Special Craft Day

The CV Christmas Store provides an opportunity for the community to serve families in Indio and the surrounding areas that do not have the financial means to have Christmas gifts or a special meal for the holiday. The CV Christmas Store is set up like a department store, where parents will have a personal shopper escort them from room to room to choose gifts for each child. While the parent shops and wraps gifts, childcare will be provided. In addition, children will be given the chance to make a gift for their parents. Each family will be given food vouchers for a Christmas dinner and a family photo before leaving.

We can also help the CV Christmas Store by contributing financially and/or volunteering. This morning, M2M contributed by making some of the 500 blankets that will be given out this Christmas. Thanks to Marcy (our Service Project Coordinator) for all your efforts in teaming up with the CV Christmas Store to coordinate this special craft day!

For volunteering information, contact Sue Ramirez at (760) 399-7820. The CV Christmas Store is located at 45-742 Oasis St. in Indio.

Here are some of you in action...

Great job, moms! Thanks for your participation and support!

Blessings,

Catherine

Walk for Life

A beautiful morning!

Melissa & Danielle.

Kiddies playing in the bounce house.

Hailey & Crissy.

Vivien having a snack.

Holly & Kerri.

Bridgette & Catherine.

Kristen, Shannon & Kerri.

The Fazzone Family.

Faith & Grace.

The walk is about to begin!

Signs along our route.

Teagan cruises by.

Derek & Morgan cheer us on.

Can't argue with that.

Fun for the whole family.

The White Family.

Thankful.

Blessed.

The 3rd Annual Valley Walk for Life was held this Saturday. This year's theme was, "Hope and a future." We pray that all young women would give their unborn children just that. It was a beautiful morning to celebrate LIFE! Thank you to all of you moms who came out to show your support!

Blessings,

Catherine

The Spiritual Life of Your Child

It is always a joy to hear one of our mentor moms speak but this week, we got the added bonus of hearing her husband, too. He just happens to be our Senior Pastor at Southwest but for this particular morning, I tried to think of him less like Pastor Bob and more just like Bob, Ruthie's devoted husband and partner in raising their boys. :)

For those of you who have not yet had the privilege of meeting Ruthie or having her at your table, you are in for a treat. She has become a role model to me and I am privileged and delighted to know her. She is not only a righteous woman of God, she is as warm and genuine as they come. What a blessing it was to hear such words of wisdom and encouragement this morning. Weren't they just the cutest?!

There were so many little gems to take-away.

With their anchor verse being Deuteronomy 6:4-9, they spoke of how we need to be both model and mentor to our children.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

As a model...

* We need to ask ourselves, "Do we really love the LORD ourselves, with our whole being?"

* We must take the time to nourish ourselves by being in His word daily.

* This is our life line and communication line to God. By being in His word, we can learn to love and trust in Him.

* God's word needs to be on our hearts, not just in our head.

* Do I endeavor to obey God and believe Him? Keeping in mind that God does not expect perfection.

* As moms, we need to admit it when we blow it. This includes apologizing to our kids when we do wrong.

* Allow them to hear us confess our sin and pray for forgiveness.

As a mentor...

* I love the idea and practice of the Family Altar. I suppose this is something that I planned to do in the future but hearing Bob and Ruthie gave me the desire and motivation to start right away. This is a sacred family time for prayer, teaching and devotion. It's also an opportunity to ask our kids engaging questions. Be sure and keep this time brief, simple and age appropriate!

* What Bob said was really powerful. We really only have our kids for about 12 years. "Just think how much we can accomplish with just a few minutes a day over 12 years?" The obvious alternative would then lead us to ask, "How much time and opportunity would be lost had we not taken those few minutes a day?

* We cannot solely rest on the church or even schools to teach our children to be spiritually strong. This must all begin in our own homes.

As Christians, we are not called to be part-timers. God is not interested in that. We are called to live a life that fully encompasses God in all that we do, say, think and feel. Putting religion in a section of our week like Sundays or maybe even Wednesday mornings is not how God wants us to live. In doing this, we are just perpetuating the secular advancement of the notion that God should stay in a separate, religious category. I also enjoyed the kind encouragement that Bob & Ruthie gave to those moms whose husbands are not yet believers. Prayer is a powerful thing and I have seen lives transformed over years because of the power of a praying wife. Keep praying and let us pray with you and for you!

Lastly, allow our children to hear us pray for their spiritual character- out loud. That way, they too, will know exactly what we desire and hope for them.

In summary, I think it all boils down to being very intentional in pointing our children towards the Lord. It must first begin with us, moms!

All fantastic stuff from Ruthie and Bob! Thank you for leading our church with such a GREAT moral compass!

Blessings,

Catherine

--

3rd Annual Valley Walk for LIFE!

We have our first Mom's Day Out scheduled for this Saturday, October 25th! Come out and show your support at the 3rd Annual Walk for LIFE! All the proceeds will go towards helping the Crisis Pregnancy Center. The CPC offers free services and support to women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Some of the services include ultrasounds, information about parenting, adoption resources, and spiritual guidance. We hope that all of the women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy will choose LIFE for their unborn child. This is something that's near and dear to my heart since I will forever be grateful to my daughters' birth mom for choosing life for them. I cannot imagine what she was going through but having the courage to give birth to twins at such a young age is nothing short of a selfless act of love.

Please join us on Saturday morning for a brisk 2 mile walk around Southwest Community Church. Bring your family, your strollers, and of course, any pledges that you've collected. It's sure to be a fun morning of celebration, games, bounce houses, prizes, and food for everyone!

For those with pledges to donate, registration begins at 8:00 a.m.
If you just want to come out to show your support by walking with your fellow M2M'ers, the walk begins at 9:00 a.m. See you there!

