Drew and Leigh Helveston

Well, we did it! 4 weddings in 14 months and it is official: all of our siblings are happily married. I cannot believe what a whirlwind the past 14 months have been, but it has been wonderful seeing all of our family and entering into this new phase of life with new brothers and sisters. We are ever grateful for loving families are our families continue to expand... oh, and Tommy and Amy are expecting in July!! Talk about constant excitement. Congratulations to Leigh and Drew!! We love you both! And a special thanks to EVERYONE who has helped out in a number of ways to make all of these weddings so special.




Me and Roy with the new Mr. and Mrs. Congrats!


Leigh and Drew at the rehearsal dinner.


The bride getting ready!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We were able to spend several days in Port St. Joe with my family. It was so nice to relax and spend time catch up with our family. Living in Orlando has really made seeing our families more and more difficult. We have SO much to be thankful for!!! I was thankful to see Granny and Papa. They mean the world to me and I miss them so much. Papa is a nursing home in Panama City and I am so grateful that he had a good day when I had the chance to visit with him. Count your blessings!!!! We all have so much to be thankful for.


Dad raking the leaves. He is such a jolly man!

Granny and I call each other "Best Friend." We are two peas in a pod!

The Thanksgiving set up. Mom worked SO hard to prepare a delicious meal!! It was wonderful.

Mom, Granny, and I went to visit Papa the day after Thanksgiving. Granny brought him an orange to eat as a treat. He pretty much inhaled it :) She is so loving. I hope Roy and I are that in love after 62 years of marriage. I miss seeing him, but he seems to be doing well.

City Group Thanksgiving Dinner

Every month we have a "social" with our City Group, which is the community group we are involved in at City Church. One of the highlights of moving to Orlando has been our involvement with City Church. We are blessed beyond words with a Gospel community of men and women who want to know and walk with the Lord. We had Thanksgiving Dinner tonight at Mike and Jen Boland's house. It was so wonderful, as usual, to fellowship and enjoy each others company.



Michelle and her husband Bill have been instrumental in our involvement with City Church. With are grateful for their friendship.


Me and Christi... one of the many Christi's in our group.:)



The "ladies" of the group. A few were missing :(. We have men in the group too, but they were watching football. Surprise, surprise!

We need your help!

We cannot tell you how the Lord has provided for us during this "seminary" season of life. Other seminary students... and their wives... will tell you it is a very challenging time. We recently had some friends of ours get in a car accident where they were rear ended and their car was totaled :( They have 3 precious children and this car was considered their "family car." We are praying and asking the Lord to provide a mini-van for them. Please join us in asking for Him to provide for this. They have already faced a number of challenges and trials and still cling to their Lord. We have been blessed with their friendship and are praying for the Lord to, again, meet their needs. If you can help at all please e-mail me. BeckyMcDaniel08@gmail.com The Christian community is such a vital part of walking with God. We are trusting Him to provide!

The Lord will provide

Since moving to Orlando, we have been overcome by the Lord's constant provision. He has truly supplied everything that we need and it has been remarkable to see Him do so. Again, He has graciously provided for us. I was asked to begin tutoring twice a week at the school I work at and the little extra income is much welcomed. We are thankful for the Lord constantly showing us His love and grace by giving us all that we need.

Our New Couch!

The Lord provides in awesome ways and tonight was one of those times. We have a new couch! Well... it's not "brand new" but it is definitely new to us. Our friends Timothy and Stacy were trying to get rid of a couch and we were happy to take it. It's incredible! The Lord is so faithful to provide for us. It's a pull out couch and since we have a one bedroom apartment, we have been thinking through possibly getting a pull out couch in order to accommodate guests. So you know what that means... we are expecting visitors :) We can't wait to have friends and family come and stay with us. Thanks, Stacy and Timothy! Oh yeah... and our lamp has pretty much bit the dust. It has hung in there through several different moves over the past years so we'll have to invest in a new lamp soon as well.

Pawelkop Family Reunion

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Port St. Joe for the annual Paweklop Reunion, which is my mom’s cousin’s family, but they graciously have let us tag along for several years. It is always such a special time to enjoy and catch up with family. We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year!!

St. Augustine Weekend

We celebrated our very FIRST anniversary in St. Augustine on Friday and Saturday. It was so nice to have a much needed getaway. Roy picked out a delicious New Orleans style restaurant for us to eat at on Friday night and then we spent Saturday in the historic district of St. Augustine. We were able to visit the Castillo de San Marcos, eat at a yummy bakery, window shop at a number of great shops, and sit by the water and enjoy the view. It was an overall great weekend. We are incredibly grateful for our first year of marriage. The Lord has done oh so much in our lives and in our hearts. We are eager to see what year 2 has in store!!

