If it seems too good to be true...

It probably is...  The house I posted about yesterday is indeed amazing.  After more researching we found out its is a $500,000 house in one of the most desired neighborhoods in Greensboro.  Great!  And that it is HUGE!  Great!  So whats not to love?

The person who posted this house responded to our email this morning.  He said he had to move his family to Africa and needed someone to take care of his house as their own.  He said he needed an honest person to trust and that he was a man of his word.  He closed the email with this. "We are giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words, you know that we do not see yet and only putting every thing into Gods hand, so please do not let us down in this our property and God bless you more as you do this."  Broken English...yes.   Scam....yep!  He has used a Greensboro realtor's name to create an email address in order to scam people into them sending their deposit for these homes.  And...on top of it all he is using the Lords name (in response to our email about being in ministry) to aid his scam! 

We have contacted the realtor and are hoping that he finds this guy and gets some justice.  Thank you for praying!  Please continue to do so as we search for the next place we will do ministry and life!

If you are reading this today....

Please Pray!!!  

Our search for homes has been a little more difficult than we anticipated.  A few weeks ago we took a trip to Greensboro to look at a few houses.  We found one we loved and made an offer to rent it.  We found out a few days later that they gave it to someone else...who was ready to move in ASAP.  

This morning Clint was randomly looking on Craigslist and found the MOST perfect home!  It's a little on the pricey side for what we would like to invest in rent, but otherwise....WOW!!

We have emailed the owner and are now waiting!  Please pray that the Lord would allow the owner to have favor on us and lower the price of rent and allow us to live in this great location!!

Thank you!!

Mini Me

If you ask many people that know us, they would say that Eden gets her fun, silly personality from Clint.  It is no secret that he has a TON of personality, and I am known to be the reserved listener.  However, as Eden's first year has progressed, and she has learned more and more things...it is apparent that I have indeed reproduced myself.

It all started when I figured out that Eden liked to play hide and seek.  I would run into another room and she would come find me, then turn around and crawl faster than I ever imagined possible, and scream.  I was so confused by this for weeks.  One day I decided to show Clint our new game...and told him I wasn't sure why she screamed when I chased her.  He watched, and laughed, and then informed me it was because when I ran from her I screamed.  Great thing to teach her!  I have since taken this shadowing to a whole new level.  I have successfully taught my child how to do a heel stretch, a toe-touch, and the sign for Touchdown.  These are 12 month old versions, of course, but quite impressive ones if I do say so myself! 

I secretly love this.  I love that she wants to be like me.  It feels amazing to have someone look up to you and want to mimic your every move.  I learned in college, as I started walking with God, that I needed to be an example ALL of the time.  I hated it at first, I felt like I could never not care what people thought of me.  But eventually I learned that I was representing Christ, not Rachel, ALWAYS.  When I walked to class, led Bible studies, ate dinner, watched movies, went to basketball games, I had to be a light to darkness.  I never thought people were looking at my life.  I found out as years passed that women all around me were indeed watching my every move.  I pray that I represented Christ well to everyone who was watching! 

I am thankful I learned that lesson in college!  I am living it out in a very real way now!  As Eden grows by the day, it is becoming more and more obvious that Clint and I are her examples of what to be.  I pray we would not only reproduce our love of football, cheerleading, eachother and family.  But that we would ooze the love of Christ and that she would see that all the days of our lives.  The pressure is on!  As my little mini me grows up and learns more it intensifies my need for Christ for multiple reasons.  I can not love if I am not first loved by Him (1 John 4:19).  I can not have patience to discipline and correct her if I am not meeting with God.  The fruits of the Spirit are a necessity more than ever in my life.  I can not teach her about the Lord if I do not know His character.  My knowledge and love of the Word needs to grow!

I can rest in that the Lord gives more grace (James 4:6), and to know that he will graciously give me what I need when I need it.  We have the opportunity to teach her the goodness, loving-kindness, sovereignty and hope of the Lord before her mind is filled with any other lies!  What a gift!!  I pray that we would take hold of the command to teach her diligently the words of truth!  Lord fill our hearts with your love, that we might gracefully teach her your ways!

A Season of Change...

If you haven't heard yet....
Were Moving! Yep, that's right...moving. Through a sequence of events in our ministry, the Lord has led us to a new city. Our friends Dave and Carrie Russell have been praying about launching a region in Washington DC for years now. As of this summer, the prayers began to take shape! In May, Dave, Carrie, and their 3 little ones will be moving to Washington DC to begin building laborers in our nations capital!