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. ~Jeremiah 1:5

Blessings,
Catherine

--

Mentor Mom Panel

Can you believe that we're already mid-way through this session?

We still have lots more to come so I hope that you are feeling encouraged, refreshed, and inspired in some way. I don't know about you but our mornings always seem to fly by way too fast- especially on a day like Mentor Mom Panel day. I'm so glad that the panel will be back next session for two weeks straight. I already have more questions! In fact, I better write them down before I forget.

The thing I love about our mentor moms is that they'd be the first to tell you that didn't do everything right and that they made mistakes. In other words, they are not sitting at our tables because they were perfect or raised perfect kids. In many ways, we are learning from their mistakes and gaining wisdom from the things they did right. The overwhelming theme that resonates with all of them is that motherhood/parenting requires a daily relationship with the Lord. We must learn to take everything to Him. The One who already knows our struggles, our problems, our strengths and our weaknesses. The One who gives us grace, tenderness, wisdom, energy, and the encouragement to carry on another day, for our children and for Him.

I hope that you heard at least one thing yesterday that you connected with. Here are 8 things that stood out for me...

1. Play with your kids more! I am that mom who does too much housekeeping and not enough playing with my girls. I often feel like I'm Martha in the bible and I so want to be her sister, Mary!

2. God delights in ME! He is not keeping score of all the times I screwed up as a mom.

3. We don't need to ask our kids permission. Therefore, when we tell them something, do not end the sentence with, "Okay?" When giving instruction or correction to our kids, our words should be a statement, not a question.

4. Get rid of the mom guilt that is permeating our society. As women, we often compare ourselves to other women and other moms. We are all uniquely and wonderfully made (and so are our kids)!

5. We cannot fix everything in our child's life. We need to accept that. As parents we have the responsibility to teach them how to process life's struggles, fears, disappointments, anger, sadness, etc. Teach them to pray to God about everything and encourage them to communicate with you always. The best way to do this would be by example! Let your kids see you pray out loud about all kinds of things.

6. Loving our husbands well, gives our children a sense of security.

7. A reward system using charts or special privileges can be a fun way to encourage your child's participation and promote taking initiative.

8. Keep your word!

"Pour out your hearts like water before the face of the LORD; lift up your hands toward him for the life of your children."

~Lamentations 2:19

So what about you? What was your main take-away from yesterday?

Blessings,

Catherine

--

M2M Cookbook!

Get out those yummy recipes for the first ever Mom2Mom cookbook! The holidays are just around the corner and that usually means there's more family in town and more cooking to do. I know that I'm always looking for some new and tasty ideas so this will come at the perfect time! Please email your recipes to Shannon Webb at mailto:mcaliwebbrn@hotmail.com or simply bring your recipe to M2M on Wednesday. The deadline before we go to print is October 29th! Feel free to submit as many recipes as you'd like and any type of dish is welcome!

The cookbook will be available to purchase for a nominal fee under $5.

Taste and see that the LORD is good!
~Psalm 34:8

Blessings,
Catherine

--

God's Faith & Grace

Written by Hailey White

We were blessed this week to have our very own Catherine Gough share her testimony with us. I don’t know about you but I was captivated the entire time. I found the Lord speaking directly to me about how truly amazing he is to bring two lives together to serve Him.

Wasn’t their love story wonderful? Catherine shared how she was looking for love in all the wrong places and it wasn’t until she ended an unhealthy relationship that the Lord used that wise decision to change the course of her life. She also shared how Lisa Beamer’s testimony in her book “Let’s Roll” gave her a desire for a purpose driven life, something she had always wanted. I was mesmerized listening to the perfect orchestration of their marriage and how the Lord used Catherine’s new found salvation a year into their marriage to ignite her husbands love for the Lord that he was once so passionate for. Isn’t God amazing?

The best part was that her story didn’t end there. She went on to share how the Lord closed her womb to open up her heart. She shared their path towards adoption and how faith untested is faith unchanged. With pictures of her adopted twin girls Faith and Grace on the overhead screen, I welled up inside, selfishly imagining that if they had never adopted those beautiful girls that I wouldn’t have had the chance to know them. I suppose that’s how the Lord feels about us, wanting us to know that He knows us, and wanting us to be adopted into His family.

“he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure, and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace...” Ephesians 1:5-7

Catherine closed by sharing her calling with us. To raise her children to Love the Lord, and to glorify God in all she does.

What about you? Share with us how Catherine’s story impacted your life?

--

Detox

Once again, JJ Virgin was energetic, dynamic, and full of knowledge and information. If you felt like you should be changing your entire lifestyle today, I hope you weren't left feeling overwhelmed or discouraged. With so much information thrown at us in such a short period of time, I thought it was helpful to just focus on making one commitment for change. Maybe there are a couple of things that you will incorporate in your life going forward? Perhaps it's more fiber in your diet, eating less sugar, passing on the splenda, or trying to break a sweat everyday? Hopefully, this morning gave you the fuel to get enthusiastic about your health.
And let's face it, if you get healthy, inevitably, so will your family!

Of course, God wants us to take good care of our earthly bodies that He has given us. After all, it is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
As moms, I believe it's also important so that we can be an active participant and role model in the lives of our young children.

Much in the same way that JJ encouraged us to detoxify our bodies, God's word says that we need to remain pure and rid ourselves from everything that contaminates our bodies and souls. We live in such a toxic culture today don't we? Even as Christians, we are not safe from all the "junk" in this world.

Let's look at what God's word says...

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
~1 Corinthians 10:31

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
~2 Corinthians 7:1

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is---his good, pleasing and perfect will.
~Romans 12:2

By the way, in keeping with my new commitment, I write this as I skip my caffeine free Diet-Coke for my tall glass of water. Oh, yum! :)

Have a great week, ladies!

Blessings,
Catherine

--