|
Dear family and friends, The Spring/Summer Edition was postponed so many times due to still working on our house that we decided to skip it this year and go directly to Harvest and Holiday News! We’ve packed in double news and photos! Here in NC, autumn is in the air (in the cool mornings anyway) and a few trees and bushes are already beginning to display colorful traces of a change of season. The news many have been waiting for is here! We moved in to the new house on August 30! It took a while longer to finish the construction and decorating than we had planned, (like a year…) but we are finally done. A few glitches are still being worked out, as always happens with new construction, but it’s good to be out of the camper!
As you can see, Ruby Cottage is decorated with all of our daughter Stacie’s Coca-Cola collection. We saved everything. It has all been in storage for over eleven years since she moved to Heaven. Unpacking and putting things up again brought many memories filled with laughter and tears, but we are glad that we planned it this way. We love that Stacie inspired this house.
One of our favorite things is taking a cup of coffee outside and “porching” every morning while watching our hummingbirds and family of deer! We think they know they are protected by our angels!
On our trip west in April, we had wonderful visits with many of you. Good food, fellowship, and shopping! We found this adorable “phone booth” cabinet which was perfect for all the small Coke collectibles that Jeannie didn’t want to dust! Macs Music also has many bits of Stacie’s favorite musical mementos such as a signed copy of a Gene Kelly photograph and two Singin’ in the Rain posters! Our Macs tartan tablecloth (from our former tape and CD table) is the scarf for the new piano (a wonderful gift from our pastor and family.) Our first Macs photo is displayed on top. The sign above this inside door includes our Macs MountainView verse. We love the sign and that it was a gift from Jeannie’s dear friend, Cindy and family in Silver Lake, KS.
Most of the rest of the decor in the studio is connected to family, friends, and even our Messengers Quartet days in KS. The framed poster is from one of the biggest concerts we ever performed with the Kingsmen and the McKameys. The piano on top of the wardrobe is one Dennis played and is signed by Florida Boys Darrell Stewart, old “Red Socks” himself! We had the privilege of singing onstage with many well-known groups in both the Messengers and the Macs. Side note: Let us know if you are interested in any Messengers albums, cassettes, or CDs. Our former manager, John Oathout has a closet full! Dennis even found a shelf to display his 1973 Shawnee Heights Regional Championship basketball team trophy that Jeannie saved when they cleaned out the old trophy closet at SH. (With permission.)
These gorgeous wood signs were made and given to us by John’s daughter and her husband. If you are in need of a custom-made wood sign, see info below.
For your own custom-made wood signs like ours contact: Circle M Wood Crafts David & Lisa Marshall 785-845-6005 [email protected] With the new music studio in operation, Dennis has already written a new song and looks forward to many more to come! He is deep into volleyball season as a referee, which he truly enjoys. Basketball begins in November and Dennis still runs up and down the court - but now he has a whistle and can stop the game!
Jeannie’s new writing area is ready to go, although her old personal computer didn’t make it through five years of storage. She is switching to a Mac that Dennis is passing down to her. He is upgrading his computer in the studio, thanks to his life-long friend, Dave Barkes who keeps him supplied with all things Apple. Jeannie will have a new learning curve to navigate the new system, so pray for her! She is anxious to get back to writing her next project, an adult trilogy, working title is “Tales of Tresia Depot Bookshop.” She is also thrilled to have recently started a mentoring group for new writers. The Warriors Writing charter group is only four members including Jeannie, and they are all excited about what God is going to do through this group. If Warriors Writing sounds interesting to you, find out more about it on her website. There are many people who have helped us through our 49 years of walking out God’s Plan. You are all so loved and appreciated. God has given us amazing family and friends and we want you to know that your prayers for us have helped bring us to this brand new season. Divine connections are a huge part of who we are and what we do and we pray for you on a regular basis. Our Father is so GOOD! He gave us Jesus, Holy Spirit, and YOU! We praise the Lord for the Vision of Macs MountainView. When we purchased our land in 2016, we started believing and planning to build a mortgage-free Ruby Cottage guest house and Macs Music recording studio. Drawings of the house have been on Jeannie’s Vision Board since then, but this past week she took those pictures down because the building of Phase II has come to pass! We believed God, spoke