Welcome September with Faithful Fitness Fellowship

The new year brings many new routines, classes, schedules, teachers, sports and church activities ramping up after the summer break.  So what about you? What does your calendar look like? What does your diet look like? Your fitness plan? Your spiritual life?

Friends, I invite you to join me this month as we take a realistic look at where we are, think about where we want to be and set some goals to get there. I know, I know, it’s a Holiday weekend! So go, enjoy your family and friends for an extra day, but first commit to coming back on Tuesday and joining this fellowship as we spend the month of September in self-discovery. Assessing where we stand: Spiritually, Physically, Nutritionally and Emotionally.

Our home base will be a public Facebook page called Faithful Fitness Fellowship. Come on by and “like” the page for updates in your news feed. If you are not on Facebook, drop me an email at FaithfulFitnessFellowship@gmail.com.

Beth Miramonti

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Connect with Lisa "Miss Lisa" Rayle

RUBY: Tell us about your role as a teacher at 1st Step Learning Center.

Miss Lisa:  I am one of the 3-year-old teachers at first step. This is my 5^th year teaching here, and I was a substitute teacher for one year. Our duties as a teacher are many.  We come up with lesson plans and help guide them through a year of exciting crafts, science projects, chapel lessons and other fun activities. We also help them develop their social skills with each other and build self-esteem.

RUBY: What is one of your favorite aspects of teaching preschoolers?

Miss Lisa:  Just watching them grow from the beginning of the school year to the end is so amazing. Sometimes they come in very shy and quiet, but by the end of the year they have opened up and are just so excited to get to school each day.

RUBY: Personally, our family was blessed to have you as a teacher for both of my girls, and they have wonderful memories of your being their teacher. Share a memorable teaching moment.

Miss Lisa:  As a preschool teacher for the better part of 25 years, I have many great memories. We have had caterpillars in our classrooms many times and just watching their excitement to see them turn into butterflies is always so fun! Helping them to get excited about learning is one of my favorite things.

RUBY: What are your plans for the summer break?

Miss Lisa:  This summer my husband and I, our three kids, our son-in-law and our granddaughter will spend 10 days in Florida together! Since my children have grown up, we don’t often get to have everyone together so I am very excited about this. I will also get to have my granddaughter for a week this summer. 

RUBY: Share a favorite Bible verse and/or inspirational song, and why this is a favorite.

Miss Lisa:  So many to choose from! Well, Philipians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” is the first thing that pops into my head. As I get older I jokingly say that Proverbs 16:31 “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of the righteousness,” is my new favorite.  One of my favorite songs right now is by Colton Dixon and it is called You Are. Really powerful and you may just see me belting it out in my car!

RUBY: Tell us about your family.

Miss Lisa:  I am a Navy brat who married a Navy man.  We moved to Troy in the summer of 2006, and this is the longest I have lived in one place in my entire life. I have lived in 7 states and 2 countries. We have three children and one grandchild. My oldest daughter, Jessica, and her husband and their daughter live in Lexington, KY. My middle child, Samantha, graduated from Greenville last summer with a degree in education. My youngest and only son, Christopher will graduate from Taylor University in just a couple weeks and will be attending medical school in Chicago. David and I have been married for 24 years.

RUBY: With Mother's Day around the corner, what does being a mother mean to you?

Miss Lisa:  I love being a mom and now a Grandma! To me being a mom means sacrifice, but in a great way. It takes a lot of time, money, love and energy to raise a child, but watching them become wonderful, amazing children of God is sooooo awesome!

RUBY: What trait do you most admire in others?

Miss Lisa:  I like to think of it more as a gift, but I really admire those encouragers out there! Those people who just always have a beautiful smile, a kind word or a compliment at the ready for whoever may need it!

RUBY: How may we contact you in order to make a further connection?

Miss Lisa:  We live in Troy in the Meadowbrooke subdivision. E-mail me and our number is 618-402-3995

Connect with Emily Rose Massey

RUBY: Tell us about your connection to Troy UMC.

Emily: Well, I first came to Troy UMC in 2002 with my youth group for the Fire-Up Conference. I gave my heart to the Lord that weekend and my life was forever marked by God. I came back with my youth group every year after that. That conference fueled my life in high school and something in me changed every time. I was very grateful to be asked to minister at Troy UMC a couple weeks ago. It had been 10 years since I had been there, so it was a very special time for me because it was where my journey began with the Lord.

RUBY: Share a favorite Bible verse and/or inspirational song, and why this is a favorite.

