Life in the Big Potato

The new background image is actually one Jana and I took last February on our first ski outing. I post this in celebration of the six or eight inches of snow I've shoveled out of my driveway already this year.

I really recommend this movie. It is a glimmer of hope for the Christian Film world. I took out the movie preview because it was slowing down my webpage. You can view it at noellethemovie.com

For the past year and a half, Jana's and my income has largely come from the support of people outside of our ministry. This comes from a variety of sources. A tiny portion of what every Southern Baptist gives to the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong Offering makes it (hopefully!) to us through the North American Mission Board via the Utah/Idaho State convention. We are partially funded by two partner churches. NorthStar Church, where we work, also contributes to our monthly support. The rest of my salary comes from several individuals--friends and family who feel called to be a part of our ministry and what God is doing in North Idaho. It is interesting. I am working at NorthStar. I am paid by Globe Outreach. My income comes from a plurality of organizations and individuals. It is actually kinda confusing. Or it would be. If I were not in the service of a King whose kingdom extends over all of these different entities. Our support is not guaranteed. None of our s...

Yes we have snow. 5-6 inches of it. I have already shoveled the driveway twice now. It's not very fun but a good morning workout. I may get to go snowboarding this weekend.

For as long as I can remember, I have spent Thanksgiving with my dad, his brothers, my cousins, and my aunts. We always eat a large turkey dinner, take a 30 minute food-settling break, and then hit the football field for the annual Fenton Family Football Game. Everyone plays! This year things were different. Bennett and I decided going home for Christmas and Thanksgiving was a little too much last year. We decided to stay in Idaho for the big Turkey Day. After Dad found out we would be here alone, he quickly hopped on his plane (with my sister and bro-in-law) so we wouldn't celebrate without family. We had a great weekend full for Heavenly Ham (from Hattiesburg), turkey, broccoli and cheese casserole, pecan pie, and football. Oh writing about it is making me feel full again and reminds me to thank all of those wonderful women who have cooked for me on Thanksgiving Day for the last 27 years! It is not an easy task. Friday night we watched the Holiday Fireworks show over Lake Coeur d...

---A message from the pastor of NorthStar Church. "NORTHSTAR NEXT... In April of 2003, God stirred our hearts regarding our place in ministry. That stirring led to a clear call from the Lord to relocate our family to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to plant NorthStar Church. Under God’s gracious hand, and with the help of the North American Mission Board and faithful partners just like you, NorthStar stands today as a vibrant community of faith! Strong leaders are in place, a growing ministry of small groups exists, building plans are coming into clear focus. Over the past four and a half years, NorthStar has experienced miracle after miracle as God has expanded His Kingdom through this young congregation. Lives have been changed, eternity impacted, and many new believers are becoming devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Now, The Hanberrys are embarking on another chapter in our lives and ministry. I have accepted a call to become the Associate Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Olive...

I got the call this morning. My sister had her baby around 3am Central time. David Brand Garner 6 pounds 7 ounces. 19 inches. Mom and baby are doing well.

Check out more of our Fall pictures

Please follow this link to hear the latest about my sister. She is having a baby. Maybe today maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Also, please be praying for our church. There are many many needs going on. We have members facing serious illness, huge decisions, calls to missions, recovery from a broken leg, family troubles, financial difficulty and many other things that I'm sure I don't even know about. Those are different needs from different people by the way. Not just one person. So, I guess it could be worse. Anyway, I probably am not going to fly home for my sister's delivery. Which means by the time I get home the child will already be a month old! We were planning on getting there a day before the delivery. The good thing is the doctors think that the danger is mostly over and she's made it past the 34 week mark. That means that little David or Maggie is basically ready to come out of the oven even if it is several weeks early. That also means that I mi...

Let me tell you how you can certainly be a part of something special this Christmas. There is a need in our convention that I think everyone reading this would love to see met. The Utah/Idaho convention passed a resolution to raise money to provide one of our missionary families a new home. All it will take is about $35,000! Here is an article with more information: ______________________________________________________________ Carpentry for Christ - Hardens Serve the Lord by Serving His Churches By Michael Liner, associate pastor Salmon Valley Baptist Church , Salmon, Idaho “I had to get a map out to find Idaho !” remarks Nathan Harden regarding his first mission trip to the west. Harden’s initial mission trip to Idaho in 1999 was not to be his last. It proved to be just the beginning of his call to serve the Lord as a faith missionary by utilizing his construction skills to bless the Lord’s churches all over the intermountain west. ...