His promises, did the work, and now we see it! Praise the LORD! What remains in our Vision is 1) spending more time with God, 2) working on our assignments of writing new books and songs and helping other writers and musicians, 3) preparing for Phase III, watching someone else build Sapphire Lodge (our home,) 4) staying healthy, and 5) continuing to walk out the plan of God. For now, we will definitely enjoy living here in the “guest cottage” and music studio! We will share it as we are able, until it can become a full-time guest cottage. Three statements were added to the Vision Board this week as a testimony to what God has done and will do. We want to share them because they apply to everyone. “It’s fun doing the impossible.” “God is going to do more than we can imagine.” “You’re never too old for an adventure with God!” Please let us know if you will be in our area. We’d love to see you and show you around the new place. Or at least reply to this email and give us an update on you and what God has been doing in your life! Have a wonderful Harvest season enjoying God’s beautiful creation, as well as a BLESSED Holiday Season celebrating Christmas and 2024! Until we send out our MountainView Moments Spring/Summer Edition 2024, or we see you in Heaven, Be BLESSED! Love and prayers, Dennis and Jeannie  We’ve been so busy that we have not taken any current photos. This was taken right after we bought the property and began this adventure five years ago!” Dear family and friends,
We are grateful that we could spend some time this summer and fall with family and friends. Unfortunately, our June visit to KS was cut short due to covid, and we were disappointed to not be able to visit with a few special people. We were grateful for the family and friends we were able to see and that God kept us and our loved ones safe. We made it back home and were both back on our feet in a week. We apologize that we exposed everyone that we saw in that brief visit. Thankfully, we only shared it with our dear friends Dave and Kathy, who let us stay with them, but thankfully they also recovered quickly. We plan to go back to Kansas in April (healthy and well!) to visit again and catch up with those we missed! After living in our camper for over four years, we are thrilled to announce that we are close to moving into the house that Dennis has been building since we moved to our property in 2019. Our original goal to spend Christmas Eve in the “Ruby Cottage” side of the house, may have to be moved back a few weeks. Yes, we could move in and look at Sheetrock walls and sleep in sleeping bags on the floor for a while like we did when we built our first house in 1983. But at this stage, we agree that it wouldn’t be as fun or easy as it was all those years ago! So if needed, we will put up a few Christmas decorations in the camper again and continue to be patient. We are both excited to see visible progress toward Phase II of our building project being complete. Best of all, there will be no mortgage payments when we are through! We praise the Lord for giving us this debt-free vision and providing in miraculous ways to bring it to pass. Not the least of which has been Dennis doing most of the work himself, with help from a few amazing friends. Our vision verse and God-given slogan have been our guide since the time of purchase and breaking ground and will continue to be our declaration:  This house will allow us enough space to get back to writing books and songs and we both look forward to returning to those assignments. As you can see from the photo, Jeannie’s Kingdom Corner isn’t quite finished yet…but her new washer/dryer is ready and waiting to go into the bathroom! Dennis is still working on some plumbing issues, but the ceiling is going up!
As close as we are to the finish line on this house, it is not “our house.” Ruby Cottage, one side of the house, is a small (but huge after living in the camper!) studio apartment that will be used as a guesthouse and retreat for God’s workers. Macs Music is the other half of the house and will be for Dennis to both write and record his own music, but also help other musicians to do the same. We will need to live in Ruby Cottage until the Lord provides for us to build our home, “Sapphire Lodge.” Until then, we can’t truly fulfill the “hospitality” part of our assignment, however we will find a place for special guests! Please pray with us as we complete Phase II and look forward to beginning Phase III. (Dennis is off the hook for Sapphire Lodge. It will be built for us!) Then Macs MountainView will be ready to accomplish all that God has called us to do here.
Dennis still enjoys officiating volleyball and basketball. This is his fifth year. He likes the exercise and being with the “kids.” Almost 40 years of teaching and coaching put the students and athletes in his heart and that connection didn’t change with retirement. Most of the time, even as a ref, the kids like him! For volleyball season he has a coin to toss with a KU Jayhawk for heads and “Beak ‘Em Hawks!” for tails! Even the NC fans think that’s pretty cool!