So...what does this have to do with us? Well, we will be taking Dave and Carrie's place as the area directors over Elon University, UNC-Greensboro, and Wingate! Though our excitement to move to the Triad region (Greensboro!) is great...we are beginning to feel the loss of many things the Lord has uniquely blessed us with in this season. We love living in Wingate. Our days are spent walking around campus mingling with students and often, having them over to our house (which is in walking distance). Clint is the chaplain of the Wingate football team, I am helping coach the cheerleaders for the 3rd year. Many of our students have become family to us. This is where we started our life together as a married couple. Our first home is here, our first baby was born here. Memories in this sleepy little town abound for us. We will deeply miss this place. This will be a season that we will look back on our whole lives. I am sure of this.

To ease our pain...there are a few things we WILL NOT miss about Wingate....

1) The Chicken Plant- There are days where the stench of the Tyson plant (which is actually in MONROE) is unbearable. In pregnancy, you have a heightened sense of smell. The summer heat coupled with this reality kept me inside, not even daring to check the mail some days in the summer of 08! This smell is not constant (praise the Lord), or predictable. There are just some days were exercise outside isn't an option if you'd like to not throw up.

2) Highway 74- If you live in Wingate, you are giving me AMEN's. There is one way in and out of Wingate. Highway 74. We hate 74. Though we are thankful to have a road to get in and out of here...we wish there was at least one detour to take. But there isn't. There is always traffic on 74. There is the morning commute traffic, lunch rush traffic, 3-6 o'clock traffic.... If you want to miss the traffic, you must travel at 3 am. We've done it. We will NOT miss 74.

3) Random power outages- A few weeks ago, we had a play-date with our friends Kelly and Luke. For such an occasion, I splurged and bought pork ribs to cook in our crockpot. At 3:30, I put them in to simmer for hours...at 4:00, the power went out. It stayed out until 9:30 that night. The ribs were ruined and so we walked to McDonalds...where the power was also out. This is not unusual. Within the past week we have had more than 10 outages! Most of them in the same day. It is a mystery why this happens. But we certainly will not miss it.

4) Water Quality- On more than one occasion, people have defined our water's smell as "like dirt". Nice. This is especially true after it rains. We get an annual water quality report which, in a nice way, states that our water is not entirely safe to drink. We have a water filter and apologize to guests that have to brush their teeth with water that smells like mud.

5) Fire Ants- Union County is known to have especially bad fire ants. When they bite, they HURT, a lot! We have found them in Eden's bed this week...and it makes me want to set fire to every ant hill I see. We have to be very careful when we play in the yard...only on blankets. They frequently take over the entire town...and get worse when it rains. We will NOT miss them.

Though these few things drive us crazy from time to time, we will still deeply miss the people, the campus and the memories we have made here! We love you dear, tiny, sleepy little Wingate!

Every good and perfect gift!

"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"
Matthew 7:11

The good gifts of the heavenly Father are more numerable than we could ever imagine. Just yesterday I was taking Eden and Rudy for a walk and was struck with how good He is to give us beautiful weather. The Fall could have easily ruined weather totally for us. But in the Lord's grace He chose to give us perfect autumn days where we can sit on a blanket in the grass perfectly comfortable for hours.

Our lives have been a testimony to the many gifts He gives. There are so many stories we could tell you about how the Lord provided in some amazing ways and gave us unexpected, over the top gifts. Our entire honeymoon was paid for, mostly by people we had never met. Just before we were married we desperately needed a car. Mine had just died for good and Clint's Honda with 250,000 miles was less than reliable! Two months before the wedding, another person we had never met gave us a CAR! An Audi at that! When we began praying that the Lord would allow us to start a family, we also began praying for a home. We had nowhere close to the finances needed to purchase one. A few months later the Lord blessed us with a very unexpected generous gift from again, people we had never met, that allowed us to put a down payment on a house! "...how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" Amen.

And so the Lord, again, adds another chapter to His gracious gift-giving. Last night I went to Clint's flag football game. Almost as soon as I arrived at the field my phone rang. It was 8pm and a number that I didn't recognize popped up on my screen. Usually, I don't answer calls from numbers that aren't programmed in, but for whatever reason...I answered. Rhonda was the very polite, excited voice on the other end of the line. "May I speak with Rachel?". I was right, I didn't know the number. Rhonda works for Lifeway Christian Magazines. She proceeded to inform me that in August I signed up for a vacation sweepstakes from their ParentLife magazine. This is the first time I have ever attempted this. And on a whim, in August I thought, "what the heck...never know...the Lord always does things like this for us!" Lo and behold...WE WON!! At this point I am giddy and somewhat confused. I remembered signing up for it, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember where the vacation was! And then the best part...."The vacation you won is to Captiva Island, Florida."



