new tires come with warranties!!

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:22-24

What an amazing summer I've had! This was the first summer since I was in middle school that I haven't worked, and you better believe I took full advantage of it! Just about every minute of it was filled, whether I was traveling or making jewelry for the business! My time in Tennessee was outstanding, Kiawah Island was beautiful, and our visit with family in New Jeresy couldn't have been better! Through it all, I knew there was a big lesson coming, I know the Lord never fails at that! This one, I've actually been expecting and searching for since April, so I'm excited to write about it! And it just happens to come at the perfect time: the beginning of a new school year!!! Doesn't the Lord have such perfect timing!

For those of you who have been privy to my life's journey since last April, you'll be excited to hear, the tires are doing well!! Haha, won't last long probably, the tire guy said, "With your luck, you may wanna invest in some kind of road hazard insurance..." It's a good thing I don't believe in luck! However, since I do believe in the Lord using 5 totally destroyed tires in 3 months to teach me something important, I may want to invest in that anyways!

Did you know that the original tires that come on new cars have no warranty from the tire company? That's craziness! I just learned that last week, as I purchased my 5th tire since April... Well, I guess that's ok because the warranty wouldn't have covered the curb and brick run-ins anyways... My car seems to have an attraction to those type things, it just steers its way right up on them, haha, any way possible to get us a thumb sized puncture in the side wall... But it sure could have helped out on the two tires that just wore out 14,000 miles early! Well anyways, it's all good, cause now all four of my tires are covered under warranty, and so will be every tire I get for my little Honda from now on...

So this is great, we start a brand new school year Thursday morning, we have A LOT of new kids, and plenty who were with us last year as well... I absolutely can't wait to get started on this new year, I think it's gonna be a really great and exciting time! Here's what I want y'all to pray for us: That those kids, everyone of them will run over a brick, hit a curb, or just get worn out on this life they're used to. Just like new tires come with warranties, so do new lives!! And as soon as they get rid of that old life they were born into, and replace it with Christ, they'll have a lifetime and eternal warranty from their Creator! And you know what's so great about God's warranty? It covers the bricks and curbs we hit everyday, and there's no prorating involved, plus, He comes to us, we don't have to wait on the side of the road, all stranded and out of options, He's already there! He forgives us and makes us totally new absolutely free of charge! No road hazard needed!

Gosh, everytime I look at my tires, I'm reminded to praise God for replacing my life, all ripped up and worn out, with a brand new life, great tread, no chance of being left stranded on the side of the road after I hit another curb! Wow! Suddenly I don't fear those things anymore! God is so good! I'm then reminded to pray for the same life change in these great kids during their time at the ranch with us!

I can't wait to be a part of this year and see the Lord's hand at work! Thinking about it right now gets me so excited about seeing how He does His thing this year! Please pray with us that these kids open their hearts to His beautiful voice and that they "put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." I'll keep y'all updated!

Thanks, y'all, so much! I love each of you for your prayers and your thoughts! I already feel them for the start of the year! I think of you all so often and I look forward to hearing from y'all soon! Thanks again for your prayers!

His,

Anna Kathryn

"I thank my God everytime I remember you!

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy!"

Philippians 1:3-4

always there...

“But will God really dwell on earth?

The heavens, even the highest heavens cannot contain you.

How much less this temple I have built?”

1 Kings 8:27

It’s been a long time, I know, and a lot has happened since I last updated… School’s out, so that’s different… I said goodbye to a lot of kids who I loved dearly a few weeks ago… For some of them, it was a very happy goodbye and a joyous occasion as they left the Ranch to begin a new and functional life at home with their families, and for others, I will worry about them every day that I live, but I feel sure my God will watch over them as they are prayed for often. Milton Martin is out too, I left the Honda dealership about a month and a half ago to pursue other goals with my time, and with that job ending, I said goodbye to a lot of grown people who I really grew to love over the last two years… It’s a good thing my little civic will still need oil changes every few months, so I’ll get to see those friends often… My new found free time has left me with no choice but to find a business partner and start beading!! I’ll let you guys know when our little homemade jewelry business is really up and running good, and y’all can come visit us! But in the mean time we are having so much fun trying to make it happen!! Please pray for our little endeavor, as we truly seek the Lord’s guidance in all of our jewelling craziness!!

Gosh, speaking of the Lord’s guidance, I’ve been so lost without direction the past couple months, it’s been crazy… That’s why you haven’t heard from me in so long, but praise God I think I may have my priorities realigned!!

