5 inches long. Leann did a wonderful job and there were no complications.
I know some of you didn’t even know we were pregnant again, but I am excited, so I am emailing everybody. Ezra is almost 2 now and is eager to meet his new brother “Dias.”
If you are in Clarksville and would like to visit us at the hospital, please wait till Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.
I will head back to NYC on the 12th. Leann will follow with the boys about a week later.
Thank you to those of you who prayed for us tonight. God has provided again! He shall continue to do so for those of us who trust Him.
God Bless,
Corey and Leann Boyd
Pray for Leann, Corey, and Elias Boyd
Yeah and pray for little Ezra too. Leann is being induced right now in Clarksville, TN. She is very nervous. Join with me in praying for her, Corey and little Elias on the way.
It is hard to put words to how precious Corey and Leann have been to me and Susan and valuable to the mission and work in NYC. We look forward to this family of four returning healthy and happy to NYC.
Please pray for a smooth delivery.
Thanks!
Purging Material Things…good for the soul…hard to do…a little help.
We’ve talked with The Boyd’s a lot lately about the purging process of many of our material things that we’ve been through as we’ve moved to NYC. The process is rather refreshing to the soul, though sometimes it is very difficult to do. Moving into tiny spaces in urban settings like NYC forces a purging of earthly treasures stuff. My friend Liz Lockwood recently tweeted about Noel Piper’s recent purging and a list of lies that keep us from a purging process. Read, identify and enjoy…
There’s been lots of time to think, digging out of the chaos of the walk-in junk drawer that’s supposed to be my study. (It was worse than the pictures show. They were taken AFTER I started working.)
As I dig out, I find myself uncovering decades of lying to myself.
Here’s the list, so far. Originally I was tweeting them one by one. Responses confirm I’m not the only one who tells herself these lies:
Digging out of chaos–LIE # 1. I paid good money for that. I can’t give/throw it away.
Digging out of chaos–LIE # 3. That thing still works. I can’t give/throw it away.
Digging out of chaos–LIE #4. It’s so ugly I can’t stand looking at it, but it’s still usable. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–LIE #5. I haven’t used it in 3 years, but I’m sure I’ll need it sometime. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #6. I missed the deadline for product return. But someday I’ll list it on Ebay. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #7. It doesn’t fit, but I’ll surely be be small/large enough next year. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #8. It doesn’t match anything else I wear, but I like the color so much. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #10. It’s still in the original box! This is going to be worth a lot someday. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #11. I’ll find someone who still has the [office machine] that uses that part. I can’t throw/give it away now.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #12. It’s a souvenir from that wonderful trip to [fill in the place]. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #13. I’ll move this to the [attic. garage. basement] till my children need it. I can’t throw/give it away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #14. The perfect organizing system will store everything. I won’t have to throw/give anything away.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #15. I’m the only one who knows what to do with each item of my chaos. No way can anybody help me.
Digging out of chaos–Lie #17. So many self-help books. Surely there’s a way to fix my life without shoveling out from under the mess.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 18. Planning the job & wearing work clothes all day is almost as good as actually clearing away the mess.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 19. My living room & dining room are neat, so things aren’t really out of control.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 20. I’ll just sort all this stuff into stacks and then it will be neat.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 21. Nobody else sees my bedroom, so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 22. I’m the only one who lives in the midst of mess like this. No way can I let anybody into my house & life.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 23. I’ll never be able to dig out, so I’ll just have to get used to living like this.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 24. It’s just normal that stuff, stuff, stuff. is burying what I’m stuffing inside–and burying me.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 25. There’s nothing I can do about this mess that’s burying me. I’ll never be able to follow my dreams.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 26. The wind has changed. The sky is lowering. Maybe Mary Poppins will drift in, snap her fingers & I’ll be dug out.
Digging out of chaos–Lie 27. Keep tweeting wisdom about digging out, and I won’t actually have to DO it. NOEL! Back to work!
Movement
I’m so grateful for initiatives like this, that can contribute to a church planting movement in NYC! Thanks for partnering with us SEBTS!
Jack update!
It has been a long, long, but good day. We rose early this morning…and the last drink Jack could have was @ 7am. No food this morning was allowed. There is much I could share by way of details on the day, but really am too tired to type it all out. The waiting to go into surgery was tough. Had to be there @ 9, we got there a little early. Surgery was scheduled for 10:30, but Jack didn’t get in there till closer to 12:30. Long day of waiting. Jack did amazing, never asked for anything to drink or eat, until he saw the water fountain around Noon…and that was probably more him wanting to play with the water than to drink it. The surgery went very well. Dr Waner and his team are amazing; his maker far more. Jack has to wear these little arm braces to keep his hands away from his face so he doesn’t play with his stitches. Once we convinced him they were robot arms he was surprisingly okay with wearing them. Though his lip is and will be swollen for several days, his smile is remarkably beautiful. You can see all his teeth and there is no big bump popping out. I was so happy seeing that. They are running a biopsy on the legion they removed from under his lip. Thank you for praying with us through this. We have felt your prayers…and the fact that Jack was singing his songs tonight is the fruit of so many of your sweet prayers. Thank you!
