update!

Mark and I very much enjoyed our first set of holidays but we are both thankful they are over and we can get back to a somewhat "normal" sort of life. It feels like we have been on somewhat of a vacation the last week between Christmas, no church, and new years. We were grateful for time to relax and we very very much enjoyed our first Christmas ALL BY OURSELVES! We opened presents, made pancakes, watched movies and made home-made chicken noodle soup for dinner. It was a great way to spend our first Christmas as husband and wife. We had no church this week so we with no question went back to Faith on Sunday. It was so good to be back and see our friends and family whom we miss a lot. But as always it was nice to return to our home in Grand Rapids.

Mark worked his last shift at Beaners yesterday and now he is officially the full-time Worship Ministries Pastor at Journey Church! I am very excited and proud of him.

Thats about all that has been going on here...We have some exciting things to look forward to in the next month or so...

-My 21st birthday is January 15th!
-The end of January we are going with the staff team to Roanoke Virginia for a few days
-In February if all works out we are going to Chicago with another couple
- We are doing a mass mailer for our upcoming family series in the end of January and bringing in a comedian for our next big push at Journey
-Our small groups are starting the end of January at Journey, Mark and I will be in a young marrieds group...
-We start a Financial Peace University class this month, which we are excited about as well...


Life is good and exciting right now. We are enjoying each other and still enjoying our new life here in Grand Rapids.

Words....

The last few days have been quite interesting in my (Jen's) life. I told Mark yesterday that I feel as though I have lost all sense of discipline. I have no idea how it happened. I think it started with a good book. The book began to consume my life and it wasn't just the story itself but the burning desire to create a story on pages, as this author had done. Story envelopes me. I find myself constantly thinking about life in terms of a story as though I were writing it down on pages, but Im not. I have come to the conclusion that I love words. I am passionate about words, words especially on paper. Words that as you read, feel like they are swirling around endlessly in your mind. I am constantly in awe with the way people can take words and create such beautiful images. This may sound silly to you but to me it is my desire. Maybe this is why I want to write. Or maybe this is why I should write. I don't know which. But anyways, so this book...It was a pretty powerful story and it consumed me. I forgot to do laundry, I forgot to clean. Thankfully I made it to work. For whatever reason this story made me not care about the little things like cleaning. I just don't know how it happened. It wasn't because I had my head in the book it was just that my mind was constantly everywhere but here on earth. I began dreaming about writing about what life could be and about whether or not I could eloquently paint pictures of such beauty with simple words. I do know that I have to learn to spell first.
So now I sit here and look at this mess I have created. And I really do want to clean it but I have so many other things that seem more important. It truly is a battle but I can't not, not do anything forever. At some point I must leave Jenny land and come back to real life. Maybe I should not aspire to be a writer until I can afford a housekeeper...

I need to go to the gym...if I go four days this week and drink 5 glasses of water everyday...Mark does all the dishes next week. Motivation huh?

What is Christmas anyways?

Hmm..what have the Potters been up too? We have been busy but that is nothing new. Mark is coming up on his last few weeks at Beaners and then he is 100% Journey which is really exciting. Im so proud of how hard he has worked and I am so thankful and happy to see him get to pour all of his time into his ministry. He has worked so hard at both the Church and at Beaners and he never complains. He has sleepless nights and tired days but he just keeps going. I admire my hubby so much for that. He is much stronger than I will ever be.

I am getting anxious about school next fall. Im almost done with my application at Cornerstone (Im just waiting for MSU to fix their mistakes). Im so excited to go back. Im ready to finish what I started and pursue what I love. It also looks like Mark will be going back to school to get his masters of divinity in the fall. Indiana Wesleyan is starting the program in the fall so that is also very exciting.

I can't believe that it is almost Christmas. It certainly came fast. I don't know about anyone else but I find it very hard during the Christmas season to focus on what Christmas is all about. The world has turned it into this holiday that no one even knows why they celebrate. Working at Beaners I have noticed it more this year than years past. Its all about shopping and christmas music. It's all about the busyness and craziness. The Christmas trees and lights. But what about the man who came into the world on Christmas day to save this us? You would never know thats why we celebrate Christmas. Not out in the world anyways. There are times when I want to boycott the world's Christmas. I just don't want to celebrate it the way the world does...maybe I need a fast from Christmas and instead should just choose to celebrate the birth of a saviour, a healer, a deliverer, a baby who was man and God...

Life is a funny thing.

Im enjoying the snow, not the ice, just the snow.
Im enjoying hot tea and hot chocolate.
Im enjoying friends.
Im enjoying relaxed nights.
Im enjoying my husband and life with him.
Im enjoying my God, my savior, my healer, my protecter, my King.

Holiday Craziness...

Often it feels like you go, go, go until the holiday hits and then after all of chaos that a holiday can bring you crash. Well for us it feels like it was only the beginning...

