Photos

Just a few pics of life in the last week~

Beautiful clouds out our front door at 6 AM this morning!! :) Looks like a storm head!!

Spent yesterday rearranging Tamara's room. Need to finish it up today! Can anyone say MESSY!?? :)

Any tips for organizing these shelves??

Took my Sunday School class to sing and do some work for a widow from church, then we got pizza for lunch! :)

Mr. Handyman! He and Tamara changed both our nasty toilet seats. They were bad when we moved here already! Hope the smell in the hall bath gets better since that nasty is out of there!! :P

Congratulations to Ashleigh Mount on her graduation! Ashleigh was one of my little Sunday school students just a few short years ago! Where did time go??

Projects to keep him out of trouble this summer....made a cute cow pencil holder!

Went to St. Andrews Park/Beach one Sunday night. It was lovely!!




That same day Danny broke out with poison! This is what he looked like Monday morning! :O Poor guy was miserable for 2 days then it seemed to heal up quickly!! :) Hey, maybe the toothpaste worked!?? :)

Just have to share a pic of sweet Mara Jade.....our newest and first niece in the Henry family!! :)
Can't wait to see her soon!!

GEMS Meeting

GEMS stands for Gospel Express Ministries South. This is the organization that Dan & I are involved in with prison ministry.

Monday night we had a monthly board meeting in Tallahassee. There was a guest there who shared his testimony and I was so touched and wanted to share it with you!
Juan thought of himself as a "big & bad" guy when he was in his early 20's. He loved the thrill of doing bad stuff. So much so that he prayed and committed himself to Satan. He wanted help doing bigger and worse stuff! After awhile the emptiness of it all got to him and one night he decided to pray to this "God" he heard about but really didn't expect anything from it. He asked God to take Him out of this situation.

Well, he helped to organize a bank robbery, and while he wasn't directly involved in the robbery, the guys who pulled it off and then got caught, squealed on him.
To make a long story short, he got a 9 year prison sentence and during times of confinement, he turned his life over to Christ! Toward the end of his sentence, he began mentoring other guys as he had been taught by volunteers at other prisons.

He has been out of prison for 4 years, married a beautiful young lady and together they are involved in Hispanic ministry. It was so neat to hear his testimony! God has a plan for the guys in prison.....we just need willing servant's to come minister to them!! :)

Also, we heard testimony from one of the volunteer chaplains from Gadsden Corr. (a female facility near here) that a young lady who was involved in Santeria, a satanic worship, came out to a Christian worship service. She completely gave up her satanic beliefs to be a Christian and is doing very well! Praise God!!
When we were in Gadsden last Dec. during the crusade, we heard inmates talking about the oppression of Santeria and I am so excited that God is working in this situation!!

Continue to pray for Gadsden! A Mormon organization is taking over the prison and the Christians are concerned that their Bible-teaching classes and workshops will be done away with!!

NEW!!

Dan & I have been so blessed over the years! We moved down here (FL) to work in prison ministry almost 5 years ago. When we first moved, we were working solely on a voluntary basis and had to raise our own support. The first year went well. We had pretty good support!
Into the second year Dan had the opportunity to be hired full time as a assistant to the regional chaplain. This position, while it had no benefits and minimum pay, gave him more freedom and more opportunities to be able to minister without having to have another chaplain with him. This way he wasn't tying someone else down when he went about his work in a day. (Volunteer chaplains are just like any other volunteer, and need to be assisted anywhere they go on the compound!)

A couple months into it, because of state funding issues, he got laid off and once again we had to raise support, or find something else to do. He continued to work as a volunteer even though support was tight. Our faith grew a lot over that next year!! But God always saw us through and provided for our needs. And, I want to say that through it all, we have had 2 families who continued to support us and do to this day! They have been such a blessing to us!! :) Thanks Martin's and Sauder's!

Dan ended up getting his job back a few months later and is still working in this position.
And just so you know....he does get paid for 40 hours a week (no more, even if he works longer. That's just the job stipulations). He doesn't get any benefits, ie. paid vacation, insurance, etc.

So while we are grateful for the chance he has to work in the prison, it is a tough position to be in. It is very hard to get ahead. We are praying that God will continue to show us the way He wants us to go, whether it be staying in the prison ministry or moving on to something different!

I added a Paypal Donate button to our blog. If God lays on your heart to help support our family, you will bless us immensely! The money Dan brings home from his job is sufficient to pay the monthly bills and buy groceries and gas, but we don't have extra for doctor and dentist appts., car repairs and all those other little needs that come up..... and I don't want to beg. I know there are many people out there who are far worse off than we are! We really are blessed! :)

If you have any questions or want to know any more about what we do, please feel free to ask! :) I am going to try to do monthly updates on the work in the prison, to try to keep you up on what God is doing through the ministry at Gulf C.I.!! :) :)

Thanks~ TH

**Beach Day**

Yesterday the kids and I ventured down to Mexico Beach to enjoy a day in the sun before the oil comes! :( I am hoping it stays away for awhile yet, but doesn't sound like that is likely!!



Crossing West Arm Creek near Wewa.



Where Dan works....



Mexico Beach!! :)

Ready to hit the water!! :)



We got there around 9:30 and the beach was empty. By the time we left at 12:30, it was starting to fill up. I was glad we went early!!



See the kids out there?? The water was lovely!!



Time for a snack...



Drifting along....the kids had so much fun with this boat. I would take them out as far as I could reach and then let them go and they would float into shore on the waves!



