Life in the Big Potato

This weekend we attended Open Arm's Annual Dessert. There were a couple of hundred people there, and it was a great night! We invited friends that were interested in the ministry and heard Ryan Dobson speak (James Dobson's son). The dessert is always such an emotional experience for me. We have clients speak about the impact Open Arms has had on their lives, and I am always so humbled that God would allow me to be a part of this life saving ministry. Ryan spoke about his own experience of being adopted by the Dobsons, and at the end of his talk he thanked his birth mom (who was 16 at the time) for the sacrifice she made choosing life for him and giving him a better family than she could have provided at that time. We're still in the midst of the Experiencing God study at our church . If you've been a part of that, you can probably remember the first reality that "God is always at work around us." The study encourages you to find out where God is working and t...

It seems like August and September have flown by for us at the Sanderson home. In August my sweet friend Sheri came up for her second visit to Idaho. We had a BLAST! She is so much fun, and I miss her lots. In September L and I took a trip to the Florida for my sister's wedding. The weather was amazing, and L was a great traveling buddy. Lately we've been preparing at NorthStar for our big youth event this Saturday. Fall was supposed to meet us yesterday, but it has decided to let summer stay for a while longer. That's ok with us, but we're looking forward to some trips to the apple orchards and watching the leaves change. My pregnancy has been bliss so far, and most of the time I forget I am pregnant until friends ask me how I am feeling. However, in pregnancy news two good friends of mine just had little boys, my other friends are on a flight home tomorrow with their little boy they just adopted overseas, and another friend at church is due any day now (with you guess...

With our new pastor, Gary Brown, my responsibilities have changed at NorthStar. Now my main focus will be our small group ministry we call Life Groups. Original, I know. This Fall all of our groups will be going through the Experiencing God study. If you've been in church for a while you've probably heard of this study written by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. We had our fall kick-off meeting last Sunday. There were about 40 people there. We ordered 60 books and only have 9 left. I'm really excited to see what God will do in our people over the next 13 weeks as they are challenged to change the way they look at serving God. We have a couple of new Life Group leaders and several new people getting involved. In fact there were several first time visitors that showed up for the kick-off meeting; so many that we started a new group on the spot! My hope is that these Life Groups with become more than just a Bible-study or fellowship group. My prayer is that they will ...

We watched Faith Like Potatoes about a week ago. Perhaps you haven't heard of it. It came out 3 years ago. It's based on a true story about a Scottish farmer living in Africa who comes to faith in Christ and eventually leads a major prayer movement in South Africa. Before I watched the movie I had pretty low expectations, I'm sorry to say. Christian movies have been improving over the last few years, but the best reaction I've had to a faith-based film have usually been included the phrase "...for a Christian movie." Exceptions have included and The Passion and The Nativity . But usually, it seems like movies about faith either have a preachy, yet watered-down message or they are just down right cheesy. Faith Like Potatoes was a pleasant surprise. It is a movie that honestly talks about real-life faith in a way that is actually believable. The acting was high caliber for the most part; of course, I might have been fooled by the accents. They we...

she likes the sand- but not so sure about those waves the sand kinda tastes good a little lemon for dinner "i think i'm in heaven"