Hey Y'all! It's been a while since I last wrote to you guys about what's going on with the Allison family so, I thought I better catch everyone up with the story of our life.
Well, as most of you know by now Jason and I have moved from Carbondale, Illinois to Houston, Texas for job related purposes. You ask me how its going? Well, let me tell you a little story about me....
I originally grew up in Des Moines, IA which had roughly a total of 500, 000 people. It was a relatively nice city. Perfect in size-not too big, but not too small. It had lots of museums, zoos and theme parks to attend. I loved the variety of things that Des Moines had to offer. Then, at the age of 13, I moved to Champaign, a college town in central Illinois. It was significantly smaller than Des Moines. I definitely had to adjust to a lot of things-new people, new stores, new schools, etc. I had to adjust to a man made hill to sled down, because central Illinois was very flat. Sledding down a man made hill was very strange sounding to me at the time, because I was use to sledding down the capital hill in Des Moines along with several other hills in Des Moines, IA. It was also very strange going from 3 malls to 1 mall. After living in Champaign for 10 years, I moved to Carbondale, Illinois, a very small college town in southern Illinois. That was a huge change. It had fewer stores, fewer coffee shops, one target that you had to drive 30 mintues to get to, and very little snow compared to Champaign or Des Moines. In fact, I don't think I went sledding once when I lived in Carbondale. The weather in Carbondale was significantly different than Des Moines, but not too much different than Champaign. I loved the outdoors of Carbondale. It had lots of places to go hiking, rock climbing and boating. The nature of Southern Illinois was completely different than Des Moines and Champaign. Southern Illinois had so much more to offer with outdoor types of adventure than Des Moines or Champaign had to offer. I loved it! Then, at the age of 21, I married my high school sweetheart, Jason Allison (as most of you know by now), and unbeknownst to us the Lord would move us from Carbondale to Houston, Texas after we graduated from college. You ask me how this move is going....well...let me share with you a few things about our move down to Houston, Texas...
1. Driving with a 2 1/2 month old can make a 14 hour drive turn into a 2 day event.
2. Having your mother-in-law drive the whole way is a wonderful blessing. Just so everybody knows-I did offer to drive :)! My mother-in-law insisted I be available in case Joshua needed me at anytime! She was right-Joshua did need me at times during our trip.
3. Playing hide-and-go-seek with your baby at Chick-fil-A can be very entertaining-especially when others look at you and your husband with odd faces :)! Good memories!
4. Having your baby lay on the table while your husband, mother-in-law and you eat a Denny's breakfast at 11:00 pm can be an added blessing-especially when you are starving.
5. Not having to drive in downtown Houston traffic is an added blessing as well! I couldn't wrap my mind around any of the crazy downtown loops and traffic. You have to remember I was used to Carbondale, Illionois where it had one main road that you took you everywhere you went. Now, I have to get used to thousands of roads! I'm a littler nervous about this part of Houston, Texas, but the nice part about living in Houston is that you can live in Houston, Texas for 13 years, and not drive anywhere close to downtown if you don't want to. I have a feeling that will be for a while. However, once Joshua is old enough to enjoy the zoo, museums, and parks I will be driving in downtown Houston more often! I'm getting practice with driving in Houston traffic as much as I can, but I'm avoiding the downtown loops for now.
6. The many added blessings of living in Houston include the following: they have thousands of Targets (It seems like they have one on every corner), lots of Whole Food Stores, amazing Malls, several parks, zoos and museums to attend, a basketball team, baseball team, football team and Hockey team to go watch and play-which we have the opportunity to with Jason's Aunt since her Varsity Choir sings the National Anthem for some of the teams throughout the school year.
In addition to living in Houston, Texas, we have the added blessing of making new friends and finding a new church family to belong to down here. Currently, Jason and I have visited two small churches-both of which our church plants. One is in Missouri City, Texas. This church is very reformed. It is Southern Baptist, and very solid. This church is called Baptist of the Redeemer. They meet at another church. Jason found this church through the cooperation map of Together4theGospel. We went to this church the first Sunday we were in Houston. We liked it! The pastor was solid in his preaching. The worship was the more challenging part for us, because we were used to Brad leading our worship. The worship wasn't bad-its just the worship leader wasn't a strong leader. He was very timid, but we thought that if this became our home that maybe Jason could join the team and help out a bit. This church also had a board of Elders and a great disciple/mentor program. They had a great handle on church discipline, too! We were excited about this as well! Great church overall!
The second church we went to is called TheCrossings. It is a small plant as well. Jason found this church on founders.org. It meets at a school in Katy, Texas. Jason I enjoyed this church, too. I loved this one a lot. The worship was great. They sang a couple songs we were used to singing at Lakeland, and they had a strong leader. The children's ministry was exploding. There were at least five baby boys Joshua's age or a couple of months older, twelve 1-year-olds, and ten 2-year-olds. This church had a lot of young couples our age, and some couples a little bit older. It seemed like a very tight group. The preaching was great, but it wasn't as good as the first church we attended. We think that's because they pastor has taken a detour on preaching a Marriage Series through the book Song of Solomon. The pastor even mentioned that he normally doesn't preach topical. He normally preaches verse by verse. Even though it was a topical sermon, I enjoyed it. Again...great church overall!
The third church we will attend is Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas. As many of you know the pastor of this church is Voddie Baucham. Jason and I respect this man greatly, and we enjoy hearing him preach. We will visit this church this coming Sunday. This church is farther away from us then the other two. Its like driving from the far end of Marion, Illinois to Lakeland, but we feel like we must attend his church at least once, because we both love and completely agree with the teaching that goes on at Grace Family Baptist Church. So what do we ask of y'all....well... we ask that you please be in prayer with us as to what church God would have us attend. Jason and I don't want to compromise on the preaching of the Gospel. We want to be a part of a church where the Gospel is proclaimed. even if that means we think the worship is just ok. We also want to be a part of a church were church discipline is instilled, and were there seem to be lots of strong leaders. So friends and family, please pray that God would make it clear to us as to what church it is that we should attend. We love you all, and miss you all dearly! Hope all is well in Southern Illinois! Can't wait to see you (Lord willing) when we come visit next time!
In Christ,
Cathy
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