Emily: The very first verse in the Bible that I memorized was Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

This is something that I declare constantly because it reminds me that I don’t have to struggle on my own in life; that I am an over-comer because of the One who lives inside me. Jesus is my strength. No matter what I am going through, I know that I can always lean on God and He will help me get through to the other side. The Bible also says that the Lord is made perfect in our weakness, which means He loves it when we admit we can’t do it on our own and we fully depend upon Him. I am a perfectionist and sometimes I struggle with giving God control in all areas of my life. But we weren’t made to go through life trying to achieve everything on our own. Eventually, because we are human, we will get burnt out, stressed, and exhausted. Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light. He just asks us to come to Him and He will help us carry the heavy load that can weigh us down in life. Any song that talks about the topic of surrendering our life to God is probably one of my favorites. There is a song called “I Surrender” by Kim Walker-Smith that I have been listening to recently during my prayer time. The chorus is: “All to You, I surrender everything, every part of me. All to You, I surrender all of my dreams, all of me.” That is beautiful to God’s ears when we say that to Him.

RUBY: I thoroughly enjoyed your testimony and singing. You inspired me to think of my own Jesus backstory. Thank you for sharing your story and your talents with us. Which songs did you sing?

Emily: Thank you very much! I’m so happy that I was able to minister and share my story with everyone. I sang “Breathe” by Marie Barnett. An oldie, but a goodie, I say. It was written in 1995, but it was a special song to me in high school because I first heard it at Chrysalis, a Christian retreat for high school students in 2002.

The other song that I sang was “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan. The lyrics of this song deeply move me because it speaks of God’s amazing love for us. The first few words are so powerful: “He is jealous for me...” Some people don’t fully understand what that actually means. It doesn’t mean that God is jealous of us and doesn’t want us to be happy. When the Bible declares that God is a jealous God it means He wants our whole heart completely devoted to Him because He just loves being with us. He doesn’t want us to put our hope or trust in anything or anyone else but Him because He will never fail us. He created us to walk with Him and be His family. He understands that we can’t spend every waking moment with Him, but when we can spend time with Him, He enjoys it so much! Why? Because He loves us and loves being around us! This is definitely a message our world needs to know.

RUBY: Tell us about your family.

Emily: I met my husband Paul in 2008, shortly after I graduated college. I started attending a church with my family in Fenton, MO, which is where Paul had spent his entire life. I had plans to move to LA by 2009 to pursue a career as an actress, but those plans quickly changed when I met Paul. I like to say God had other plans that were way better than mine! Instead of moving to LA, I moved to St. Louis and Paul and I got married in December 2009. He truly is my best friend and I can’t imagine my life without him. We just make a great team in all that we do. We get the privilege of running in ministry together at our home church on the worship team where I sing and he plays bass. We are also the leaders of our church’s young adult group. He and I take turns teaching and I help leading worship. We will hopefully be buying our first home in the fall and eventually begin our family. We both cannot wait to have children! But for now, we are enjoying this season of our life just the two of us serving God with all that is within us.

RUBY: What is your favorite meal?

Emily: I enjoy any kind of pasta dish. Italian food is definitely my favorite.

RUBY: Which moment from your life would you choose to relive if you could?

Emily: I was thinking about approaching this question as something that I would like to “do-over” again, but I don’t live my life with regrets. I believe that everything that has happened in my life has made me who I am today and has made me stronger. But if I could relive a moment that just brought me so much joy, that would be my first date with my husband. We spent 10 hours together that day just talking and laughing. It was so long that we had to eat twice! LOL It is a moment that I cherish dearly and can’t wait to tell our children about it one day.

RUBY: Where do you create?

Emily: One day, when we have a house, I will have my own special room for prayer, writing, music, and other artsy stuff, but for now in our tiny, 1 bedroom apartment, I actually get a lot of my ideas in the bathroom when I’m getting ready in the morning. I love listening to music when I’m by myself and that helps with the creative mindset I think. I am a songwriter so I’m always listening to music. I also enjoy listening to music when I blog or journal. Writing has always been a passion of mine ever since I was very little.

RUBY: What are you reading now?

Emily: I just finished a book by Bob Sorge called “The Secrets of the Secret Place.” One of my goals for 2013 is to read at least one book a month, so for this book, I actually mapped it out to where I could read it over the course of the month and take it much slower and let everything really sink deep in my heart. I like to read books that will help me go deeper in my relationship with God. This book was definitely that. My next book that I will start in February is called “Abide in Christ” by Andrew Murray.

RUBY: What is your greatest accomplishment?

