End of the Year activities

We are winding down the school year so we are busy with graduation open houses (we went to Mikki Smith's open house), choir concerts, district track meets and awards ceremonies. We also were privileged to have Dawn and Thomas Constantini visit from France. Dawn is Nathan Kummer's sister, and Mike has had the chance to visit them a couple of times while he's been in Europe. Nathan and April attend Flatirons in Boulder. Dawn and Nathan's parents are at Fellowship Bible Church in Denver where Nathan's Dad has pastored for many years. The whole family came up for a cookout on Friday night; that was fun. Also, our Pastor's Book Discussion Club met again this past Monday to read and discuss Ravi Zacharias's book Jesus Among Other Gods. We got a lot of discussion in although we wandered far from the content of the book. We are saying good-bye to Bernie Augsburger, the pastor at Calvary Community Baptist Church in Northglenn. Bernie has served there for over three decades and recently announced his resignation to take over the state rep position for the state associations of the Illinois and Missouri Regular Baptist Churches. We will miss his presence here in our state.

Mom gets a day, Mike a camera and Dennae a job!

This week was a very busy week in the life of the DeVries family. The kids are wrapping up a year of school. Ivy's soccer season is coming to an end. Michael's baseball season is picking up as well as Jami's basketball season. Dennae got a job in a financial investment office and started working this week. These ladies are former fellow church members from Flatirons in Boulder. I took Jami to the emergency room on Friday night because she was dehydrated and on the verge of a sinus infection. She was pitiful. I had a birthday of Monday (42!) and we all celebrated Mother's Day on Sunday. All in all, it was good week. Don't forget to look at the pictures from this week at the bottom of all the other posts! Have a great week!

The Parade of Champions and the Meeting of the Minds

This week, we wanted to let you know about a number of things that took place in our family. First, Dennae got a job working with a family friend in a tax office. She is pretty excited about the opportunities that this job affords for the future even though she's not thrilled about starting out in the "filing papers" department. But we praise the Lord for His provision. Second, Ivy's Trebol Soccer team was invited to march around the brand new Dick's Sporting Goods Stadium where the Colorado Rapids play, the local MLS team. So she was thrilled to be able to do that and afterward watch a very exciting game between the Rapids and Real Salt Lake. Freddie Adu, the teen phenom, plays for Real and scored a goal. The game ended 1-1. Ivy also scored a goal in their soccer game on Friday. Also, Noel hosts a ladies' Bible study for our church every other week; there is a picture of some of the ladies who gathered this past week. We hope you had a great week too as you served the King and kings and Lord of lords!

Dennae meets Jesus and a new church is born!

This week has been momentus for the DeVries family. The most significant events include the fact that our oldest daughter, Dennae, made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior on Thursday night. She has been struggline spiritually for some time, making very poor choices and evidencing very little of the power of God to resist sin and temptation. We have been concerned. Some of her poor choices created a need in our hearts to delve a little deeper into her heart to see what we could discern about her walk with God. (Proverbs 20:5 - Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. ) After some conversations with Noel and me, we discerned that she never had come to possess what she has so long professed: a personal knowledge of God's saving grace in Christ. So Noel and I kneeled by the couch, and Dennae confessed with her mouth "Christ as Lord" and believed in her heart that God has raised Him from the dead (Rom.10:9-10). We praise God for His amazing grace!

Also, on Sunday the 6th, we officially chartered our church plant and Northern Ridge Baptist Church became a New Testament local church organized by covenant with each other to be and do what God has called and empowered us to do. We had over 150 people in attendance, many from other churches in the area. They came to encourage us and to witness the birth of another Bible-believing church in the Front Range of Colorado. We have 58 charter members and are very, very excited about what God has in the days, weeks, months and years to come! Soli Deo Gloria!