Thanksgiving was great! On thursday we went to our pastors/boss/friend's house for fun and food. It was great! A perfect way to spend our first thanksgiving together. I made my first pumpkin pie too and it was a success! On friday we opened at Beaners at 4:30 in the morning. We opened early to accomodate all of the early shoppers. It was a lot of fun though. We had several more people working than normal which is always fun since we LOVE our co-workers and we were busy all day. The busiest day our Beaners has ever had. It was fun and everyone was in a great mood it seemed like. We worked until 12 and then rushed home to start cooking our first thanksgiving dinner for my (Jen's) family. It was a lot of fun but by 7:00 we were both exhausted.

Saturday we opened at Beaners again and then at 12 Mark's family came and met us at work and took us to lunch and we got to spend the rest of the day with them. It was really nice to see them and get to show them our lives here in Grand Rapids. On Sunday it was another bright and early morning setting up Journey Church. Of course the day went well and again we had more new faces. Every Sunday is just exciting and affirming of why we are here. On Sunday afternoon though Mark and I crashed hard. We went to bed early and tried to rest for another crazy week. We get tired sometimes and really burnt out but at the same time life here is just so much fun. This time of year is so exciting to be sharing so many firsts together.

We do miss people though and we are still trying to build relationships and find our place here in Caledonia. Its challenging, fun and new and there are good times and there are bad but we are so thankful to be doing this together. And serving an Awesome and holy God here in Caledonia Michigan!!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

In the Potter household that is :)

Mark bought our tree yesturday and we are going to put up our decorations tonight. We try to make Fridays our date night so this week we are going to decorate our home, have homemade chicken and rice for dinner and then maybe go get a coffee or something later. We are excited. Last friday we went to dinner at a little local place called "Sundance Grill". It was a gourmet mexican I think I would say. They had a small but delicious choice of dinner options. The place was small and quiet and we really enjoyed just being out having fun together and being able to relax. Then Mark took me out to the church office because he has a surprise for me :) Since we dont have a fireplace in our apartment I had been complaining about not having anywhere to put our stockings. So Mark being the innovator that he is set out to surprise me with a fireplace. He had been making me a wooden fireplace at the office. It was painted with a mantel and everything! Of course we cant make a fire in it but none-the-less I was excited. So after finishing together some last finishing touches on our fireplace we set out to Beaners to get Snowmint Mochas, my new favorite. We ran into Ben there and hung out with him for a while and then we decided to go to Barnes and Noble. We love hanging out at book stores and we still had about an hour before we would need to get to bed for our early morning shift at Beaners. So we read in big comfy chairs at the book store and then headed to our cozy home for bed. It was truly a great evening. We love our date nights together. Its our one time to be together just for the purpose of being with each other and enjoying life. We have each others undivided attention and get to enjoy or new marriage. We may be together a lot during the week but it is in between jobs, emails and dirty laundry and so we really look forward to our weekly date night!

So I'm excited about tonight. We both love Christmas and although it may be about a week early at least we will get to begin to enjoy our first Christmas together :) Hopefully it will snow soon. Im excited for it.

Good TImes

Hi friends. It has been a while since we have gotten a chance to update, mainly because the last two weeks have been far from normal. Last week I was sick with a really bad cold. It was just bad enough to keep me in bed for a few days, miss work and become incredibly stir crazy. I missed our Halloween outreach which was a really big bummer but I did get to spend the time watching hours of movies:) The outreach went very well though and it was great to see Journey out serving our community. Church went really well last Sunday. It was a great day all around. We had lots of new faces and no technical difficulties :) Monday morning though was quite the adventure for Mark and I. I got up at 4:45 AM (yes I know its early) and was rushing around as usual to go to my lovely job as a Barista. I have been having lower back pain for a while and in the past it has been an occasional problem. Monday morning I felt a little bit tense which as been fairly normal since I began working on my feet 40 hours a week and my back hurt maybe just a little bit more than normal but none the less I was moving. I was just about ready to go when I bent over to pick up my purse. I gasped and actually lost my breath for a minute because I suddenly was in horrible pain and I could not move myself from the position I had fallen into (kneeling against my bed). Praise God that Mark was in bed sleeping and after saying his name with as much might as I could he awoke and flew out of bed to save his wife. We manage to get me into my bed laying flat and wondered what to do . Mark called my boss for me ( who is also his boss ) and thankfully we have an amazing manager who said "Dont worry about work, just take care of your wife." So anyways long story short we made a trip to ER on Monday and I spent the rest of the day hardly moving. Tuesday we got into the doctor and got me set up for physical therapy. I got new shoes and was back at work on wednesday :) Im feeling much better and I am thankful for health insurance and to start therapy to take care of this problem. I also am very thankful for my amazing husband who made it his priority to be my side this week and take care of me. I think Im the luckiest girl alive.

Long week, it was indeed but here we are in our comfy home with our good friend Ben enjoying another Saturday night preparing for another day in the life of Journey. I really do love it here. I miss home every now and then but every day this becomes more my home and lansing becomes more of my childhood and past. I love you all. Especially you Mom:) tee hee.

November?

November? Where did you come from? I cant beleive it. Im only three months away from being 21 and then maybe I wont feel quite so young. I feel rather sick today, in fact I have for the past three days. I did though apply to Cornerstone...its probably not even where I want to go but it was a step in the right direction. We will see...

Its friday and that makes me happy except that we work on Saturday...booo.

K thats all for now.