My high school mascot was the Hilltopper. The mascot pictures looked more or less like the big horn sheep pictured above. We saw these last April on our way to Chalis, Idaho. I don't think they have these in Mississippi

I have found the blog of a friend (the kind of friend that you've only had a few conversations with, but know that if you ever really got to hang out that you could still be friends) who is also a pastor of a church in Idaho. His blog has an interesting mix of reaction to culture, interesting trends, spiritual insight, and contemplations of the human experience. It is called Bridge Bloggin' Check it out.

So here's some great news. At a meeting with the zoning commission our church got approved for a special use permit. That means we get to build a church in a R-1 zone. There were actually some neighbors who complained about the placement of the building so we are repositioning it. I think they may wish it had been left the other way but whatever. What all that means is, the city government has given the nod for us to move ahead with the basic plans we have submitted. I'm not sure what the next step is other than raise about $500,000 more dollars! Please be praying that each move our church decides to make is strictly according to God's plan. Also, please be praying for a group of high school students I've started meeting with. One of our students has orchestrated a group of teens that are interested in learning all about the Bible, but might not be comfortable going to a "church group". Pray that there will be continued interest and that our conversat...

here are some pics for your enjoyment. the pot at the end of the rainbow dad and teresa came to visit us in sept. we made a new flower bed in the back yard. a friend in our life group gave me irises to plant. see you at the pole- charter academy the corn maze at carver farms women's conference in spokane WA picking out the best pumkin as you can see- we've been enjoying ourselves. please pray for us as we go this weekend to a marriage conference at the CDA resort. campus crusade puts it on, and pastors and wives get to go free.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-26-idaho_n.htm USA Today says that Idaho is where it's at.

I got around to cleaning the house a few weeks ago and took some pictures. I want to paint some this winter. Any color suggestions?

I was looking back through the months of this blog and realized I've seen a bunch of amazing stuff in the year that I've lived here. If you haven't in a while take some time to look back through the blog to see what God has done and the sights we've seen! (point at the bottom left to auto-play the slideshow)

God Invites! Message Notes Text: Ephesians 2:1-10 Key Verse: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great Love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” Review the Truths so Far God is at Work. God Pursues. God Invites! The Ephesians 2 Story The Setting : Verse 1. We were dead. Human kind without Christ is dead. Without hope. Without the ability to change their own situation. The dead cannot talk to or hear from the living because they are dead. Death Row Illustration. The Hero: Verse 4 "But God..." Enter the hero. He is rich in mercy, He has great love for us, even though we are dead in our sin against him. Stop and think about God. Paul mentions mercy and love, but have you considered. Immutable Characteristics: Things that we cannot really conceive about God. He is Independent. He is not "served by human hands, as though he needed anything" Acts 17:25, Paul He is Unchang...

The Unite conference went well. We took 7 students and 4 adults. I don't know how many were there total; I heard the number 800 tossed around, but this is unofficial. I taught two breakout sessions on missions. The first one was open only to High School Students and the room was packed with about 45 or more students. The second one was open to all and I had about 7 7th graders. ?? The adult breakouts included talks from Bo Boshers and Laurie Polich. Both are nationally renowned authors and speakers. Jana will have to testify on the merits of their sessions. I was gratified by the fact that the final message given by Mark Moder at the conclusion of the conference sounded like he was preaching the material from my class. In other words we were on the same page and God definitely had a specific message to share with these students. I should also mention that we went to Silverwood Theme Park and people made fun of me for being dressed too warmly, but I felt quite comfy in th...

This weekend we are taking our students to the Unite conference. Pray that they and our adult leaders will hear from God. I am leading a couple of the breakout sessions at the Unite conference. I'm teaching on Missions and how teenagers can be involved. Sunday I am preaching. My sermon will be the third in a series we are doing on 7 Truths from Experiencing God. Our pastor is starting the second half of his mission trip in Nepal. He is trekking in difficult terrain witnessing to villagers and Buddhist monks and encouraging believers along the way. They have begun site preparation on our church property!

I just received a phone call from one of my friends here. She told me that her neighbor just prayed to receive Christ. Here's the story... Sunday after hearing an incredible message on how God is at work, she went home, was getting ready to fix lunch for the family, when God said go visit your neighbor. She did, and God was already at work there. Today as she went to visit her again and take her a Bible God was still working as she surrendered her life to Him. Please be in prayer for Joanne, a new believer. Pray that God would reveal His love to her. Pray that we all would be this sensitive to God's leadership in our lives. He is at work all of the time.

In two weeks teenagers all around the world will gather at their schools for a time of prayer for their generation. On Wednesday the 26th of September I hope you will be praying with them. On that day I hope you are praying for the students in your community who face a world full of confusion and chances to make bad decisions. This week, why don't you take some time to pray for the students in my neck of the woods? Teenagers in North Idaho seem to face drugs, depression, crime, abuse, and violence to a much larger degree than our lightly populated and idealic setting warrants. Could be the lack of good professional jobs, could be the drug traffic through Canada, could be the cold dark winters, the lack of strong extended-family bonds, the deficits in education, the angry native-american spirits inhabiting our land. Could be those things. Of course, it could be a lack of hope through Jesus the Christ. What else could it be?