A sand crab near my chair. I was trying to get a picture of him throwing sand out of his hole, but he was always too quick for me! :P





Watched parasailing. Made me wish I was out there! Ever since we moved down here and I found out what parasailing is, I've wanted to go. It's just so expensive. BUT, one day I WILL go!! :) :) :)



My silly, wonderful kids!! <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIT3zOugzBOXzMXMOj17ExKhMQ3clPvc7tL0LNrXNOC34O0T8-lWBJN96RUDgLFEl4X_mrDO10kl2jnlh1PkdQ20bbYZk3oNwZPo-tOszvlqg3fNUDsxAi-QiYmN2kJ_LDI1r1LAykwo4/s1600/101_0203.JPG">Beach beauty....



Not sure what they were doing here? Might it be related to preparing for the oil....?? All morning we saw pairs of men walking down the beach and they all had the same tan hats on. I think they were patrolling the beach watching for tar balls.



What a beautiful day! The kids would have rather went to a pool to swim, but I convinced them to go to the beach before we don't get the chance to anymore (at least for awhile). They were glad we went!! It was a fun day! :)

**Beach Day**

Nicole's Graduation

My niece Nicole graduated May 14 in Pelham, GA. She asked Dan to give the Commencement speech. :) He is her favorite uncle!! ;)
We drove up there in the afternoon and got there about a half hour before the graduation started.

Dan speaking....it was so cool, he read the book, "Oh, The Place's You'll Go" by Dr. Suess and here her 1st grade teacher gave her that same book as a gift!! :) It's awesome for a graduate, if you've never read it!!

Her Dad, Dwayne sharing memories of Nicole over the years.... :) "I want more nooooooodles!!" ;)
Dwayne & Chris
Nicole

The happy graduate! :)



FOOD!!

12 year memories!!


She got quite a few packs of noodles!! :)

And a huge chocolate bunny. We figured out there were over 3,000 calories in that whole thing!! :O
A blanket from her Grandma M.

Young onlookers....dreaming of their day!?? :)

:)

A busy week of planning really zonks you out....that's what Saturday is for...catching up on sleep! :)


Congratulations Nicole! We are proud of you!! Have a great summer in PA!! :)

Saturday morning we slept as long as we liked....I think we left the motel around 9 AM. Before we sat down to eat breakfast, Dan went out to the van and realized the battery was dead. We have a small cooler that you can plug into the cigarette lighter to keep stuff cold or hot. We forgot to unplug it the night before and it drained our battery! :P So AAA to the rescue!!
By the time we were done eating breakfast the AAA guy had come and charged the battery and we were ready to get on the road!! Thank goodness for AAA!!

The skies were cloudy and we drove through rain showers off and on the whole morning....

Once we got into TN, the clouds were getting darker and heavier!

We hit some real nasty heavy rain showers. Once we were driving under a bridge and we hit a HUGE puddle of water. It slowed us down so quickly and the force from hitting it made our air bag light come on!! :O
Later we hit another one, but this time we saw the car in front of us hit it first. But driving at 65 MPH, there still wasn't much time to slow down!! It rained and rained and poured and poured. The worst was through Nashville, TN. (We didn't know at that time how hard they were going to get hit!!) I called my sister Chris to ask her what the radar map was looking like. It was getting to the point were it was hard on Dan's eyes to be driving through such heavy rain. She said that it looked like in an hour or so we'd be out of the worst of it, but that there were tornado warnings for that area, too!! :P AGAIN!! Enough already! Soon after that we caught up to a storm chaser vehicle that had his lights on!! :O We considered stopping and spending the day in Nashville, just to keep from having to drive in such bad weather. But we kept plugging along and we are SO, SO glad we did!! At one rest area we stopped at, we heard talk of an interstate being shut down. Later we realized it was because of all the rain and flooding. If we had stayed in Nashville, who knows if we could have got out the next day!??

At the Welcome Center for Alabama....we were pretty much out of the rain by this point!

Danny resting while Tamara slept....he was covered with pillows. I guess to stay warm?? :)

We got home around 10:30 PM and were so glad to be there!! What a fun trip we had!! I hope you enjoyed "traveling" along with us! I could have blogged more, but I'll save that for my scrapbook!! :)

The Road Home....

On the way to Saint Louis, we stopped to wash our dirty van! Driving on the slushy roads in Co and then the dirt roads in MO made it look awful!!

Crossing the Mississippi River again!

The St. Louis Arch

Dan and the kids standing at the bottom...

This was a replica of the tiny cars that held 5 people and took you up inside the arch! I was thankful for the air blowing in there, or I think I might have gotten sick! I wished you could see out as you were going up, but there was no window!! :P

Waiting in line to get on the South Tram...


Finally at the top....what a view! :)


Looking out the tiny windows!!

The kids and I in the top of the arch!

Going down the stairs to wait in line for the car ride down!

Back on solid ground!! :) We were waiting to watch the Lewis and Clark film.

After we were all done in the museum, we took a walk on the grounds around the arch. It was kind of rainy, but we were glad we took the time to explore anyway!

Someday I'd love a ride in a carriage like this!! :)

A barge

Standing on the banks of the Mississippi River. The water was VERY high!! There was a parking area, that was completely flooded, behind where they are standing!!




Stayed in St. Louis that night. We ate supper at the TGI Friday's that was connected to our motel. Yummy food!!
After supper, Dan and the kids went swimming!

They were having fun playing monkey in the middle with a beach ball! :)


Racing for the ball!!

I went back to our room to catch up on emails, etc. and turned on the Weather Channel. There were tornado watches out and I like to know what's going on. Soon they were saying there were sightings of touchdowns, so once the sightings were getting closer, I went down and told Dan and they soon got out of the pool. It got really stormy! The lightning was beautiful to watch from our 3rd floor window. We were thankful for another night of safety!!

Saturday drive home next......