Hope you're enjoying the Christmas Season!

Saw this today - Yep, he's right, "Best Christmas Decoration Ever!!"

Click on this, or the title!


Hope you and your family are enjoying all of the Christmas music and events, and The Reason for the Season!

~Benn

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig!

Well, after a week in warmer Georgia, we're home again in Colder PA! We had a very good time seeing Mandy's extended family over the Thanksgiving holiday, and talking, playing games, and building a pumphouse for Grandma Bell.

Travel was smooth, other than a God blessed flat tire that was caught by a good citizen who pointed it out during our trip home - change was quick, and necessary, and on our way again.

Glad to be home (Benn!) and in my own bed again. Kids running all over the house, as we get ready for the new arrival of the baby! Thanks for all your prayers, and hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving!

Have a merry Christmas, as we remember another baby that came!

Benn and Mandy and the Kids!

updated and very quick family pics

here are some quick family pics, everyone is being themselves! All 9 (NINE!!!) of us in this pic. And this is a bit of what we see out on the front porch.

Sink #1 installed and ready to go!

well, after a tough day doing stuff we've never done before, we got a sink installed in our kitchen downstairs - only 5 months with no water in the downstairs!!

Here's a very bad pic taken with my computer:

You'll get to try it out when you come up for a visit - which is open to anyone reading this!

Thanks!

Benn

Working on the Kitchen

Well, we've been hard at it - we're redoing the kitchen for the past 6 months - we're cutting into our brand new Amish-made counter tops tonight.

Here's some pictures for you to see.
We're all doing well - I've(Benn) been sick for about 3 weeks, and just getting over it. Mandy had another Dr. apt today - she's doing well with this pregnancy, and we're looking forward to another blessing from God in February. Keep in touch. You can reach either Mandy or I at our email addresses. If you don't know it, it's our first names at our last names (plural) dot com.

Thanks for all your prayers and if anyone wants to visit - we're up for that!! Come on up!

Later!

Forgot?

Don't think we've forgotten about this blog - we've just been very busy - Quick jots as we can.

Sorry for the delay!

Pictures by Benn

Click here to view these pictures larger

An update on the Gehmans

Well, hello. Guess you might be wondering what we're up to, or perhaps new blog post is reminding you to wonder what we are up to. =-) So, I'll fill you in.

I have been continuing to meet with my Jehovah's Witness friends on a weekly basis. For several weeks, I felt like God had been preparing me to talk with them about Jesus being God. They believe that salvation is through Jesus, but not that Jesus is God, which I figured out from reading some of their literature. Well, this past Friday, I felt that God was letting me know it was time for this conversation. You can hardly imagine how it went. As soon as we launched into this conversation, we had more interruptions than in all our previous conversations combined. I could tell that the spiritual battle was getting intense. I am so grateful that when I am weak, He is strong because I have definitely been seeing more and more clearly how weak I truly am. Anyway, we are to continue on with this topic at our next meeting, so please pray about this.

Also, this past Sunday we had someone join us for church! This was such a blessing to us and we really enjoyed studying the Bible all together and then fellowshipping with lunch afterward. It was so exciting for us to be able to share church with another family.

The kids and I have joined a homeschooling group that meets weekly. It is nice to be able to get together with other Christian families and visit. The group meets in a central location and people come from as far as 1 1/2 hours away to meet. It takes us about 45 minutes to get there. Through this group we met a couple families that have started a house church. They live about 20 minutes from us.

Other than that, we are excited to begin seeing the first signs of spring - robins are coming back and trees are starting to bud. No daffodils yet, but we are looking forward to those happy little yellow flowers.

I tried to put in a picture of our house for you to see, but I am not sure if it will actually show up or not. If not, I will try again later. If you see a picture of a house on this post, good chance it ours!

Steps of Faith

Well, we've taken another step of faith. God has provided us with the opportunity to make a bit of extra time and money by selling items on Ebay. This isn't anything new for most people who sell on Ebay, but in this specific instance, we feel that it is God providing for us an avenue for the generation of Time and Money for His Work!

