Work, Work, Work!!

As soon as the magazines arrived, we (and many other super volunteers) were all thrown into a whirl of true hard work!

Since I had missed being here for a new magazine last year, I was just amazed at how much was involved in getting these things ready for mailing! The jobs that needed doing included: counting, stuffing, sealing, hefting, organizing, and counting again. :) It all involved a good three full days of non-stop work, and we'll work on African mailings starting this Monday! But anyway, everyone did an amazing job, and though some of us tended to get short with one another in the heat of stress, at the end of the day there was always a great sense of accomplishment and relief!

Now all the USA mailings have been sent out, and I hope and pray that they will bless encourage thousands of women in the Lord. The night that they arrived (on Tuesday) we had a wonderful prayer meeting, and everyone prayed over the magazines. Trusting that GOD will use them in a mighty way!

New Magazines Arrive

Yay!

Last Tuesday, the new magazines arrived! Whoo hoo, we were all so excited about it. A huge truck rolled into the driveway bearing the big boxes of magazines. We all helped to unload them into the shed and the basement. Mountains of them!

Couldn't stand around to admire them too long though. There was lots of work ahead!

Saturdays

Hi! Saturdays are just the greatest around here. After a long busy week, we girls like to sleep in, catch up on emailing and writing letters to the family, take walks, and maybe head to town for a McDonalds iced coffee!

Today our trip into town was for coffee creamer! We headed to Lyle's Grocery Store in Em's truck, stalled in an intersection, parked very crooked, and ran in for our coffee creamer! Yay! We came out with Cheeze-its, instant coffee, and laundry detergent!

Praise the Lord for Saturdays!

WINTER JAM 2010!!!

Sunday evening we all hopped in a van to head down to Nashville and attend Winter Jam 2010! Mr. and Mrs. Campbell went, we Rubies Girls and Mercy, some of the Johnson children, Barrett and Allison children, as well as the Gilmore family!

Taking two vans down we made it there just after 4 p.m. and the concert was to start at six. Crowds of thousands of people lined up on the sidewalks were waiting to get in...but here is the special blessing our group got: The Campbell's son Steve got us all tickets to get in a special door! We were some of the first people in and we got to sit right up close to the stage! Wow! "Thank you!!"

The people who were smart enough to think of bringing earplugs definitely made good use of them. The concert was fun, but blaring-loud. We saw Newsboys, Newsong, Third Day, 10th Avenue North and others. Some songs were good, others not so fabulous. But what a neat evening to be in a crowd of over 10,000 people!

We left early to beat the crowds. Outside it was pouring rain! On the way home we stopped at a Wendy's to fill our hungry selves up, and then Mr. Gilmore dropped us off at our homes and we hurried to bed, for the hour was late.

Here are some pictures of our night of fun! Hope you enjoy them!

~Annie =]

Above Rubies, Hot off the Press

Mercy and Annie, ready to go!

Chloe and Emilee--very excited!

so much stuff going on!

Hmm, whats he doing?

Getting the grand tour!

Mercy and Annie, very excited

Magazines being put together!

Magazines!

This guy who showed us around was great!

Very interesting!

Mrs. Campbell and Twyla, the sweet lady she works with

fun stuffReading intently....can you spy Mrs. C?

Last week on Thursday, we girls and Mercy got to go along with Mrs. Campbell to see the new issue of Above Rubies coming off the press!

We'd never seen anything like it, but it was so amazing. The whole place was just a buzz of big noisy machinery, all doing different jobs that had to do with printing. A really nice guy gave us a tour of everything, explaining how everything worked, and answering any questions we had. It was just totally awesome to see how 'Above Rubies' is made!

Hopefully the photos will give you a taste of how everything was!

Oh, we stopped in Franklin on the way home and had fun looking at wedding books in B and N with Emilee. (her sister's getting married.) Fun times!

-Chloe

The arrival of Annie and Chloe

Hi Everyone!
Annie and I have arrived here in the rolling hills of Tennessee. I'm thrilled to be back helping with this wonderful ministry, and Annie is loving the experience so far as well!
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us, and also for all your prayers for our safe trip. It all went wonderfully smooth, (except for some unfortunate plane sickness!) and we are glad to finally be here!
We started work on Tuesday morning, and so far everything has been going well. I'm finding all the work in the office a bit challenging, but a lot is very familiar from last year! Pray for next week--the new magazine is arriving on Tuesday, and the office is going to be SUPER busy!! Pray that we all can work efficiently and that everything with sending it out will go beautifully.
Emilee who is here with us has been awesome!! So patient with showing us how to do stuff in the office, and also a total blast to hang out with. :D We are so glad that she's going to be here at least a little longer. (she's been here for over four months!)She is VERY experienced. :)
So our first days here have been good, and we are enjoying the restfulness of the weekend! We'll have to be ready to roll up our sleeves again on Monday.
Love to you all, and thanks again so much for your prayers!!
-Chloe

Come Again!

Hi this is Annie Zielinski! Just wanted to drop a post and let everybody know that we will be trying to post more often, including "getting to know you's" of the current Rubies Girls. We have some fabulous pictures from the Lithographics factory of the Above Rubies magazine being printed! Coming off the machines! Just amazing and we really want to show them to ya'll, we just need to load some pictures on the computers. =]
So come back soon, and we will hopefully have photos for you! =]
God bless you all!

~Annie