Here is one thing I know to be true, for sure: When you let your relationship with the Lord slip, it’s not just your relationship with Him that suffers, it’s your whole life basically… your relationships with your family, friends, the decisions you make every minute of the day, your goals, plans, endeavors, whatever you do throughout the day is hindered so deeply by your refusal to talk to Him, listen to Him, and be open to His suggestions…. That’s a really crazy thing, because who has better suggestions than God? Right? So, what am I thinking every morning when I wake up? Every night before I go to sleep? “I got this… I can do this on my own… Yes, I’m doing all of this for you, God, but I don’t need your help, ok? I can glorify you in everything I do, without you even being in the picture… easy!” No joke, that’s the last 2 months of my life summed up in three lines…. If our bodies are His temple, why, no really, WHY would He choose to dwell in mine? According to my skewed thinking, I don’t even need Him…

And what happens? My relationships suffer; my family, my friends…. My endeavors fail; my goals, my plans seem so far-fetched… I make poor decisions that directly affect all of my relationships…..

It really all comes back to one really important thing……

Oh God,

“Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.”

1 Kings 8:30

I’m never going to find the peace I need in these situations if I don’t include the Lord… And it’s not just “Fix this, God,” it’s the peace that I need to be able to make decisions that aren’t easy, but are right; to forgive people and overlook silly things; to follow God’s guidance in my endeavors instead of what I think will work the best, please, in my experience, what I think will work the best… never does!!

It’s a good feeling to come to a place in your faith where you’re like, “Wow, this isn’t working… I really can’t go at it alone… God, all the heavens can’t even hold you! How much less to dwell in me! But that’s where you choose to be! Father, forgive me for not welcoming you into my life, my relationships and my decisions… Forgive me!”

It’s an amazing feeling to come to a place in your faith where you feel Him nudge you and whisper in your ear that sweet reminder:

“My eyes and my heart will always be there.”

1 Kings 9:3

Praise God, I can’t escape Him, no matter how hard I try – a true fear of mine I’ll write about another time... Anyways, God is good, keep in touch!! And that’s the moral!

Thanks for reading this far, I really do appreciate it! As for my next month or so, I’ll be busy traveling the eastern US, a week in Kiowa Island with a family I love a lot, two very much anticipated weeks in the state that I love (Tennessee), a week in New Jersey with my amazingly strong grandmother who I love so much and our wonderful family up there (I love them too!) Wow, that’s a lot of love! Anyways, then it’s school time again! It sure goes by quicker than it used to!! But I look so much forward to starting the new school year and seeing those kid’s faces again! Please pray for them over the summer, it’s an important time of year for their growth at the Ranch and in their families!

I love all of y’all a lot, and I thank you so much for your thoughts and your prayers! I pray that the Lord keeps you safe and watches over all of you every day this summer and most importantly that you don’t forget to invite Him! He’s a good one, I promise!!

His,

Anna Kathryn

“I thank my God every time I remember you,

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy!!”

Philippians 1:3&4

breathing deeply

This past Saturday I got to spend a few precious minutes alone with my grandfather. I told him how amazing it would be to have a procession of angels welcome him to his new home and sing happy birthday to him as he would soon be reborn into heaven. How great it would be to take deep breaths unassisted, and walk freely on streets made of gold! That night as my family sang happy birthday to me, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealousy as I imagined the beautiful scene he got to experience just a couple hours earlier.

After three very long weeks, the family made the hard decision to honor Poppy’s wishes and remove the ventilator that had been keeping him alive for days. As we stood at his bedside, I was led to Revelation 7:14-17.

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,

they are before the throne of God

and serve Him day and night in His temple;

and He who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them.

Never again will they hunger;

never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat upon them,

nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be there shepherd;

He will lead them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away ever tear from their eyes.”

And I know in time God will wipe every tear from our eyes also!! Thank you as you’ve prayed for us over the past couple weeks. I know that we have felt your prayers, even now as we feel such peace with the decision that was made and with his health and his eternal life at this very moment and forever. I ask for your continued prayers as we mourn and especially for my beautiful Granny as she learns how to live without the man she’s spent almost 63 years with. It’ll be hard… and we’ll all miss him… but, man, I love to think about him walking with the Lord and taking those deep breaths!!

Thanks again, I do love y’all very much!

His,

Anna Kathryn

“I thank my God every time I remember you;

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy!”

-Philippians 1:3-4

For those of you who knew him and won’t see the Gainesville Times tomorrow, visitation is Monday night, 6-8, Tuesday, 2-4 and 6-8, and the funeral is Wednesday at 2:00. All of this is happening at Ward’s Funeral Home in Gainesville , where he worked for 50 plus years, all the way up to his hospitalization a little over three weeks ago.