CITY KIDS BASH!

The children's ministry at City Church is phenomenal and they have a wonderful program once a month called CITY KIDS BASH. Our City Group had the opportunity to serve at the Orlando Rescue Mission with the City Kids Bash. It was a great time! The kids played games, sang worship music, watched a video about The Creation Story, and made crafts :) Please join us in praying for these children. Pray that the Lord would really and truly open up the eyes of their hearts.

Happy Anniversary to us!

On Sunday, October 11th, we will celebrate our 1 year anniversary! I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. :) We are incredibly blessed and have had such a wonderful first year of marriage. We have faced a number of trials and challenges, but the Lord has been incredibly faithful. Here are a few highlights from our first year. We pray we will be blessed with many more years of marriage!

Getting into the swing of things...

We are officially on a schedule. We have a routine and I am so thankful! I am working full-time and Roy is a full-time student and puts in several hours of work on campus as an Admissions Counselor. Apart from work, we have a busy schedule. Roy just started playing slow pitch softball on Monday nights, Tuesday nights we go to some friends house for dinner and community ( a huge blessing and something we look forward to!), Thursday nights is our City Group night, and then we hang out with people here and there as well. We just love it here in Orlando!

I absolutely love my job at Partin Elementary School in Oviedo. I am an aide for a precious girl who is in a wheelchair in Kindergarten. I spend all day with kindergartners. They are teaching me so much. I never would have thought they would, but I am grateful for this opportunity. I come home with a smile on my face everyday. It is such a blessing to be a part of such a wonderful staff at Partin. I cannot thank the Lord enough for teaching me so much throughout the job hunting process. He really does know what is best. Roy is loving seminary! He is such a great student and honestly wants to process the things that he is learning. He has such a genuine desire to walk with the Lord and serve him in vocational ministry in the future. I come home and talk to him about what the kindergartners I work with said throughout my day and he talks to me about theology :) It's a great combination.

We have been able to get involved in the church we are going to. We volunteer in the nursery and are involved in a City Group, which has been huge in connecting us to the church. We are grateful for community, friendships, and fellowship. We meet on a weekly basis and study scripture and pray together. It is an intimate time. We have also had the chance to volunteer at the Orlando Union Rescue Mission. We will be doing that once a month and working with the children who actually live at the Mission. We are excited to share the love of Christ with them!

Roy has been playing basketball alot lately in an attempt to meet some guys. He goes to Baldwin Park with a few guys from our church and has gotten to know a few of them pretty well. Please continue to pray for these new relationships and pray that they will lead to Gospel conversation. I am also trying to think of ways to meet people. I thought about joining the YMCA, which I thought would be an incredible way to meet people, but we are on a tight "seminary budget" so I am trying to brainstorm other ways. I long for relationships with people who don't know the Lord and hope to love on women and share the GOOD NEWS with them. Please join us in praying for friendships with those who don't have a relationship with Jesus!

Also, to be bold, funds are tight. We are on two small incomes and trying to make our money go as far as we can :) We trust the Lord to provide and are praying for Him to lead us to some more income. Please pray that He will show us what to do in order to obtain some needed income per month. He has never failed us and we have never been without all that we need. We trust, again, that He will provide.

Next month we will celebrate our ONE YEAR anniversary! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. We hope to celebrate our anniversary weekend in St. Augustine.

If you are ever in the ORLANDO area please give us a call! :)

We are thankful for your encouragement and prayers. Here are a few prayer requests we have...

* Income. Trusting God to provide for our needs!
* Relationships with the LOST. We long for people to know and love Jesus. That is what life is all about and we truly believe that.
* Intimacy with the Lord. Through some trials we have faced and what we are learning, the Lord is truly working in our hearts both together as a married couple and individually. Please pray that we will spend as much time with Jesus as we can over the next three years in seminary.

I GOT A JOB!

It's official! I got a job. :) I will be working at Partin Elementary School in Oviedo. I will be an aide for a kindergarten student. This job is a huge blessing for us. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement. We have felt so loved during this time, thanks to you all :) The Lord has taught us so much through this process. It has been a tough road, but a huge blessing. God has provided!

Grateful for Encouragement!

