Ashland Bound

For those of you who do not know, Trey and I are currently in the process of moving to Ashland, AL. I don't expect that many of you know where this is, we sure didn't. So here is a map and a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Ashland is the red balloon on bottom right.  It is about an hour and a half from Birmingham.

Clay County Courthouse. Which just happens to be in the middle of Ashland's town square.

This is 1/4 of the town square at dusk. It is the best picture I could find on google...sorry.

Ashland is a small little town in Clay County, population 2,037. It is quite the contrast to Auburn. It is not the typical place you would expect a newly wed couple to be moving. Nor is it where Trey and I saw ourselves moving anywhere in the near future, or ever for that matter. But, God had different plans for us. Below, I will try and give you a synopsis of how this all came to be.

To start with, I will give you a little bit of the back story. When Trey moved to Auburn, he became immediately involved at Lakeview Baptist Church. He was active with the Lakeview youth group, as well as, leading musical worship for the college ministry. It was through a youth event, in 2008, that he met Jorge Ponce, a fellow member at Lakeview. They were not so much close friends, but more acquaintances.

Fast forward...

After Trey and I got married, we remained active at Lakeview. We continued to seek God for direction in the next steps of our lives. It was in July of 2011, that Trey received a call from the pastor of Clay Community Church. He was looking for someone to fill in temporarily as the musical worship leader. It just so happened that Jorge was the pastor. Trey accepted the invitation and led worship for the July 4th Sunday service. For the next few months, he continued to serve at CCC. After a couple of months, Jorge asked that we pray about serving at CCC on a more permanent basis. Trey and I earnestly sought the Lord on this decision. It was in October that Trey accepted the position as music minister. We really felt God calling us to serve at CCC and minister to the people in Clay County. There are so many needs here and we can see so many opportunities for the Lord to work. We are so excited to see what God is going to do!

Clay Community Church meets in the Ashland Theater, on the square, for Sunday morning corporate worship.

Ashland Theater

My handsome husband leading the church in corporate worship to our Savior

We have anywhere from 20 to 50 people attend on any given Sunday. However, we have seen steady growth since we have been involved. CCC also has home groups that meet once during the week for Bible study and fellowship. Please pray that God continues to grow our members in the faith and knowledge of Christ. Also pray against the many strongholds that satan has here. Your prayers are greatly needed and greatly appreciated.

Today is the day!

Well, we finally did it!

Trey and I have been talking about starting a blog for some time now and today is the day. Our main inspiration for starting this blog is to keep our family and closest friends up to date and involved in our lives. This has proved difficult in the past seeing as how some of our friends live in California, Arkansas, North Carolina, Thailand and soon to be Israel, while we live in Alabama. There are also many people in Alabama we are unable to see as often as we would like. We do not want this to replace face-to-face or telephone contact. We do desire that it be a means to keep our loved ones close and involved.

So here we are. Me and my handsome husband.

We have been married for almost a year and a half and we are loving every minute of it. The Lord has been so gracious to bless us with each other and a wonderful marriage. Even so, we are still two sinners trying to live lives worthy of the gospel. I am so thankful that we serve a gracious, forgiving and loving God for the many times that we fail to live in such a manner.

The other member of our family is Sully. The most awesome dog ever! Isn't he cute?!

We chose the title of the blog, as yes, a play on our last name, Gallant, but the adjective "gallant" means to be courageous or brave. But more importantly, we chose it based off of what the Bible teaches us in 2 Peter 3:17-18. "You therefore, beloved, knowing this before hand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." We desire to live our life together growing gallantly in the knowledge and understanding of Christ our Lord. Our prayer is that we never become complacent in thinking there is no growth or knowledge to be had. We desire that as the Lord grows us, others may see and hear and God will be glorified.

There is a lot going on in our life to blog about, but we will leave it at this for the first blog. So be looking for another post in the near future.