You're invited

I've been a part of East Bayou (now "The Bayou Church") since 1998. 

And in all the years that I've been there, 

I've never once invited anyone to church just to hear me sing. 

It's never been about me, but only about Jesus-  
who is worthy of all our praise, our love, and our adoration. 

Besides, there's so many great reasons to come to The Bayou Church. 
I mean, Jesus shows up. 

The God of all creation is worshipped and adored and meets you right where you are, warts and all. Folks are real there. I've made lifelong best friends at The Bayou.

There are so many reasons to choose The Bayou as your home to worship. 

But this week, I want to invite you to come to church with me to support me 

as I sing my last Sunday with the folks at The Bayou in Youngsville.

I want you to come and see what we've got going on in our little church. 

It's something pretty amazing.

Five years ago I was asked by Youngsville campus pastor Andy Tribe to go on a journey with him: 

To open the doors of a Youngsville location of East Bayou with him.

To build a band from the ground up. 

To leave all I knew and step out in faith to lead this new body of Christ in song.

And it's turned out to be the best five years of my life.

But it was not just about going to church and leading worship.

We built something from the ground up. We built friendships.

We built community in Christ. And we've gotten to see God at work.

Andy is an amazing person. And not just because he is my pastor and my boss.

He's just a great guy. He's the real deal. He doesn't pretend to be better than anyone else. 
He's just honest and sincere, and just as messed up as the rest of us!

And it's been SUCH a blessing to work with this man.

But let me tell you how the band came to be... 

In the early days, Randy "Brud-n-law" Simon and Daren Moody helped me out by picking up instruments they hadn't played in years, just so we could have a band on Sunday morning.

Brian Petry has been with me since the start, and I don't know what I would have done without him. We played together at the Lafayette location and he agreed to help me out in Youngsville because he believed in what we were doing out there. 

He's a CRAZY talented drummer and a good friend. 

I don't know about other singers, but I anchor to the drummer. And I knew that if BP was behind the kit, it was going to be a great morning.

Then one day, this friendly bearded guy named Glenn Lancon walked into our church.

That was Christmas eve, 2010. And he's been by my side every single Sunday since.

He's supported me as a leader, he's brought excellent musicians to our church, and He has grown tremendously in his walk with Christ. It's been amazing to see what God has done in his life, and my life is richer because he's in it.

And see those guys behind him? That's Gordon Aloisio on the left. 

He can flat out PLAY the bass, folks. The level of musicianship rose exponentially when he came on board.

And he's a superb human being as well. I'm blessed to call him friend.

The guy on the right is Glenn's son, we affectionately call "lil Glenn."

The kid's got MAD skills.

And I've been blessed beyond words that I've gotten the chance to play music and worship the Lord with these guys.

And then there's Jill Merkl. 

She's quiet and reserved, and you'd never know that she has a really major job where she deals with multi-million dollar accounts every day. And you'd never know that she can play jazz piano like nobody's business. She has become a dear friend to me and I'm so privileged to know her.

So many other folks have been with me on this journey: Chalan Thibodeaux- bass player extraordinaire and one of my best friends; Linton Broussard- another amazing bass player and super person; Mona Tribe- who has sung by my side every week since the day we opened; Louis Bourque- drummer and all around great guy; and many other folks that I'm thankful for.

And of course our awesome techies, Jeremy, Scott, Tyler, Dana, and Julie.

 They've given of their time every single week that we've been open to make us sound great.

So I guess I'm really NOT inviting you just to hear me sing.

I'm inviting you to see what God's doing out in Youngsville.

I'm inviting you to experience a really special community of real folks 

who just love Jesus and are trying to live right by him. 

I hope you'll join me. 

It would sure bless these folks if you came.

And I hope that each of them know how much they have blessed me.

Bluegrass set

Sunrise service, Sugarmill Pond

Lord's Supper

• The Bayou Youngsville meets at Ascension Upper School

• 10:30am service

• 1800 Chemin Metairie Pkwy

• Youngsville, Louisiana 70592

Finding the Balance

So when you have a sick kid, you'll do just about anything to get her well. 

At least I would.

I'm not kidding. If I thought it would have helped, I would have danced on my head, bought a voodoo doll, anything. Luckily our naturopath suggested some legitimate ideas that would speed her healing. One of the things she recommended was a gluten free and dairy free diet.

So I dove in head first.

We removed all gluten from our home. I blogged about that here: Get Rid of the Gluten 

And then we took out dairy. Not hard for our house in regards to milk, but Hannah is a huge lover of all things cheese. So this was incredibly difficult for her. 

We ate like this for three months without waiver. 

It was expensive.

It was exhausting.

And it was NOT sustainable for us.

God bless the people who can eat this way all the time. But our little family cannot. And I'm okay with that. We did it the entire time Hannah was going through her medical crisis. 

But lawd, I'm tired. And I want cheetos.

Okay, not really. 

(Okay, yeah, I really do want them... but we're not going to veer THAT far off course. 
Okay we might. But if we eat them, it will be more like a treat than an every day thing. 
Ooh, lawd, I need therapy...)

What we are learning now is to find the balance.