Jeannie has been planning the decor for her new Kingdom Corner where she will not only spend her time with God every day, but will continue with her writing. Since her last book, Kingdom Corner Connection, (2020) was written on a laptop in the cramped camper, she decided to wait on her next book until she had more room and her computer set up again. She has spent the last two years preparing for what’s next and can’t wait to share it with her Author Clan! Keep checking her website to keep up with what she’s writing, reading, and doing next!  This year Jeannie has kept a daily Gratitude Journal. Writing something down to be thankful for each day has been a wonderful reminder of how much God has BLESSED us. This will be the tenth Thanksgiving that we will have turkey for two. We choose to spend this day grateful and full of joy knowing that our precious daughter, other family, and dear friends who have moved to Heaven already, are celebrating together! We are so thankful for the peace, comfort, and heavenly perspective that God has given us. Keeping our minds on the wonders of Heaven that our loved ones are enjoying every day makes all the difference as we continue to accomplish our assignments down here on earth. We look forward to the day when the Father tells Jesus to call us Home and we will meet again face to face and spend eternity together! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas! We’d love to hear from you. Just hit reply and share what you are thankful for this holiday season. God BLESS us every one! Dennis and Jeannie
ROCK CHALK, JAYHAWK! Though not the most important happening, for basketball fans like us, winning the 2022 National Championship for Kansas was a nice bright spot in March! We would even have had a decent consolation prize if North Carolina had won. Though our precious daughter Stacie, moved to Heaven ten years ago next month, we are still driving her Sportage with the license plate “Tarhawk.” She was so proud of it! We took this photo years ago when the two teams also met in the finals. Though we have lived in NC for 20 years now, we will always be Jayhawks first!  We thought about not sending this update because there hasn’t been a lot of change on our property that can be seen. But in the same way that God works behind the scenes in our lives, though it’s not visible to us yet, there has been progress inside Ruby Cottage / Macs Music. Dennis has been busy with wiring, plumbing, and building the back deck and ramp. We are enclosed now, with the recent addition of the soffit and porch roof. We’re thankful to have made it through the winter with no critters moving into the house! Dennis is in the process of painting the doors Ruby Red, and then he will build the front porch. Siding is next on the list, though we have a siding guy to help! Mowing will also claim his time during the growing season, but riding his tractors has always been Den’s prayer time, and often when Holy Spirit downloads new songs to his heart. With the studio close to being a reality, Dennis is excited about writing and recording songs again. And Volleyball officiating begins in August! That is his Re-Firement! Building debt-free in this day of rising prices and inflation has been a challenge, but we are determined to practice patience and pay as we go, as we promised the Lord we would. God has provided funds for every step, and we praise Him for full and overflowing provision to complete this assignment. We know that He provides both finances and the right helpers for whatever He calls us to do. He always has, and we have no doubt that even in this present crazy economy, Jesus is Lord! So, we continue to tackle each project as we are able. God is GOOD! Jeannie has helped with small physical building tasks a few times, but her job is mainly encouragement and prayer support. She spends time in her Kingdom Corner every day to lift up our assignment and the people and prayer requests she writes in her prayer journal. So many friends and family have experienced hardship and loss in the past months. It is an honor for Jeannie to lift those people to the Father. She considers her intercession a vital part of her assignment. This season of still living in our camper (with very limited space) has given Jeannie time to have special fellowship and prayer with God first, as well as keep our daily life tasks up to date. She is working on her craft as a writer, reading books and taking online courses. God has also laid it on her heart to support certain other writers and authors in various ways. Jeannie and her webmaster, Carol, keep her website updated with its various features like this newsletter, Reader Bonuses, (when you sign up, you receive two of Jeannie’s Picture eBooks, illustrated by two former Youth Advisory Board Gals, Ema (Carol’s daughter) and Lilly (daughter of Jeannie’s cousin, Jill.) You can also keep up with what Jeannie is reading in the Reading Nook. For all you “Tresia” fans, a very special surprise made possible by Carol’s oldest daughter, Caity, also one of Jeannie’s former YAB gals, will be posted to the website soon! (Hint: Caity is a theater major…) Visit the website anytime for updates! With this report of where God has taken us up until now, we want to end this newsletter with a thought for the future. Jeannie has been re-reading the “Left Behind” series since the first of the year. We both enjoy watching preachers and teachers who show us how Bible prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes. We continue to take steps to finish this building phase so we can accomplish our tasks to write books and songs and share God’s love with the world. But it is plain to us that it is almost time for Jesus to return to take His Church Home! In light of that Truth, some days it’s hard to “keep on keeping on” with what we have been called to do. But Jesus said in Luke 19:13 to “Occupy til I come.” So we will move forward with our assignment, while keeping our eyes on the eastern skies! This was our recent view on our way home from church. We love the rays coming through the clouds to remind us that Jesus is coming soon. Even so, Come, Lord Jesus!  Our ultimate assignment is to share the Gospel and take as many as we can with us to meet Jesus in the air! If you don’t know Him, we would love to hear from you and would be honored to introduce you to Him. Those of you who are watching for Him too, we’d love to hear what you are doing while you “occupy.” Just hit reply. We answer every email response. Love and prayers to y’all. Keep looking up! Dennis and Jeannie  |
Archives
November 2024
|
BooksKingdom Corner Connection
Tresia Book III -- A Perfectly Magnificent Cane (Includes short allegory, A Glimpse, The Truly Excellent Scepter) Tresia Book II -- A Quite Extraordinary Umbrella Tresia Book I -- A Most Remarkable Hat I Will Not Fear A Chosen Life Dawn of Day |
|