I had a job interview Friday! :) After 5 weeks of being in Orlando, submitting countless applications and resumes, networking with friends of friends, I had my very first interview at a high school here in Seminole County. I feel like the interview went pretty well, all things considering. I keep replaying it in my head though, wishing I would have said this, wondering if I should have said that :) I guess I am just second guessing myself. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep last night. I was told that I should hear something today, but I didn't. The assistant principal I interviewed with said I might hear something tomorrow. We'll see! I know we have such a huge support system who have all been praying for and encouraging us. We are incredibly grateful! Please keep those prayers coming.

The Lord has been so sweet to us and has been confirmed our moving here in a number of ways. For one, we have made AMAZING friendships! There are 3 young married couples (2 from the church and one from RTS) that we have had the opportunity to get to know in the past few weeks. They are remarkable people and we have had more community in the lat month than we have had since graduating college. It has been amazing and we are so thankful for these new friendships.

Roy begins his Fall Semester at RTS on Wednesday. Please continue to lift him up in prayer during this time. Thankfully he'll begin working on campus very soon so we'll have a little bit of income. Digging into our savings is not something we enjoy, but we are grateful that the Lord has provided that for us and realize that we really and truly have never gone without what we need.

Please pray that this job will work out! It has been a tough process of having to wait... anxiously... and trust that the Lord knows what is best for me. Many wives of students at RTS are currently looking for jobs, so many of us are walking through this current trial together. It's great to know I'm not alone and really pushes me to pray for them along with myself. God is good!!! He is faithful and we know He will provide.

Going to the chapel...

My sister is married!!! I can hardly believe it. On Saturday my sister and Angel were married in our hometown of Port St. Joe, FL. It was such a beautiful ceremony, both with American and Mexican traditions. It was wonderful and the reception was the the funnest reception I believe I have ever been to. It was great to see everyone dancing and having a great time. It's always a joy to see family and friends and spend time together. With Tropical Depression Claudette on the move this weekend we had to move what was originally supposed to be an outside wedding indoors. It was remarkable to see friends and family helping decorate and organize hours before the wedding. Thanks for all of your help!! We couldn't have done it without you. I am so thankful I was able to spend a week at home with my family, enjoying time with family, catching up, and spending time with the Bride before her BIG DAY. What a blessing! Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Carrete!!

RTS Orlando

Roy is officially in his second week of seminary at Reformed Theological Seminary here in Orlando. So far, so good! He is taking Summer Greek I and will begin a full load of classes for the fall semester at the end of this month. He is in class from 9-12 and usually stays on campus studying with his classmates or on his own in the library. He is working so hard to keep the "big picture" of seminary before him, remembering why he is going to seminary, and reminding himself that JESUS is the ultimate goal.

Our Balcony Patio

We had a patio or balcony I guess you could say. It is definitely our favorite part of our 580 sq. ft. apartment. It has french doors from our living room area to the patio and it overlooks the woods, which to some may be boring, but to us is incredibly peaceful. Roy and I like to sit out there to have our quiet times and spend time journaling or reading. We have to sit out there before 10 or after 6 because it gets so hot here. My favorite thing is looking for butterflies. I know that sounds cheesey, but butterflies love to fly around back there. I love them! What I do NOT like are the BATS the also like to make their way to our patio around sunset each evening. One night we were on the patio and one flew right through our patio, and it scared me to death! Needless to say, we are more cautious about sitting out there in the evening. I took a few pictures of our patio. It was hard to get the whole space in the photo, but I hope you get the idea.

Lightning and Lizards

We are beginning to learn that a central Florida summer equals a thunderstorm or rain shower everyday. It WILL rain at some point during our day, we just never really know when. Thursday we had our first taste of Florida being known as the Lightning Capital of the World and believe me, we did not like it. We were heading down to College Park in Orlando (about a 30 minute drive) for our very first City Group meeting (like a small group for the church we go to). As we left our apartment we saw some incredibly dark clouds lingering just to the west of us. We drove through some heavy rain and terrible lightning! The crazy thing was, people we riding their bikes, waiting for the bus, and walking their dogs with lightning striking all around. I couldn't believe it! Roy was driving and I had my eyes closed and my ears covered. I DID NOT like the lightning and I'm learning that although people here are used to it, they aren't so fond of it either.


Another thing I'm having to get used to is LIZARDS. Normally, they really freak me out and here in Orlando, they are EVERYWHERE... no joke! I used to avoid them and be really scared of them, but when my friend Jenny told me they eat bugs like roaches (which I am deathly afraid of) I began to welcome them :) I'm still not the biggest fan of them, so I definitely won't post a photo.