Thus, we've named our Ebay Store - Providence Computing.

We're very excited(and I'm (Benn) very apprehensive), so join us in prayer as we undergo this new endeavor.

Thanks so much for your prayers. We're certainly very much appreciative of them!

Keep Praying

Well, due to computer issues, it has been several weeks since my previous post. Just as a short update:

We are continuing to have church here at our home on Sunday mornings.

We have begun a Bible study on Thursday nights. Last week was the first one, but none of those we invited came. So, we enjoyed having a Bible study with our kids!

Please continue to pray for Audrey. She has returned several times now with an older woman named Connie. Connie is the really sweet grandmother type. It really breaks my heart to see such a sweet older lady who thinks she is following the truth and doesn't recognize her blindness. I am not sure if Audrey enjoys the challenge of trying to convince me or what it is that keeps her returning, except that I believe God has sent her to me and I keep praying for God to continue to draw her back to me, to His Word and to the Truth. I am so thankful to God for all the people He has put in my life to encourage me to love and study His Word. It makes such a difference and would have been worth it if only for these conversations with Audrey and Connie. So, for those of you praying, Audrey and Connie will be coming on Friday afternoon.

Benn will be going to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville this next weekend, so I will be having fun manning the outdoor furnace and the gas heater all by myself. Hopefully that will be uneventful.

Other than that, just more snow on the ground. It has been white since we moved in and I guess we have several more months of this in store. I am enjoying it. So, till next time. . .

Winter Wonderland

Well, I look out my window and it is truly a winter wonderland outside. I don't know exactly how much snow we have gotten, but it is a really thick covering of white. And we are supposed to have more this week. The kids are really loving it, having a great time sledding on the really cool sled they got for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa, building a snow fort, eating snow ice cream. For those of you who think the snow ice cream is weird or have never heard of it, it is truly a delicacy. I guess that we Southerners had to come up with something good to do with it on the rare occasion that we were able to experience it. Anyway, we love it. Reminds us of the ice cream at Chick-fil-A. I will try to add some pictures to this later when my sweet hubby can show me how to do it.

Well, we have just had our fourth church service here at home this morning. The kids are starting to really catch on to how this works, not like kids' classes at church. We are learning a lot, even the kids. Benn has done a great job preparing the lessons. We enjoy singing together, but we could really use some instrumental accompaniment. =-) Benn is hoping to learn to play the guitar, so maybe soon.

I plan to update every week or so, just keeping it short. Please keep us in your prayers.

Please pray for Audrey. God sent her to my house this past week. It is really nice for God to send an opportunity like this to my house, as I am a stay-at-home mom and don't get out a lot. She is a Jehovah's Witness around my age living in the next town over and she will be coming to visit me again this week. She agrees with me that the Bible should be the basis of all that we believe, so we will start there and always be looking back at the Word. We are going to be going through a Bible study together. I believe that she is a true seeker, just sadly blind to the truth, so please pray for her eyes to be open to the Truth, Jesus. In praying for her, God has put it on my heart just to form a friendship with her and not worry about arguing the Bible with her. Just present the Bible and let it speak for itself.

Please pray for John. He is the man we are buying our house from. He is not a Christian, but God is working on him. God has given us some opportunities to serve John, and in response, John has blessed us greatly by bringing us some really large trees to cut up for firewood. I had told some of you before that John has survived three crashes in small airplanes. For those who don't know, that is miraculous. The last one was only about 2 or 3 months ago, and he walked away with only a few scratches. Benn has told him why we have come here, but that doesn't seem to have caused him to avoid us. We have been praying for him diligently and God has given us a few opportunities to share God's grace in our lives with him. Several days ago, he had a three hour conversation with my brother-in-law about how God could allow evil in the world if He is truly a loving God. Jason had a great conversation with him about this and about the consequences of our sin as the cause of evil in the world. Anyway, I see this conversation as God drawing John, so please keep him in your prayers.

I hope that you are all doing well and that you are experiencing the love and grace that God offers so freely to us all. Catch you later.