Please pray that our youth group would become strong. Specifically pray that some of them would begin to see themselves as leaders and servants. And that God would give them a passion for the Word that goes beyond explanation. Please pray for our Life Groups. Specifically that our leaders would really "get it" and be able to pass on the vision of NorthStar to their group members. Also pray for our Life Groups as we embark on a 40 day experience focusing on 7 truths from the Bible study Experiencing God . That starts September 23. Please pray for our association. There are some churches that have shown interest in joining our Baptist Association. Pray that all parties exhibit Godly wisdom as this process continues. Please pray for our pastor as he makes final preparations for a trip to Nepal. Pray that he can raise the needed funds, and that he can get all the details worked out that need to happen while he's gone. His trip is Sep. 23-Oct. 7. Plea...

Toward the end of the video you hear me shout with pain and the camera points down a little. Something hit me in the chest. It felt about the size and weight of a quarter or a piece of ice. I don't know what it was. This show lasted like 45 minutes and it was almost all good. There were a few lulls when they were doing stuff on the ground. They showed the history of logging through flaming outlines of tug boats and lumber jacks. *edit. If it plays the audio twice in your browser, I don't know why it's doing that. Actual video ends at about 40 seconds or so.

This past weekend we were invited by a church family to go camping with them. For them this is an annual Labor Day weekend tradition. They go down to St. Mary's camp for a few days and watch the Paul Bunyan Days fireworks show. We had a wonderful time. The campground we stayed at is right on the St. Joseph river and it was beautiful. We stayed in a tent and spent our days talking, eating, fishing, swimming or just relaxing. St. Mary's is a town of about 2,500 people. So you may not believe me when I say that it was the best fireworks I have ever seen, but believe me, it was! I don't know how to describe fireworks, but there were tens of thousands of people watching with me so just ask them. Sunday we heard about prayer, specifically as it relates to ministers. It was really great. As a result, I really would like to work on our prayer support raising. I know we have many people praying for us, but we are not as connected to them as directly as we should be. In ot...

The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades. From the introduction of Working the Angles written by Eugene Peterson.

We survived our trip to Canada, but not without a few stitches. I mean that literally. I can't go into too much detail about the trip for security reasons--not our security, the security of some of the people we worked with. I can tell you that we were providing programing for kids and youth at a conference for adult believers. These are a special group of believers who have come to Christ out of difficult circumstances, and whose community will not easily accept their decision. As always with a trip like this, there are way more details than you'd like to know about. I'll share a few. We took six people. We rode in my truck which holds EXACTLY six people. It took us 8 hours to get there. When we passed through the border the guard didn't even ask for ID. PTL! The adults had three two-hour sessions (they usually lasted fifteen or thirty minutes longer than scheduled) during which we kept the kids. This made for extremely long days for us. As usual there were...

On our way home from MS, we had a layover in Minnesota. Before boarding the plane the attendants asked if we would board as quickly as possible so we could beat the president out of the airport. Well we didn't make it fast enough so we had a 40 minute delay after boarding the plane. BUT we were able to see AirForce One take off and be less than a mile away from the President of the United States. I took this picture from the airplane.

That's how many more people we need to go with us to Canada for a mission trip we are doing. Just pray that God will work out the circumstances, finances, and human hearts that need to change. That's also how many days we have until our baptism service. We just got word the our guest speaker probably won't be able to make it. But God is good. Pray that this will be a great time for our church to grow closer and stronger as we watch believers publicly portray their identity with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That just also happens to be the number of families that make up the staff of NorthStar AND the number of families that met last week at Globe Outreach's first annual staff retreat. Please pray for our relationships on these teams as we seek to serve God in community.

We are having a guest speaker this Sunday. Scott Rigsby who was here in June attempting the Ironman Coeur d'Alene is a double amputee. We are also having a cookout and a baptism at the lake. This week we are doing VBS so keep praying for us. I think that last night we had about four kids make a decision for Christ. Pray that their parents will understand since most of those do not attend our church.

Back in June they had this thing called Car d' Alene, where a bunch of classic cars drove up and down the streets. It was way cool. I thought I'd share some with you. Feel free to identify all of the cars if you have the skills...

6 hours + 6 passengers + 1 white truck = Road Trip Idaho Summer Storms Living Waters Ranch 4th of July Parade Break-time at the worksite Roofing 101 "welcome home bush family, welcome home"