Welcome

I would love to invite you into my home to have a cup of tea with me. We could sit in my sunny kitchen and talk about all the things that are going on in our lives. I could share with you the news I hear from my grown daughters. How my grandkids are growing. We could laugh together over the funny things that they have said. It would be fun to share the ins and outs of our family life, and talk about our latest creative projects. We could share what God has been teaching us, in our personal lives, and encourage each other on this walk of faith. We could pray together, laugh together, and even cry together. Since most of us will never be able to sit down together face to face, I would like to invite you to join me here. So come on in and have a cup of tea with me.

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Joy

Joy

About Me

Crossville, Tennessee, United States
Hi, I'm Joy! I'm the creator behind Memory Mosaic. I believe every life is a beautiful mosaic, built from moments both ordinary and extraordinary. Thanks for stopping by—I hope you'll find inspiration here to celebrate, preserve, and share your own stories.

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Saturday, March 31, 2012

Beach Scrap Pack « A Taylor Design Scrappacks

Hey Everyone!  My daughter, Alexis has just made her very first digi scrap pack, and is offering it free.  I think she did a great job, especially for a "newbie".  So if you are into digi scrapping, head over and give her some encouragement.

Blessings!
Joy


Beach Scrap Pack « A Taylor Design Scrappacks:

'via Blog this'

Sunday, March 25, 2012

What's Been Happening?

I wanted to share a few photos with you.  Enjoy!

February 20-21, was Carnival Vacation here.  It is traditional to throw water on  random, unsuspecting people, during these days.  Our family doesn't participate in that, but we do enjoy our own "Water Fight."  These first 2 pictures are from our big Carnival Water Fight.  



March 18th, in the afternoon, we had a bridal shower for Mercedes.  Here are some pictures from it.

Mercedes and her sister

Wilda introducing the first game. They were divided in to 2 teams.  Each team was given a small cake, an egg, a little bit of white sugar, a little bit of powdered sugar, a lemon, some sprinkles, food coloring, a bowl, a fork and little wooden spatula.  They had to make some frosting, and decorate their cake...

Libertad was a "pro"...She had her egg white wiped up in no time! :-)


Diana, Carla and Libertad with their cake

Consuelo, Giomara, and Jessenia with their cake

Mercedes, right before refreshments.  We had a great turn out and a good time together.  Please pray for Mercedes and Maximo as they start their Christian Home.

Since Cristobal has taken over organizing and preparing the music for Sunday morning, we have had "special music" for the offering time, every Sunday.  This is a group that sang this morning and did a great job!

Tony, with Luis, Melaniea and Javier this morning.  The 3 of them received Study Bibles for completing the 12 classes that make up the first part of our Leadership Training Program.  

Tony with the two children that were baptized this morning.  This is Nicolas and Carla. 



We are so excited to see what God is doing here!  Thank you so much for your prayers for our family and for the ministry here in Manta.  This week we are gearing up for VBS.  We would appreciate your prayers for the teachers and workers as they prepare.  Also pray that we would see boys and girls accept Christ as their Savior.   We will be starting Wednesday evening and going through Sunday morning. 

Blessings to each of you, as you serve the Lord where he has placed you this week!
Joy





Sunday, March 18, 2012

Advice for the Bride to Be...

What a wonderful day we have had here in Manta!  Over 150 people attended services this morning.  One lady accepted Christ after the service!!  We had over 30 in the Ladies Sunday School Class.  There was a great turn out for Mercedes Shower this afternoon.  What a blessing to see the ladies coming together to be a blessing and encouragement to one another.

Here is the devotion I shared with the Ladies this afternoon.  It is not completely original with me. :-) There are 3 thoughts that I believe will help us to be the wives and mothers that God wants us to be.

1.  Be a woman of the Word.  Make time in the Word of God a priority in your life.  How easy it is to get distracted from that all important time.  The cares of the day come in upon us, and we think, I'll do this in a little while, but the fact is if we don't make it a priority it will get pushed aside and soon forgotten.  We would never expect our family to go through the week and only have 1 meal to sustain them.  Yet how often do Christians think that they can make it through the week, with just a meal or two in the Word of God?

2.  Don't be a constant drip! (Proverbs 27:15)  You know it's easy to let the cares of the day settle over us like a little black cloud, but your husband doesn't need a "drippy rain cloud" for a wife! Instead of being a contentious or quarrelsome wife, we should be like the wise woman of Proverbs 14:1, that builds up our home and family.  The crown of our husband, as Proverbs 12:4 says.   We should use our words to build up and encourage our husbands to be everything that God has created them to be.   We can either be the Proverbs 31 woman, whose husband safely trusts in, or we can be the wife, whose husband runs away to the roof top to escape her, as in Proverbs 21:9.

3.  Glory in Service.   The life of a wife and mother are wrapped up in the mundane tasks of the everyday!  Doing the safe things over and over and over again...There are always dirty clothes to wash, always bathrooms to clean, beds to make, floors to sweep, dishes to wash and meals to cook.  1 Cor. 13:13, says that now abide, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.  The Biblically based home will consist of all three of these, but the greatest is love.  Love is not to be understood just as a sentiment or emotion, but rather self-sacrificing obedience to the Word of God, with the whole heart.   One of the most important things we can learn to do as a wife and mother, is to learn to serve with our whole hearts in love.  To realize that when we are washing dishes, or doing laundry or cleaning our house, we are serving the Lord, and bringing honor and glory to Him.   Learn to work and serve in love.  Not for your self, but for the love of God and family.   That's what the Christian life is all about...serving in love.   Col. 3:17, reminds us to do everything with our whole heart, serving the Lord!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

What's Happening Now?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  No, I'm not going to wear green, and I didn't get any special cookies baked for the kids...they don't even know it's St. Patrick's Day. ;-)  The only thing I really remember about St. Patrick's Day growing up, was that if you didn't wear something green to school that day, the kids would pinch you! LOL!!!  I remember one year, our teacher had made green shamrocks for everyone out of construction paper and gave them to us as we walked in the door, so that there would be no pinching in our class for the day. :-)

We are keeping busy here in Manta!  Just finished up our fourth, 6 week term in school, so the kids and I have 12 more weeks to go for this school year! YAY!!!  Teddy has started to learn about WWI in History and Light and Color in Science.  He also started working with Decimals this week in Math!  (I'm pretty sure I wasn't learning about decimals or WW I in 4th grade!!  Carla is reading and started having spelling test a couple weeks ago, and has done really well!  She has also just finished up a Math unit on graphs, and had no problems understanding and applying what she was learning.  Matthew, is starting to get the concept of reading, and has been working extra hard on his writing.  He also started a new unit in Math this week on numbers to 20 and is being introduced the idea of Place Value.

Tony has been having a Discipleship Seminar on Thursday evenings, at our normal Bible Institute time.  He has been very pleased with the participation usually having over 20 each evening.   They will have one more week.  Then March 29-April 1 is our VBS.   Appreciate your prayers as we get ready for this special time.   Then it will be Easter! WOW!!

Tomorrow afternoon, the ladies in the church will be having a Wedding Shower for one of the young ladies.  Looking forward to a great time of fun and fellowship.

Thank you for your prayers for our family and the ministry here in Manta!
Blessings,
Joy