The Pure Portrait Project - Steve Willis

for more info CLICK HERE

For our friends in KC, this is a screamin' deal.  Steve is a local and world renown photographer.  He did the photography for the Nefarious Project and has worked on a number of weddings here and overseas.  He does great work and he is a dear friend of our family.  As you can see, we had a blast during our session :o) and I don't like being in front of camera's.  Make sure you call ahead of time to make an appointment. Don't wait until last minute or else you might not get in.  ($150 for 5 images, and if you wanna pay $50 more, you get all 25 images)  See, I told you it was a deal!

!!!KIDS EP ALBUM!!! COMING SOON!!!

Hey Friends and Family,

5 tracks,

 on iTunes and hard copy, 

Black Friday, Nov. 25th

 the day after Thanksgiving

I have exciting news.  For about fourteen years I have had a dream to record my music.  At last, my dream is coming true :o)

I have never had the opportunity or funding to get into the studio and do the professional job that I have always dreamed of doing.  I have had a lot of practice in studios on various different projects, but never a straight shot at a full length project of my own.  When we moved to Kansas City almost 4 years ago, I hit the most sobering season of my life.  I suddenly shifted out of a season of full-time ministry to the body of Christ and into ministry to my husband and children ONLY.  You wanna talk shock!  That's what I was in.  Ministry career woman gone Betty homemaker, with almost no transition time.

To make matters more intense, we landed at IHOP-KC.  In my mind I thought living here, around the prayer room atmosphere, would be like living on clouds and flinging glory dust all around.  After all, we pray day and night here!  It was the complete opposite.  I spent my first year being rudely awakened out of my slumber as preacher, teacher, singer, worship leader, Sunday school teacher, you name it, told me the unadulterated TRUTH!  The truth about God's character, His second coming and my identity...from the BIBLE.

I wish I could say that I was happy about all this stinging information, but I wasn't.  I got angry.  I felt duped.  And I thought, "My kids are not going to have this problem!"  So I would go to weekend services and listen intently, like a deaf person trying to make out words by reading lips.  I remember how disoriented I was, but I kept on praying, "Lord, help me get this!"

It was at the exact time that I was being forced to learn how to be a stay at home mom and homemaker.  I didn't have long hours alone to pine over concordances and notes.  I had a 1, 3 and 4 year old who all were overdue for much needed mommy time.  The first lesson: make a consistent time schedule for each day.  So we started each day with worship.  And right there, in that basement living room, my kids and I would write songs and little ditty's that would help them (and me) remember the TRUTH about who God is, His second coming, and their identity.

Although I was not the happiest clam in the sea, the melodies and rhythms that came were very uplifting.  Many of the songs were started by something my kids were humming.  Between nap times and meal times, while my children were being potty trained and learning to obey, we sang and danced, and I wrote all of the songs down.  Those songs got us through some rough times.

During the year in that basement, I wrote 80 songs.  Not all of them were kids songs.  Our lives changed and we emerged from the basement leaning on Jesus more than ever :o)  He started to transition my husband and I back into public ministry.  As people heard us sing, the big question everyone asked was, "I love your music.  Do you have a cd?"  And every time the answer was a disappointed no.  As the Lord honed us in to our calling as missionaries, and we joined a team at IHOP, I thought, "How is this ever going to happen?".  We went from living on my husband's earned wages to trusting God to provide every single cent through people who heard God tell them to give to us.  That's crazy!!!

But it worked, because we finally found what our whole family was made for.  Fast forwarding to this year, 2011, the long winter of fruitlessness began to pass.  We could feel our hearts thawing and a small hope start to live again.  I would hear the Lord whisper to me, "Do this kids album first."  I would be in discussions trying to strategize how to make the wisest move with the songs God had given us and I would hear Him whisper again, "Do the kids album first."

I finally laid all of my dreams down, and said yes.  Soon after, the least expected thing happened... my husband and I got offered studio time with a trusted worship team member, Paco Arteaga,  for free.

So for the next few weeks, I am going to blog the process.  I am going to try my best to share what is happening with you daily, because it is SO exciting.  Please stay tuned in.  You might not believe some of the God stories as I post them, that's how awesome they are.  As of now, the plan is for:

 5 tracks,

 on iTunes and hard copy, 

Black Friday, Nov. 25th

 the day after Thanksgiving

Our website will be up soon.  Keep your eyes peeled!

Heads Up!! We Will Be Doing A Devo This Saturday!

This is to all the people who care :o) ... LOL!

Me and my hubby will be doing a devo this Saturday.

Saturday, November 5th, 2pm CST

Tune in by clicking on this button: 

Then just click the play button and Voila!  Instant worship action :o)

Please join us.  It's gonna be good.  

We're SO Hardcore! Rockin' an IHOP Chorus...In The Car!

My husband posted this on Facebook, and people loved it so much that I thought I would post it on my blog.  You know when you are in the car, the music is blasting, the windows are down, and the wind is blowing in your hair, and you forget that you're NOT a rock star!  This was one of those days.  We decided to go hard core, as a family!  We all started rapping some lyrics from a spontaneous IHOP chorus during an intercession set for Israel.  Just in case you can't understand what we are saying, here are the lyrics... (my kids love this song!  Way to go, Aaron Leatherdale!)