WHO IS ANNA?!?

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Luke 2:36-38

Now, even though I refuse to answer to "Anna," and when called "Anna", usually respond with a loud "WHO IS ANNA???", I do gladly claim it ashalf of my name. So, as my half-name-giver, Anna is a real model of worship for me. Being the type of person who easily slides into slumps and festers in my frustration and depression, I’m thankful to have her as a model to try to live up to every day, as she lived the very attitude of gratefulness and worship I look for in times of sorrow.

I hate to use the word ‘probably’ so instead I’ll go with this: We can ‘conjecture’ that Anna was very depressed when she lost her husband, maybe even to the point where she could have felt anger with God. But instead of festering in her anger and depression, she found peace and never stopped worshiping her Father, whose will she knew she was walking in.

How great to have such peace through the hardest of times!!

My grandfather, Poppy, Papa, Spider, Tyrus, whatever you call him, is going on his third week in the hospital. He's VERY sick, stable to critcal condition, and needs an open-heart, mitral valve replacement surgery. The doctor's are waiting for him to get well enough to be able to have the surgery, and afterwards he'll spend some time in a rehab center recovering. Three weeks ago he was still going in to work everyday, and now he can't even feed himself. It's crazy to think about how fast this has all happened, the whole family is in a lot of shock, and just trying to figure everything out.

All of you are such prayer warriors for me and have shown yourselves faithful in the last few years as the Lord has done amazing things in my life. Today I ask you to please pray for the Buffington's and Galloway's in this hard time as we all look for the peace that Anna had. We know that Poppy knows the Lord and whatever happens here is deeply intertwined in His will for him. Please pray that the Lord gives us all an attitude of worship and gratefulness as every day that passes not only Poppy but all of us get one day closer to a beautiful eternity with Jesus! Pray for wisdom among the nursing staff and doctors, and peace within Poppy's soul as he's in the middle of all of this craziness and confusion.

Thank y'all so much! I appreciate your prayers so much and will never forget how good you've been to me over the years! I'll keep you updated on an individual basis if you want me to, just let me know!

I love you all so much!!

His,

Anna Kathryn

"I thank my God everytime I remember you!

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy!!"

Philippians 1:3&4

a picture of grace

Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:
"Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh,

to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw

those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders.

But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands

or eyes that see or ears that hear. During the forty years that I led

you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out,

nor did the sandals on your feet."

Deuteronomy 29:2-5

Those Israelites were a stubborn group! The Lord blessed them over and over and over again, and they hardly ever recognized His grace on their journey... They griped and complained, worshipped foreign gods, disobeyed His commandments, griped some more and complained a lot... and yet, the Lord stayed with them, and continued to bless them.... He didn't make them understand His blessings, He wanted them to see it for themselves.... They rarely did.... until the day got closer and closer for them to enter into the Promised Land!! Then it became abundantly clear how blessed they were at that point and how the Lord had been blessing them all along!

What I've come to realize about myself in the last few weeks and months is that I am JUST LIKE the Israelites! I have been AMAZINGLY blessed my entire life, and God knows I don't deserve even a little bit of what He has blessed me with! But He has showered me with His blessings anyways! Even when I totally disregard His hand in my life and my actions... Even when I totally credit myself with the exciting things that happen in my life... Even when I have put myself and anything worldly in front of Him.... He has continued to shower me!

So this school year, wow, has been amazing! Such a picture of what grace looks like! Finally, my eyes have been opened completely to how blessed I am.... Beyond comprehension, no lie! I know that I don't deserve to be blessed, I deserve to suffer for my sins... I continually go back to what David wrote in Psalm 103, "The Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities!" Wow! I praise God for what He's doing in my life over and over again everytime I recite that verse in my head! I don't know why it takes something completely out of this world amazing to give me sight of the Lord's constant blessings, but I'm glad I can look back, in complete sincerity, and thank God for everything He's done in my life, and see even the hard things as blessings from Him, used for my betterment, to bring me closer to Him and experience Him in new and different ways....

Let's talk about Eagle Ranch Christian School, '06-'07:

I've had this new teacher to work under this year... He is a true blessing to me! His whole family is such a blessing! It's an amazing thing how the Lord brought him away from house parenting at Eagle Ranch, and into the science classroom at Each Ranch school... I'm so grateful to get to work under him and spend time with his family! He challenges me and encourages me daily, he is a true man of God and I admire him so much! I praise God for bringing him into the school and my life, and I very much look forward to another year as his faithful parapro... haha, we have a lot of fun, and can bond over our love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so it's a pretty good time...

