A Small World in God's Kingdom

As promised, I am writing to share more GREAT stories with you! On Sunday, Ryan, Lauren and I visited a nearby church called Lake Norman Baptist. We had done some research online and looked for churches in the Huntersville area before we even moved here and this was one that really stuck out to us. Their programs and ministries seemed to be very similar to our church in Oregon, Tigard First Baptist. So, we prayed the night before and attended the 9:45 service on Sunday morning. We were directed to the foyer and while one of the ushers was trying to direct us to the Sunday school room for Lauren's age group, a man came over to Ryan and said, "Are you Ryan T. Smith?" Ryan stood there with a perplexed look on his face until he finally realized who was standing before him. It was one of his friends, Shad Kayser, that he had gone to college with at Seattle Pacific University. He and his family had moved out here less than a year ago from Oregon, for a job change, as well. He immediately welcomed us, introduced us to some other young families and invited us to sit with them during the service.

Shad shared with us that he and his wife, Jennifer, had visited 15 different churches in the area before settling at LNB. We had such a great time visiting with them after the service...and then they invited us over to their house for a BBQ dinner that night.

As we talked with them further over dinner, we found we knew alot of the same people back in Oregon and his wife, Jennifer, and I even had the same doctor! Lauren had so much fun playing with their 10-year-old daughter, who introduced her to Barbies (much to my dismay) and their little 2 1/2 and 1-year old boys. They gave us wonderful advice on places in the area to visit, good doctors, dentists, etc. And Jennifer invited me to come over for a play-date again on Wednesday.

At the end of the evening, all the kids were snuggled under a blanket on the couch, consoling each other about the booming thunder and crackling lightning outside. We drove home in the pounding rain and experienced the most severe thunderstorm I have ever seen or heard. Amazingly, Lauren was not all that scared, but more fascinated by what she was seeing. The thunder was so loud throughout the night that it woke Ryan and I from our sleep. But Lauren was unmoved and slept soundly all night long. :)

Then, on Monday, Lauren and I visited the local library to get library cards so we could begin checking out books (one of our weekly rituals). As we were searching through the shelves, some little girls from Lauren's Sunday school class ran over and said hello. Their mom was Lauren's teacher in church on Sunday, so we chatted while the girls looked at books and played. She told me more about the Women's Ministry, the bible studies and the small groups. She even invited us to join their small group for the Adult Sunday School next Sunday morning so we could meet more of the young families in the church.

All of these experiences added together to completely blow us away at how God is providing!! Here we were, dreading the idea of "church-hunting" and just praying that it wouldn't take too long for us to find a church home...and God already had it planned out for us. So, now we are just praying that we can get plugged in as much as possible and start developing some solid relationships with godly people.