Thank you for visiting our blog. 

We love each one of you, our family and friends, 

and are grateful for the part you play in our lives!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We Bollingers celebrated all aspects of life in 2018 - life with its ups and downs, joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats. Through it all, God was faithful to us as He promises He will be. 

Here are 5 short video clips from some of our favorite  memories this past year that made us smile. 

Recapturing a few memories of 2018 … 

March - Isaiah William arrived, healthy and cute as a button! Andy and Chiree loved him the moment they laid eyes on him and have enjoyed this first year of learning and growing as new parents. Isaiah is loving, active, and so cuddly. He even got to meet his two 91-year-0ld grandpas the first week of life! Of course, Grandma & Grandpa (Patterson) and Grammie & Papa (Bollinger) love Isaiah to pieces and are thrilled to be grandparents together after 40+ years of friendship. And, Aunt Melissa & Aunt Holly are totally into being awesome aunties!!

April – Our two-week trip to Florida began with celebrating Jimmy’s 70^th birthday with many dear, long-time friends who have moved to Florida area. It was such rich fellowship with friends we had done ministry together with in the 1970’s  and 1980's while we all attended Colorado Bible Church (also with dear childhood friends of mine while we lived in Germany in the 1960's). 

May - All our kids and grandkiddos were here in Neosho for family fun and to celebrate Jimmy’s 70^thbirthday a bit later. He's a very special guy to all of us, and he received a special photo memory book with sweet messages from family and friends!

July – All our family was together again in Denver at Andy and Chiree’s to celebrate our 40^th wedding anniversary. It was such a memorable time, and we thank our kids for all they did to make it special. Jimmy and I are very grateful to the Lord for each other and for Him helping us in our marriage through all these years. Yep, we are still crazy in love with each other!! To add to our celebration, we all had a ball being with extended family...Lots of wonderful sisters, brother-in-laws, aunts, uncles and cousins galore in Denver! 

Cool story for the 3 pictures below: 

• Nathan's sister, Chiree, marries Andy and moves to Denver. 
• Katie's sister, Emily, marries Stephen and they move to Denver. 
• Chiree, Andy, Emily and Stephen both have baby boys born in the spring of 2018, Isaiah and Marcus. 
• Now the six of them are good friends that do a lot of life together in the mile-high city. 

So, we call the little boys, "Cousins-in-Law." It worked out great that Katie's family came to Denver and had their family vacation following our family vacation in July. 

September – We babysat Brielle and Isaiah at the hotel while Nathan & Katie and Andy & Chiree worked the media team of Revive Our Hearts for the True Woman ’18 Conference in Indianapolis with 7,000 women attending and 500,000+ participating in the live steam. It was such an encouraging conference learning how to replace the lies we believe with the truths of scripture. (All of the sessions are now on-line...Do check it out!) Then all of us followed Nathan and Katie home to Michigan and joined Caleb and Grace, who were being babysat by Katie’s parents, for more fall-time fun memories.

November – Tears. “Papa-Great” Bollinger went to heaven to be with Jesus on the morning of Thanksgiving Day. We had tears of sadness when we told him goodbye as we loved him so much. We are grateful to have lived with him his last five months here on earth. Our tears of joy came as he is now able to worship face-to-face with the Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose again for his salvation! (Dear Lord, please hug him for all of us!)

 Dad's children and their spouses 

and 12 of his 14 grandchildren

FUNERAL MONTAGE

December - We celebrated the birth of our Savior with all of our kids and kiddos for a week (and with our niece who got to come for two days). We love them all so much!! It was a peaceful week of resting, eating, playing games, singing, taking pictures and special late night talks. And the little ones would add, "Giggling and tickling, too!" 

Thank you to our dear daughter-in-law, Katie, who keeps her camera handy to capture many treasured pictures and fills our walls with her beautiful photography. During her ten years as an instructor with The Institute of Photographic Studies (IPS), she taught Nathan (the student who fell in love with her and married her), as well as Chiree the next year at IPS in Dallas, and a few years later Andy at IPS in Colorado Springs.  Now all four of them love snapping those memories so beautifully! 

(Visit: photographybykatie.com )

 

So, what are our take-aways that the Lord taught us from the happenings in 2018 ? 

Remembering that God is the author of life, we must treasure it and celebrate it. 

Life on this earth was given to our new grandson this past year, and life on this earth was taken from our dear dad. “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:20).

Whatever causes us to need God is a blessing. The trials of our lives (health issues, resolving conflicts, planning for an unknown future, etc.) are what God calls trials and actually bring forth blessings. These trials are to be received as gold, and it is the refining process that brings out the pureness of gold. “That the trial of your faith, being more precious than of gold that perisheth…” (I Peter 1:7).

Still the greatest gift we have ever received is Christ’s righteousness in place of our sinfulness! “For He (God) has made Him (Christ) to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be might the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21). If you have not done so yet, please receive His righteousness by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for all your sins and rose again!

Sad current events and broken lives, including ours, are constantly reminding us that (as this beautiful song expresses), “People Need the Lord.” God wants us to be faithful to share the gospel and to be available and ready to encourage and strengthen those in need, whether spiritually needy or physically needy. All too often, sadly Jimmy and I have been hesitant or lazy or unaware. Thank you, Lord, for lovingly pushing us out of our nest…better known as our comfort zone. “Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (I Corinthians 4:2).

People Need the Lord

by Steve Green

Every day they pass me by.
I can see it in their eyes.
Empty people filled with care,
Headed who knows where.

On they go through private pain,
Living fear to fear.
Laughter hides their silent cries.
Only Jesus hears.

People need the Lord; people need the Lord.
At the end of broken dreams, He's the open door.
People need the Lord; people need the Lord.
When will we realize, people need the Lord?

We are called to take His light
To a world where wrong seems right.
What could be too great a cost
For sharing life with one who's lost?

Through His love our hearts can feel
All the grief they bear.
They must hear the words of life.
Only we can share.

People need the Lord; people need the Lord.
At the end of broken dreams, He's the open door.
People need the Lord; people need the Lord.
When will we realize that we must give our lives?
For people need the Lord; people need the Lord.