Still in Lexington...

back to Our Walk of Faith

Well, believe it or not we are still in Lexington, NC! It’s been a wonderful visit…we really feel like we’ve found missing family members. Chris and I have been helping around the Cuthrell’s house, showing them how to use the computer, and reformatting a book on prayer that Mrs. Cuthrell wrote many years ago. We are sad to leave, and they are sad to see us leave. I guess you may be wondering why we’ve stayed so long…well, we have been praying daily for God’s guidance and direction and it seems that God has used the clouds to guide us…Chris was reading about the children of Israel and how they moved when the Cloud of God moved. Friday morning when we woke up it was cold, rainy, and cloudy, so we stayed. It was the same way Saturday and Sunday, so we stayed…In the mean time…Chris went on Friday to Fayetteville with Mr. Cuthrell, Brandon, and Nick (two of the boys from church that Mr. Cuthrell is mentoring) to visit several museums. On Saturday, we went to a fundraising dinner for an organization called Christ Bible Conference.

Jerry and Pam Lambeth, the founders, have helped raise money to build 40+ churches all over the world. He has also written several books that are being used for discipleship around the world. Pretty incredible…

We also met Mrs. Bowen, a preacher’s wife and host of Mrs. Cuthrell’s Monday morning prayer group. Chris and I read the book Enjoying the Journey by Mrs. Bowen’s husband the night before. It’s a short summary of their life together in ministry. It was amazing…the peace and joy that she has in the Lord just exuded from her face. Both she and her son, David, couldn’t stop talking about how blessed they are. As I was reading the book, I learned that Mrs. Bowen had been taken by a Christian foster family when she was really little, and they gave her a new name. When she got older and had to make legal changes to her name, the lawyer told her that she could pick any name in the world that she wanted. Well, she chose the name her foster family had given her. There’s an interesting parallel here with our Christian walk. God does the same thing for us…He adopts us into His family and gives us His name, but we have to choose Him first. He doesn’t force us to be in His family, but I wouldn’t have it any other way…there is no life outside of Him!! As we were leaving, Mr. Cuthrell commented, “It’s easy to be a Christian when you are around people like that!” (Chris and I could say the same thing about them…they have such a sweet spirit about them!) Sunday morning, we went to Heath Church with the Cuthrells. Have I said AMAZING yet in this journal?! The Sunday school class is studying The Purpose Driven Life, and they were talking about why spiritual growth takes time. One of the reasons is because it takes time to unlearn what we’ve already learned and to replace the old habits with new habits…forming habits takes time. I thought about how I constantly try to make my plans and figure things out for myself and then tell God about it. I want to unlearn that and that’s part of my reason for wanting to take this trip--to learn to rely on God and to choose His plan above my own. What a neat opportunity this trip is…time to learn this new habit of relying on God for everything and following Him…not running ahead! Then the message was on the Great Commission…going out in God’s power to do His plan with His presence!! I don’t think that ya’ll know this, but we don’t have any contacts past Honduras. We’re not worried because it’ll be a little while before we get there. Chris also just got an e-mail in which we learned that you can’t walk across the Panama Canal (I’m sure many of you already knew that, but neither of us took geography, so this was news to us.) BUT God is a big God…we met a lady at church yesterday who is from PANAMA (a country where we had no contacts) and most of her family still lives there…that’s not all…her sister works on the Panama Canal…and her other sister is a doctor in Costa Rica (another country where we didn’t have contacts). After such an unbelievable morning, could there be more? Yes! The Cuthrells invited Pastor Downing and his family over for a delicious lunch and good fellowship. Then we went back to church for a youth directed service where Amber and Jacob shared their testimonies and the youth sang. The message by Jason Vreeke was just as pertinent from Philippians 3:12-14...Don’t be content just to compete, don’t get caught up in the chaos, but be a person of 1 thing--the pursuit of God, Don’t be paralyzed by the past instead look forward to the future, and stay focused until you’ve finished! After church we chatted with several people and then went out to eat with Marilyn, Mary, Danelle & Lexi, Joe, Delinda, Mr. and Mrs. Cuthrell, Connie, and Dana. It was a great time of fellowship and sharing as well. We found a connection as well…Dana was in the same group with my cousin Clare in the Miss NC Pageant in 2002. (Which reminds me…I forgot to say that Jay Love the pastor who gave us a ride last Tuesday used to work with my friend from several trips to Mexico--Jan (Jernigan) Stewart…the family of God is so small and interconnected! I’m in awe!) Well, the clouds appeared to have lifted and the temperature is rising, so we are planning to head on some time today…of course, we’re not sure where we’ll end up tonight…I guess you’ll just have to check in to see what God is doing in a day or so…We pray that He is using you to do exceedingly great things for His kingdom! Come join us on the journey…God bless!

Apparently Embler is such a popular name in Davidson Co. we even have a road named after us!!

This is one example of the mind-boggling collections that Mr. Cuthrell has--buttons from presidential campaigns dating back to Lincoln's election!!