Emily: My husband and I somehow managed to get ourselves in about $15,000 of credit card debt in 3 years. The Bible says, “Little foxes spoil the vine.” And it’s true. Just spending a little bit here and there can really catch up to you if you aren’t paying attention to it. We had some major financial things hit us too, which didn’t help matters either. But in August 2011 we felt like we couldn’t handle the pressure any longer. We started to read “Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. Some friends of ours got us the book as a wedding gift and it just sat on our bookshelf for 2 years. But that book, along with the Bible, helped us out a ton! It takes a lot of discipline and patience to get out of debt. Paul took on 2 jobs and we didn’t see much of each other for over a year. We sold certain things that we didn’t think we needed anymore and even sold my paid off car to help take care of a majority of the debt. We didn’t eat out as much and learned how to live on less than we had before. Within 15 months, we paid off our very last credit card. The weight had finally been lifted! We would have never been able to do it on our own. The Lord definitely blessed us constantly, but He also used this to teach us a lesson discipline and hard work. But it is possible!

RUBY: How may we contact you in order to make a further connection?

Emily: You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Emily Rose Massey. You can also check out my website, www.emilyrosemassey.com, for my schedule, full testimony, and links to my blog and email.

God bless!

Connect with Dannette McKellar

1.  How long have you been attending Troy UMC and what drew you to this church?

Since 1995.  We visited several churches when we first moved to Troy and felt at home here.  Plus it was close to home, which meant we would be more likely to get more involved than just attending on Sundays.

2.  Which service do you typically attend?

9:00.  We enjoy the praise and worship music.  Also, my husband, Andy, occasionally plays guitar with the Praise Band.

3.  Share a favorite Bible verse, and why this is a favorite.

Philippians chapter 4 gives me so much encouragement.  One favorite verse is Philippians 4:13 because it gives me courage to face difficult situations, while reminding me that I must depend on God rather than being too confident in myself.  Another favorite is Philippians 4:6-7.  I've prayed through those words often and God has used them to carry me through difficult times.

4.  Tell us about your family.

My family includes my husband and best friend, Andy (we've been married since 1983) and Nike, the most affectionate cat I've ever known.  I’m thankful my mom moved from Florida to Cambridge House in Maryville nearly two years ago; I enjoy spending time with her every week.  

Andy and Dannette McKellar

Dannette's mother and husband, Andy

Dannette's cat, Nike
Andy and I never had our own children, but we sponsor children around the world through Compassion International.  Since 2004, we've been blessed to travel around the world to meet a number of our sponsor children (the ones we’ve met are pictured in the collage).  It's been amazing and educational to see firsthand the poverty that exists in their worlds and the hope Compassion is bringing.    

5.  Share your involvement with Compassion International.

We've been Compassion sponsors since 1990.  In 2004, God led us to Guatemala to meet our sponsor child, Viviana.  That trip changed our world as it opened our eyes to poverty and God's heart for the poor.  So we became volunteer advocates for Compassion, speaking on behalf of children in poverty to churches and individuals, whoever will listen.  We've been blessed to see Compassion at work in nine countries around the world and to visit Compassion’s headquarters in Colorado Springs.  We’ve seen firsthand, so we are confident that Compassion is using donations as promised to release children from poverty in Jesus' name.  I also write devotionals every week to encourage other Compassion Advocates in their ministries.  It's been an amazing blessing to combine my passions for writing and encouraging others with my travel experiences to do God's ministry!

6. What do you do besides volunteering for Compassion?

I work full-time for a financial services firm in St. Louis as a project leader in their information technology area. One of my favorite responsibilities is creating and facilitating project management training; it’s rewarding to see other project leaders grow and develop.  Outside work, I enjoy spending time with Andy, especially when we’re travelling or hiking.  We have a personal goal to hike in all 50 states, and have already hiked in 34, though our progress slowed down when we started traveling internationally.  I also love scrapbooking, especially when I am creating scrapbooks from our travels. 

7.  What has been the most spiritual experience of your life?

Worshiping on our Compassion trips is near the top. I vividly remember the first Compassion center we visited in Rwanda, Africa. We were in a simple mud brick church with a dirt floor and no electricity.  The small church was dimly lit by sunlight streaming through the open door and windows.  But joy radiated from the faces of nearly 300 children.  I've never felt the Holy Spirit more than I did when those children began singing praise songs at the top of their lungs in their native Kinyarwandan.  We couldn’t understand their words, but we knew God was alive in that place.  Andy often says he feels closest to God when he has his passport in hand. There's a lot of truth in that when you're visiting Christians in the developing world.  It's amazing to be with people who are overflowing with gratitude when they have so little.  

8.  How may we contact you in order to make a further connection?

I'm one of those rare people who isn't on Facebook, but you can email me at dkmckellar@charter.net or call me at 667-8378.  I also hope you'll visit my Compassion web page, www.compassion.com/dannettemckellar to learn more about changing the world for children in poverty.