Fun reunions with family and friends over Christmas!

Christmas with the Loves
Jen, Reece and Stephanie

One of the fun things about working with college students is getting college sized Christmas breaks! It is one of the perks we have in our job, and we really love it! We were able to visit both Reece's and my family for a few days over Christmas, and enjoyed getting some extended time with them. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Christmas at the Johnsons
Stephanie, Reece, Jeremy, Caryn and baby Ava

5th annual Girls Christmas party!

High school reunion!

Meghan, Gwen, Brandi & Stephanie

There are so many more fun things we did, and reunions we had and we're so thankful for that! We hope you all had a Merry Christmas as well!

International Justice Mission

Our church--Missio Dei Church-- is joining up with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Montreat College to bring in Victor Butros of International Justice Mission to present his work.
We are also taking a look at the domestic problem of Human Slavery and Sex Trafficing by inviting Susan Hinz of the Hope House Project to present ways that we can get involved in assisting those who have been devastated by this horror.

Come out to learn more and find out how you can help!!

Lily Elizabeth Matthews!!!

Look at this cutie!! Lily was born last Wednesday, and Reece and I are so excited to finally meet her this weekend! Getting 2 new nieces in a month is an exciting thing! Please pray for Lily and her family as they adjust to her arrival.

Here is Lily with her mom Kelly, and siblings Lindsey and Luke!

Fall Getaway 2008!!!

Fall Getaway is our first conference of the year, and is an exciting time of spending a weekend with our students from different colleges. After a super busy first 6 weeks, both we and the students couldn't wait to get away to learn about the Lord, and spend time growing! An exciting part of the conference this year was being on the team that put the conference on this year. For the past 2 years, Reece and I were learning and just lending help in random places, but this year we were able to help plan and lead the conference...it was lots of fun!


God is so good to use our efforts in this conference each year. This morning when we met with the students to debrief what they learned this weekend, it was awesome to hear students experiencing the Lord and considering how to bring the Gospel to their campuses. Above is me with Heather, a senior at Western Carolina University at Fall Getaway. She has been so faithful, and is excited about growing in her faith. She's been especially teachable, which has been so encouraging!! It's so special to see God at work in our students.


Above are almost all of our students who came with us to Fall Getaway. We had students from Western Carolina, UNC-Asheville and Montreat! Thanks for praying for us as we do ministry. It's been such a blessing!!

Gas Shortage in Asheville

This past weekend, Reece and I came down the mountain for a fun weekend...One thing we took for granted somewhat was having gas to drive around on our merry little way. Gas in Asheville has been expensive...a few gas stations raking in $4.75 per gallon...but we had gas nonetheless.

Fast forward to this Monday. We were on the way home from Western Carolina in Cullowhee. We were running a little low on gas, but we had enough to make it home. Reece was on the phone with a friend from church back in Asheville who had gotten off work early and was driving to get gas before heading home. He went to 11 gas stations and still couldn't find a station that had ANY gas....that's right friends, 11. So, on the way home we looked at each station we passed to try to get gas, and none had any either.


So, Wednesday morning when the gas stations up the street from us...one in the morning, one in the evening...had a shipment of gas come in, it was a madhouse. We took pictures at the massive lines in front of the stations....we couldn't capture how crazy it was, but people were literally lined up for about 1/4 mile on the main road just to get gas. Here's what we saw:

So, hopefully that made you thankful for having a full tank back home!

The whole earth is full of His glory

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3)

Recently I was thinking about this passage and how when the seraphim see the earth, they see that it reflects both God's presence but also His glory. Just seeing what God has created is a testimony that He lives and is good. It was awesome to think about how much more I would be able to see God in the world if only I wasn't sinful. It makes me really excited to meet God face to face...what we're experiencing here is only a shadow of His goodness and greatness.



I was on campus a few days later, and was meeting up with a freshman at UNC-A. She was interested in talking through a few of her questions about Jesus and Christianity. Growing up in Raleigh, she wasn't used to seeing the beautiful mountains every day (we really do live in an awesome part of the state) and since moving to Asheville has really been moved my how awesome creation is here. Because she had never sought out God and connected with Him personally, proof of His existence in creation really began to open her desire to check out who He is when she came to college. What I had been reading about and thinking about was taking place in her life!! She saw that the whole earth is full of God's glory! In fact she said that she desired to know God in a personal way more than she ever had. When I talked to her about the Gospel--that Jesus is God in the flesh who came to live on earth to die the death we deserve so we can know God for all eternity, it totally made sense to her. She saw that God's love led Him to make that type of sacrifice for her...that He cared for her intimately and personally. I walked away from that awesome conversation so amazed at the Lord. He allowed me to step into her experience for the privilege of seeing what He had done in her life. It was so humbling to remember that although I am trusting God to use me to bring people into relationship with Him. He really doesn't need me at all. Thank God that He is all powerful and able to do exceedingly more than we could ask or imagine. Amen!

Our beautiful niece Ava Kathryn!!!

This past weekend, we celebrated our little niece being born...her name is Ava Kathryn Johnson, and she is a heart-breaker already. She is so beautiful!

Reece with sweet Ava.

this is me realizing how hot babies are....I was burning up while holding her!

Look at that face....seriously, she's the cutest ever!

Another highlight to our weekend was spending time with our other niece Elizabeth. One of the things we hate about living in Asheville is being so far away from Reece's family...his mom, dad, brother and sister (along with their spouses and kids) all live at least 4 hours from us. So, having a whole weekend to play with our little niece was such a sweet surprise! Here are some pictures of her:Yep, that's right...she's a cutie too! Jeremy will have his hands full with these two beauties!

We're so thankful for a special weekend with family. Thanks for letting us dote on our nieces as well :)