This place is BEAUTIFUL. Now I remembered why I signed up...the picture and description of the South Seas Resort was AMAZING! And we won! The best part of this whole thing is that in about a month, on November 4th, Clint and I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary! What a better way to do it than on the gulf coast, where we celebrated our honeymoon!

We are overwhelmed by this timely, gracious, exciting gift. Another reminder of the goodness, loving kindness, and grace of our Lord. He is truly the perfect Daddy!

Almost a Month!

I know we promised reconnected Internet meant more frequent blogs. And then..life happened. Teething happened, 2 week fevers (Clint) happened, ligament damage (also, Clint) happened, drunk driving...happened.

Two weeks ago we received a call from my (Rachel) mom at midnight. As soon as the phone rang dread ran through both of us. No call at this hour is a good one. Mom proceeded to tell us that Calvin, my step-dad had been in a car accident. Dread turned to disbelief. I wanted to hope for the best but as details came...hope faded. The hospital had called...he had been hit on Highway 321, TWO HOURS before. They had to cut him out of the car. "We may have to transport him to CMC." The last detail made my heart sink. Unfortunately, we have had many calls like this. Any ending in "transport to CMC" has ended in death. My stomach turned, and Clint sat on the bed suddenly awake and terrified of the look on my face. And then...we waited. For 35 minutes we waited on another call. We sat and prayed and waited. Thoughts stormed my mind. The day before, Calvin had taken Eden on her first merry-go-round ride. We were not ready for this. I took a shower while we talked about what to do with Eden. Clint called his parents and set up a worst case scenario drive to Wingate from Shelby. Finally, the phone rang again. Calvin was alive, conscious and talking to the nurses. He had been hit, nearly head-on by a drunk driver. Suddenly, pain and disbelief were joined with anger in my heart. This was not an accident. Someone chose to get behind the wheel of a car very very impaired. The car jumped a 3-4 inch median, Calvin swerved at the last minute, literally saving his life. He made it out with seven broken ribs and a broken shoulder blade. A few inches different and he would have lost his life.

We have lived these last few weeks torn. Anger and grief pulled one way, hope and deep thankfulness the other. Calvin is going to be fine. His recovery will be slow and painful, but he will recover. The Lord's grace to us, my mom and sister, and many others is overwhelming. The Lord spared Calvin his life! This is the essence of grace. The Lord chose to grant Calvin life. Once, and now again. We, Calvin and the drunk driver who hit him do not deserve grace like that. But that is how God works. We deserve hell and he gives us abundant, overwhelming new life. Now, and in eternity. May this grace lead us to a deep thankfulness and worship of the Creator and giver of life. Please Lord, don't let us waste our lives!

Daddy's little Dolfan!

It is currently 66 degrees in Wingate, NC....this is unheard of on September first. Living in the Piedmont region of North Carolina you just miss the beautiful mountains to the west, and sandy beaches to the east, and are left with mostly heat and fire ants. So, with this very early visit from fall comes a Darst celebration.

We LOVE fall. We anticipate in all other seasons the start of this glorious and most beautiful time of year. We talk about it, a lot. For us, life is just better in the fall. There are many reasons for this preoccupation with autumn. Primarily, we (yes WE) loooove football. Clint has lived and breathed football since day one. He used to tell his dad that "yourami" was playing on TV when then Miami Dolphins were on. Rachel grew up in Belle, WV...where the only thing to do on friday night was go to a high school football game. It is ingrained in us...fall means football. And we LOVE football!

Another, more legitimate reason is that we met, and fell in love, in the fall. Appropriately, on a football field. It was August of 2001...picture day for the football team and cheerleaders at East Lincoln High School. And we certainly noticed each other. One year later we started dating...in August and proceeded to fall in love over the next few months. Thus, we love the fall. In addition, the two most wonderful gifts God has given us have been in November. On November 4th 2006, the Lord gave us each other, in marriage, on a chilly, vibrant fall day. Two years later, He gave us our sweet Eden.

Fall also means an end to the blistering Southern North Carolina heat. And with that, the need to wear Rachel's favorite article of clothing...the hoodie. And lastly, fall brings a new semester and start to a new school year at Wingate. This is the most exciting time of year for us in college ministry. The campus is bustling as freshmen get acquainted with classes and new friends. And with much planning and prayer we set out to glorify God by building new laborers on the campus. There is nothing like the first 6 weeks of the school year.

This weekend kicks off college football season, flag football season, Wingate's first weekly meeting, and the end to preseason NFL football. This, is a good week. So with this week...we celebrate. Pumpkin spice Wallflowers are installed, soup is being made, and decorations are being dusted off and hung up. Praise the Lord for this season. May it be one unforgettable fall!