All the children I've ever worked with, whether the 1st and 2nd graders I worked with in college, or the kids I fell in love with at WVR, and now all the kids the last 2 years at Eagle Ranch.... they are all such a HUGE blessing to me! It never fails to blow my mind how God uses the very people who He has sent me to teach, to teach me! That is a blessing I have never failed to recognize! Last year, I loved my students... One thing that discouraged me was the difference between the relationships I had with my students at Eagle Ranch in comparison to the relationships I had built the previous year with the kids at Wears Valley Ranch... The difference is huge, WVR is such a family setting, and I'll think of those kids as my family for the rest of my life... At Eagle Ranch, I'm strictly a parapro, I have limited time to build relationships, and that was hard for me last year... This year, I have let that go, and made the absolute most of the 5 hours a day I have with those kids, and especially the three minute breaks between classes! I've built some great relationships and I love those kids with all my heart! We've started taking 15-20 minutes every Monday morning to pray with the kids... Each staff member has 3 or 4 kids who we break apart from the group and pray with... At Eagle Ranch, we work with several kids who try very hard to steer clear of all things 'God related,' so when one of them asks if he can pray during that time, it is a time for rejoicing! His prayer reminded me of my early prayers with Arissa... I cherished every word, and I know the Lord saw his sincere heart as he spoke to Him... I absolutely love that time with those three guys, it restores a connection in my life that I miss so much about WVR... What a blessing that I have that opportunity!

Last year, I was blind to the blessing the Lord gave me in the people I worked with and the community I was placed into... This year, I have embraced them, and been enlightened to how great they each are and how much I can learn from them! I have become a part of an amazing community at Eagle Ranch, another thing that I missed so much after I left WVR, and the Lord has put some amazing people in my life who are irreplaceable... He truly has blessed me so much with a community of believers that I feel very much an accepted part of! I thought I lost a family when I left WVR, but the truth is I didn't lose a thing! I still have a strong connection to my Tennesse family, and I've gained a new family in Chestnut Mountain, GA!

I'm a pretty lucky girl.....

Just kidding, I've adopted a motto this year, it goes like this: "I don't believe in luck." I say it 100 times a day.... I believe in God, I believe that God loves His children and blesses them adundantly, and I believe that He has shown His grace to me this year and all of my past years through His amazing blessings! I hope you're aware of His constant blessings in your life too, even when things are hard, or you feel so undeserving, because, just like the Israelites did after they entered the Promised Land, we will continue to mess up... But for some reason, the Lord continues to love us, to shower us with His grace, and He sees us through it all!!

I thank each of you for your continued prayers throughout this journey! I love you all so much! Your prayers are felt and very much appreciated every day that I walk through the doors at Eagle Ranch school, and I couldn't ask for a better group of people to be praying for us! I can see it in the kids, and I can sure see it in myself, y'all are being used in an enormous way as you pray for us! Thank you so so much!

His,

Anna Kathryn

I thank my God everytime I remember you!

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy!

Philippians 1:3&4

I finally have compiled a great list of quotes and conversations!! I hope you enjoy these, they're a long time coming!!

Question on a quiz:

What is the difference between the earth’s rotation and the earth’s revolution?

Best answer:

The rotation is when the earth moves around and the revolution is when Jesus comes back to the earth.

Praying with three of my boys one Monday morning:

Student: “God, make this a nice day for all of us…. Make this a nice day for Miss Buffington… Help Miss Buffington’s Chia Pet’s hair grow…”

Student: “So we’re made out of the same stuff that diamonds are made out of?”

Todd: "In a round about way..."

Student: “Wow, I didn’t know I was so valuable…”

what she doesn't know is she's far more valuable than diamonds!!

Student 1: “What is a wallaby?”

Me: “It’s a lot like a kangaroo…”

Student 2: “Yeah! Kinda like Miss Buffington…”

a little hard to follow, but this is a great one:

Student 1: "What came first, the chicken or the chicken sandwich?"

Student 2: "The chicken, otherwise where would the chicken for the sandwich come from?"

Student 3: "Y’all, it’s in the Bible, God created animals…"

Student 4: "Chicken sandwiches are in the Bible?"

Student 1: "You guys obviously aren’t reading your Chick-Fil-A cups…"

One student’s thoughts on the food chain, from lowest on the chain to the highest:

"Turtle -> Snake -> Raccoon -> Deer -> Cow"

Todd: "So what you're saying is the deer eats the raccoon and then the cow eats the deer?"

Student: "Right...."

Quiz question:

What is the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources?

Best answer:

Renewable-Tupperware, Nonrenewable-plastic bag