The rain is coming
The drought can't stand
I see a cloud the size of a man's hand

Christmas in October? O YEAH!

Well, here's another random fact about me.  I LOVE CHRISTMAS!  My hubby and I have had the same tree since the first year we got married.  I love decorating it.  I've got a red and gold theme with angels added in.  I love Christmas carols.  Even now, on October 11th, as I write this blog entry, I am listening to them on Pandora.  I start craving peppermint as soon as the weather starts changing.  I even have a plug-in fragrance upstairs in our living room giving off the beautiful aroma of fall.  Okay, well I bought the Christmas Febreeze plug-in's at Costco, but didn't have the guts to use them until Nov. 1st!  Come on, how crazy do you think that I am?  Give me some credit here! :o)

'Twas the night before
Christmas... October 1st.

Well my wonderful sister Lika (and her daughter) stayed with us this summer.  As I have mentioned, she is a missionary in Africa with her family.  This means that we've never had the chance to spend a Christmas with her.  So this year, after her time in Missouri drew to an end (October 2nd), we decided to have Christmas!  We figured that if she couldn't be here for Christmas, then we would move the whole holiday, gifts and all, to the time when we could all enjoy it together... the first weekend in October.  Now you really think I am loony, don't you?

On the evening of the 1st, my hubby and I set up the tree, and I cooked a Christmas turkey.  Our Christmas dinner the next day was complete with turkey and gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, chocolate peppermint mini-cakes and gifts to go around.  Our kids thoroughly enjoyed it!  We made a memory.  It's something you gotta learn how to do when your kids are young... make little changes SUPER special.  Little things like a can of whipped cream and a bag of peppermint sprinkles can help kids always remember that year when the had TWO Christmases.

So here are some pic's.  Enjoy!  And by the way, NO, I am NOT taking the tree down until January!

My son got a Halloween costume/pajama set :o)
So creative, aren't I?

Merry Christmas!!

Old DEVO's At IHOP - Oldies, But Goldies

I didn't realize that I have never really put any of the really old stuff that we did up here on the blog.  So I went back into the archives on ihop.org and I found the first couple devo's we did.  It was around holiday time last year.  We had just been on staff for a couple/few months.  We were straight out of the internship "Intro To IHOP" and getting our lives rocked by the 6 day a week schedule!  We sing at 3, 6am's and 3, 8am's every week.

On this first one, I remember a tremendous healing anointing being poured out during worship and tons of HOPE came at the end.
Healing Devo at IHOP (2pm, Sat, Dec 18th)

This second one, we invited our friend Victor (who just recently got married, CONGRATS Victor) to play the djembe.  It added such a great feel :o)  It was so fun.  Just an hour of sheer happy praise on Christmas Eve. Throw this devo on to take the holiday blues away.
Happy Devo at IHOP (2pm, Fri, Dec. 24th)

Mr. Island Wonder Goes To Africa (Summer 2011)

Nelson Mandela - Apartheid Museum - South Africa

So after a 5 week trip to the west coast and back, we landed in KC very tired, but grateful that God has placed us here.  The trip made us appreciative of the work that we do here in the house of prayer.  We realized that the focus on worship and intercession for the last 4 years of our lives has really changed us.  We are different people now.  It it is a change for the WAY better :o)

We also came home to the opportunity of a lifetime.  My sister and her husband are missionaries in Africa, and they extended an invitation for my hubby to go there.  He would help with the work there and in exchange get some much needed dental work done.  An added bonus was that my mother, also a missionary in Beira, was there at the same time.  My husband just happens to be her #1 SON-IN-LAW!  It made for a very enjoyable trip.  Every time I called, they were laughing and enjoying one anothers' company.

So within one week, we decided that he was going... and he did!  It was a life changing trip in many ways.  If you ever feel stuck, you might need a change in perspective.  A scene from the movie Soul Surfer comes to mind.  In the movie, the youth group leader, Carrie Underwood, is showing the youth group a photo.  She asks what they think it is, and the majority thinks it is a flower or fruit or something.  But when she zooms out, it is actually the eyeball of a fly!  Ewwww gross.  Point made.  She goes on to explain that sometimes you can be so "zoomed in" to a situation that you can lose perspective on what actually is going on.  The discouragement that comes from that can be rinsed away by a fresh new view of the situation.

Africa was his zoom out.  In America, we are being told how much we CANNOT do because of the economic situation in our nation.  But he saw a people who have way less than we have in Africa, and they are still making it.  They have roofs over their heads and food on their tables.  Even in the most desperate of situations in Africa, business can thrive and God-plans can be made manifest.  If God can do it for them, then what is limiting us from using all of the many resources set before us to surge forward into the things God has given us to do?

He came home with fresh fire and fresh hope... and a fresh new smile that is beautiful. :oD

Here are some pics from The Apartheid Museum in South, the orphanage he helped in, the market and  churches where he and the team ministered.

Markets in Moz

Most structures in Moz are made of concrete

Kids from the Orphanage

They played baseball for 3 hours one day!  Batter's up!

The small fellowship that my Mom leads

Here is my mom praying :o)

Pastor Mario's Rockin' Church! 

Nelson Mandela
Apartheid Museum Pics