Bring the Rain | 2009 September

Meet "C"

September 16, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

I can’t tell you how I love this girl and her family. We have been so blessed by their miracle, and feel like we have front row seats to the Lord’s great work in their lives.

I have encouraged her to tell her story for herself, and to that end she has created a blog which I think you will be incredibly blessed by.

Thank you to all of you for your continued support for her and her family-you have no idea how much it is appreciated. The Lord is amazing, isn’t He?

Click here to read her story, and please feel free to leave your prayers for her and your own thoughts and experiences-she is so looking forward to building community with others.

Proud of you, Candice. Keep making Jesus famous with your life…we love you all so much!!!

Blessings,

Ang

Filed Under: Candice and family

Our First "Bloom" Guest

September 16, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

I won’t keep posting these here, but for this first week I wanted to remind all of you who are a part of Bloom to click on over to see our first guest talk about chapter one.

That was a really long sentence.

And in a little bit I’m going to put up the other special guest’s post, which has nothing to do with Bloom

Man I’m glad I know all these cool people…:)

Pete is an amazing Pastor, and if you want to watch his sermons online, please click here. This past week was the first in a series I think you will love! It is about Religion Lies, and will be the first one you see on the media page.

You all have a great morning!

Ang

Filed Under: Bloom (in)courage, Pete Wilson

Crazy Love Kick-Off: Chapter One

September 13, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

We won’t do this every week, but since we are just starting we wanted to remind you to hop over to the Bloom Blog to watch our weekly video discussion and then join us on the ning community to further discuss the intro and chapter one.

PS – be sure to notice our funny expressions that vimeo captured in the start frame. Obviously, vanity is not our top priority.

Jessica and Angie

Filed Under: Bloom (in)courage, crazy love

AMAZING GIVEAWAY!!

September 7, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

Let me put this bluntly.

Lisa Leonard is the most talented jewelry creator on the planet.

Dramatic? Quite possibly.

True? Absolutely.

Just take a gander, would you?

She was kind enough to send me a necklace when I was pregnant with Audrey, and it had all of the girl’s initials on it. It meant the world to me, and I have become one of her biggest fans. You may have seen her styles in People magazine (and I suppose I would have as well, if I read those types of things…ahem) and other magazines as well (InStyle weddings, Glamour, Pregnancy, Cookie, Wondertime…are you getting the idea that she’s kind of good at what she does???)

While most of the world knows her as a jewelry genius, I really came to respect her as a mother, and you will too. She has a beautiful, God-written story, and to be a spectator to it is a gift in itself. I am proud to be on the (in)courage team with her, and to support her incredible craft. If you want to read more about her and her amazing family (and SPECTACULAR photography skills), click HERE to go to her blog.

SO, Lisa has graciously agreed to let me give away (ARE YOU READY FOR THIS???)

3 $50 gift cards to her website!!!!

And all you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. The winners will be chosen at 6 p.m. tomorrow (9/8/09).

Go on!!! Enter now!!!

And many thanks and blessings to you, Lisa…

Ang

Filed Under: giveaway, Lisa Leonard

Crazy Love is on its way…

September 2, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

I have GREAT news to share!!! we had almost 300 requests for books, and because of your incredible generosity, we are able to get everyone a copy!!!! AMAZING!!!! There are also over 200 people who have already joined the ning site and are chatting it up over there.

The only ones we are unable to get out right now are to other countries, and I do apologize about that. Hopefully we will be better at that with the next book.

SO, if you requested a book and have not received an email from me saying otherwise, you should be receiving your copy shortly. If you have not received it in a week or so, please feel free to email me and I will notify your sponsor to make sure everything is on track.

If you are one of the people who requested a book, please hop over to http://bloomcommunity.ning.com/ and sign up so that you can jump into conversation. It is already exceeding our expectations and is really already feeling like community. Thank you Jesus!!!!

I am LOVING the book, and wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Cook Publishers for sending 20 complimentary copies to us. I would also love to thank all of you who have selflessly offered to gift others with the book-I am blown away by the way the body of Christ has stepped up and helped so much. I know we are all feeling the crunch of the economy right now, and to see this love in action is humbling to say the least. I am so proud to consider you all friends, and I can’t wait to get to know you better.

If you haven’t already, please sign up to follow our blog and also, sign into our ning site. We’re up and running, thanking the Lord for an opportunity to get to know Him (and each other) better.

Much love and gratitude to you all today,

Angie

Filed Under: Bloom (in)courage, crazy love

Feathers

September 1, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

When I was in the ninth grade, I read “The Great Gatsby” by F.Scott Fitzgerald and my life changed forever.

The truth is, I remember very few of the details of the story, but I do vividly recall the way my teacher soaked up every moment of teaching us how to read great literature.

While the rest of the class leaned back in their chairs and stuffed notes in each other’s backpacks, I hung on her every word, lamenting the moment the bell would ring. My notebook was filled with tidbits of knowledge, methods of analyzing stories and characters (anyone know why she was named “Daisy” in The Great Gatsby?) What had always been a great love of mine turned into a college minor and a passion that has brought me more joy than I can describe.

To read the rest of my post on “hope,” please go to incourage.me…

Ang

PS…There was another post that came up at the same time, and it’s a good one! Make sure and read the one right before this about our new book club (if you can hear anything through my obnoxious laughing).

Filed Under: (in)courage

Introducing Bloom

September 1, 2009 By Angie Leave a Comment

Jessica and I tried for HOURS to make a video for you all to watch, and our *plan* was to inform you of the details for our new book club.

That plan failed miserably.

SO, here’s the scoop:

The name of the book club is Bloom and the tag is Read. Discuss. Grow.

Do you love it as much as we do? We think that it has so many cool interpretations. Our prayer is that it will become a vibrant community of believers who can challenge each other and encourage one another in our walks. Our common bond will be the books that we read – and we think Crazy Love is the perfect way to start.

We will start discussing Crazy Love on Sept. 13th…we have set up a website (which was designed by the amazing Danielle at The Design Girl), as well as a ning site to keep everyone on the same page.

Pun completely unintended.

Don’t be intimidated by the ning site. It is a free social network that will allow us to have live chats, post questions/thoughts/recipes/whatever on the discussion boards and engage in the Bloom community. Be sure you upload a picture so we can see each of you! There isn’t much there now, but there will be. Just be patient with us.

Each week we will do a blog post about the chapter assigned from the previous week (ie: on Sept. 13 we will blog about the intro and chapter 1). Then that Wednesday, guest bloggers will write a post about the the chapter/topic of discussion/something relevant. We believe this will be a great way to get different opinions and encourage conversation. We are really excited about the contributers who are on-board-we have pastors, writers, all kinds of fun people.

So, in lieu of an informative video, have a laugh with (at) us, and we’ll see you on the 13th.

Bloom Introduction from angie smith on Vimeo.