Joshua’s House

We recently had a company sponsor 10 hours of graphic design work.  We have hired a graphic designer to work on our visual identity (ie. logo, letterhead, business cards, colors, fonts, etc). Having this done will make the processes of designing and developing a website much simpler.
Other good news is that our photo database has been growing over the past few weeks.  We now have over 100 pictures, and that number should be growing!  Horray.

Recording continue to goes well.  There is still a lot to do and a lot of editing to be done.  Yesterday my three-year-old nephew heard some of what we had done so far and he wanted to hear more.  That’s a good sign that the audio is on the right track!  Praise the Lord.

More work is being done on the activity creation for the website as well, and it looks like we might have a place to do some testing with kids in January.  That way we can make any changes and see how well kids are really enjoying the activities we’re preparing before we go live online.

This week we received a new team member.  Mandy Brady has come on board as our official prayer warrior.  She will stay up-to-date on what’s going on with Joshua’s House and will pray for this ministry as it grows.  She will also recruit others to pray for Joshua’s House.  Welcome Mandy!

As you can see, a lot has been going on! God is continuing to bless this ministry!  Hooray!

That’s right there have been over 1,000 views to our site sense it launched in this new location last summer.  Hooray!  I just thought I would let you all know.

Also, as an aside, I’m getting positive volunteer responses, and I’m really going to be recruiting for the core team members big time!

That’s what I’ve been lately.  This week my husband helped me get a sound booth up in our apartment, I got everything organized, I contacted a lot of potential volunteers, worked on recording and lots more.  There is still tons to do, and I’m realizing more and more that I need help.  There is so much to do that I just don’t have experience with - like e-newsletters and design and story writing and the list goes on.  So right now I solicit your prayers that we will be able to find more volunteers for Joshua’s House.

God has been blessing a lot thus far, and he will continue to bless.

By the way, if you get a chance, check out the volunteer page - I’ve made some changes, and also the Core team pate - it’s new.

Over the past few months, the pace of Joshua’s House has been increasing all the more.  As this increase has taken place, my available time began to dwindle.  As a result I was trying my best to keep up with things the best I could with no time for organization.  This lack of organization has begun to be a problem.  However, yesterday I spent a lot of time working on remedying the problem.  I have started a database of contact and other info for all current volunteers (although not all have been entered yet).  I have organized my computer files so that I can actually find what I need.  I have set up an online project management system that will be a huge help.  I have set up a reasonable system for scheduling recordings and calling/sending out reminders.  The list goes on.  While I still have a lot to do it looks like things are headed in the right direction.  Organization is a good thing.

Wow! A lot of things have been happening lately here at Joshua’s House.

Friday night was the ministries expo. Lots of people showed up and God blessed us with 26 sign ups to volunteer! That’s awesome! The thing that’s even cooler is that people signed up for all sorts of different things! I am going to do my best to get in touch with everyone who wants to be a part of Joshua’s House to get them plugged in as soon as possible.

Another cool thing is that we had an audio sample at the Ministries Expo. It was certainly not a final draft and needs some more work, but it sounded pretty good. It gives me more passion and excitement to keep that work going.

Joshua’s House is getting some publicity as well. I am going to be writing an article for the Accent (the news paper here at SAU) per their request. The person in charge of the SAU podcast has also expressed some interest in having an interview with me about Joshua’s House. On top of all of that Joshua’s House may be featured in a magazine article (I cannot say for what magazine yet..shhh…it’s a secret). That’s so exciting. All of this means more people finding out about Joshua’s House, and more people means more prayers, support, and volunteers. Not only that, but when the webiste goes live more people will have heard about it meaning more people will be interested in it which means ultimately we can reach more people! Praise the Lord!

But there is even more good news! I have been able to drop some of my classes and work out some of my credits to be practicum hours that I can work on Joshua’s House. Basically this means that I will have a lot more time to devote to Joshua’s House! I have to do about 270 hours of practicum work this semester, which means about 18 hours a week dedicated solely to working on this ministry. I would have only had half of that without this opportunity! It’s amazing how God opens doors!

Continue to pray for Joshua’s House as it grows. Pray that we can get things rolling even faster so that more people can learn to fall madly in love with their savior and be challenged to grow in their Christian experience.

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted any news, so I thought it would be about time for an update. Recording is going really well, and we are making progress.  I’m still trying to get a hold of a bunch of people so that we can get their recording times set up.  While we are making a lot of progress I realized that I am going to have to cut back on some of my Joshua’s House hours due to school work.  Things should all still go just fine though.  I will still be recording on Sundays from 11:00am to 4:00pm and if someone who needs to record can’t make it on a Sunday, I may be able to work something else out for them.

Tomorrow night is the Ministries expo.  I’m still trying to figure out exactly what our booth is going to entail.  There are a couple scenes from Luke that we have all the voice recording for.  It would be really great if I can get the editing, music and sound effects done for one of those scenes so that we can play it at the booth.  I’m also going to be joining forces with many of my friends tomorrow afternoon for a crafting party.  At this party, we are going to do some of the activities for Joshua’s House so that we can display them at the table.  I think it will be a lot of fun!

Auditions for September 16 have been postponed to a later date.  I had something come up and will not be able to hold auditions on that day.  However, if you, or anyone you know is interested in auditioning, I would be happy to set up an individual audition.  Any Sunday that I’m doing recording for parts already cast, I would be happy to set up an audition for you.  Then, if you get a part, you’ll get a call back within 2 weeks from your audition.

The last bit of news is that for right now things will be slowing down a bit.  I’m in school and working on top of Joshua’s House, so I just don’t have the same amount of time to devote to it.  However, if there are a lot of people who are interested in volunteering from the ministries expo, that would move things forward 10 times faster! That would be awesome.

I’ll keep you posted on how ministries expo goes and how the recording is going.  God bless you all, and thanks for your prayers!!