Last night, we went to the Winter Jam concert at UCF and saw Pure NRG (wow, those kids were bouncing off the wall), Mandisa (beautiful), Skillet(head banging Christian rock) Zach loved this one! Newsong (could worship with them all night), Barlow Girl (rockin as ever - just like when they were at Wellspring church), Connor's Vine (newby's) and last but not least, MERCY ME!!!!(brought down the house for Jesus!) Can't forget the BMX stunt group from Missouri and the message that brought hundreds of teens to Christ. There were over 10,000 people in the Arena praising our God together. No place we'd rather be than praising our Saviour with our kids! It was truly amazing worship. One minor setback was at the beginning when Maddie tried to stand on the seat and it folded up on her and her feet were pinned in the chair. It was very scary because Eric couldn't help her and it was so loud he couldn't get my attention right away and then I couldn't get her feet out. When I tried to move the seat, it would only pinch her ankles tighter and she just screamed. Finally, one foot then the other was freed and we just held her shaking. Praise the Lord that she is alright, just scared. Mercy Me sang all of our favorite songs including Jesus bring the Rain which always puts this disease in perspective for both of us. "to turn my back on you, Oh Lord, my only shelter from this storm. But instead we draw closer through this time." "You who made a way for me, by suffering your destiny, so tell me... what's a little rain?" "I know there'll be days, when this life brings me pain, but if that's what it takes to praise you, Jesus bring the rain!" Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty!!! I could type the whole song. These lyrics really speak to our soul and to anyone going through tough valleys. It can be really tough some days, but God is there through it all and we need to cling to Him.

We are finally learning our way around here and finding out that every highway is a toll road (no getting around it here). We woke up this morning without really having a plan and Eric said we are going to chuch at about 10:00 as we were all getting up so we looked on line for the church time for Greeneway church (Josh Krikke's sisters church in Orlando) and found out the service was at 11 and it was 12 minutes away. Getting our whole family ready, fed and out the door is one of my hardest tasks every morning, but we were out the door at 10:45 and made it to this small church in time to hear a message from God directly to us. The Pastor spoke on healing and had a time for those in need of healing in their marriage, emotionally or physical healing to come down and pray and the Pastor prayed with us for healing. It was a reminder from God to not stop asking for healing in His name. We believe God can heal Eric and thank you all for praying that God will heal Eric. We sensed God's presence in that church this morning. The Pastor also prayed that God has our future all planned out and we need not worry about it. What an encouragement and a relief to let go of our anxiety about what the future holds. God has it all in his hands (Jeremiah 29:11). God has blessed us with so much and we need to thank Him every day for what he has poured out on us.
We've had many opportunities to talk to people from all over the world while here...one story we need to share is a man Eric met from Canada who saw Eric's BIG GOD Tshirt which started a conversation about faith. His name was Jeremy. They had many things in common, the main thing being Jesus Christ. Jeremy encouraged Eric to keep on fighting and putting his faith in God to heal him. He was diagnosed three years ago with a rare form of terminal cancer. The doctors gave him less than 6 months to live and he prayed that God would heal him not being very religious at that time, but now he shares his testimony of how God healed him. My Sister Kristi is also trusting God to heal her of Ovarian Cancer and giving God praise for all that he has done over this last year. Kristi and Brian's blog is www.briankristi.blogspot.com if you want to read about their journey.

It is late and we just realized that it is Eric's 38th birthday right now!!! Happy Birthday to you, my dear husband! We are doing Animal Kingdom tomorrow and Eric wants to eat at Carabbas or Macaroni Grille (either way, we will roll out of there after all of the bread and oil we eat). This is a very long entry, but we had to share what God is doing. It's easy to get sidetracked from hearing God speak while you are on vacation and we realize that we need to stay focused on Him daily. We'll try to add more pictures and update tomorrow or Tuesday.
God Bless,
Lori and Eric