Our financial life will be changing next month and so there are some things that we just won't be doing anymore. James and I sat down and decided what we are willing to spend money on, and what will fall by the wayside. We both agreed that while shopping at the farmers markets are really fun, shopping there EXCLUSIVELY is not affordable. So we go to the markets when we are out of goat's milk or out of organic meats and eggs. But we get our produce at the regular ole grocery store (usually Target or Rouses). I buy organic apples, celery, berries, and lettuce/spinach. But everything else is just conventional produce. 

And yes we eat dairy. Good grief who can live without cheese and sour cream now and then?!

But we drink goat's milk, not cow's milk.

Balance.

What we won't sacrifice is where we get our meat and eggs. Organic, free range meat and eggs are just better!! And with Whole Foods coming to Lafayette, more and more stores are carrying organic meat. You just have to be observant when you shop. It's out there if you look hard enough.

I applaud all the people I know who live a Paleo lifestyle.

Wow. You are amazing. 

I am in awe of your willpower and determination.

But I'm tired.

And I want bread.

After going through this process, I have decided that there is so much information out there on blogs, websites, and on social media that you can believe pretty much anything you want to believe about a product: 

Organic food is the best food. Oh no, organic food has cross-contamination from GMO corn crops. 

Buy organic. Oh but don't buy organic from Target because it's from China. 

Diet Coke will absolutely kill you. Diet Coke isn't bad for you. 

Eat real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup. Wait, don't eat sugar either.

I surrender!!

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One final thought...

I may post a pic of food at a restaurant or a pic of something I cooked. 

If it's gluten free or organic, I'll tell you. 

But if it's from 5 Guys, of course it's not gluten free. It's a HAMBURGER with a big fat nasty bun. 

But it's not an every day occurrence anymore. It's a treat. 

Balance.

Got (Goat) Milk?

So if you know me at all, you know that I HATE (detest, loathe entirely) pasteurized cow's milk. For years I have been a total conspiracy theorist about our nation's milk and the correlation between drinking this nasty hormone-filled product and the fact that I have third graders with bigger boobs than me.

But I digress.

So I vowed that my little girl wasn't going to get all that hormone-injected cow's milk that is in the grocery stores. She rarely drank milk as a little girl but I made sure she got lots of calcium in her diet by giving her spinach, cheese, yogurt, nuts, and oranges. Yes, you can get calcium from other sources than cow's milk! Shocking right?!! I was on a mission.

As I've researched milk, I have found that it's in the pasteurization process where cow's milk is totally destroyed of all nutritional value. So cow's milk IS very healthy and full of wonderful digestive enzymes, but sadly, pasteurized milk is dead to all nutrients. If you want to read more information on this, complete with backing research, check out this website: Real Milk

This is the reason we need RAW MILK legislation passed in Louisiana to allow farmers to sell raw milk, which has not been pasteurized. Read more about that here:

Sources of real milk and real milk products in Louisiana:

Status of Louisiana-based raw milk: There are no raw milk listings for Louisiana farms at this time. The government has been harassing the only farmers who were attempting to manage a cowshare, and so their listing has been removed for now. According to the regulatory agencies in Louisiana, cowshares are illegal. However, cowshares are a contract known as an agistment, whereby one person is contracted to care for the livestock owned by another person (this arrangement may be more familiar to you as owning a share in a bull or a racehorse). Agistments have a long history of legal precedent dating back to English Common Law. Louisiana residents should be outraged by this infringement of their rights and should take several steps:

1. Join the Weston A. Price Foundation and become active in the local Louisiana chapters. As a foundation member you can elect to receive emailed Action Alerts that let you know what you can do to protect your rights to obtain and consume farm foods.
2. Join the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (farmtoconsumer.org) as a consumer member ($50/year) or farmer member ($125/year). The fund represents farmers who provide nutrient dense foods, and also protects consumers, including cow share owners, from unwarranted government intrusion.
3. Let your representatives and the heads of your regulatory agencies know that you are displeased with their harassment of farmers, and that you are aware of and intend to exercise your right to enter into contractual agreements with farmers to care for and milk cows that you own.
4. Form private buying clubs and obtain your farm foods from a farmer in a neighboring state. Let your representatives know that your food dollars are going out of state because of Louisiana regulations.

So while I wait for raw milk legislation to pass, we have started getting goat's milk from a local farmer, WestMar Farms.

Goat's milk tastes like whole cow's milk. It's delicious and cold and leaves no strange after taste. It simply tastes like MILK.  We go to the Horse Farm to get our milk from WestMar farms every other week. If we run out early, we run to Sandra's Whole Food Stores. They have it for sale there and it's worth the drive to get our good goat's milk!! 

Goat's milk is pasteurized, but it's extremely low-heat pasteurization, which only kills off bacteria and parasites, but protects all the wonderful nutrients in the milk.  

If you go to the horse farm, look for their booth! They are there every other week!! WestMar farms.

ps.... Hannah asks to drink it ALL the time!!

Here's an article on the reason someone would choose to drink goat's milk over cow's milk from the website "Ask Dr. Sears":  Goat's Milk

Epstein Barr

About a month ago we found out that Hannah has Epstein Barr.

WHAT??!!

My first thought was, 

"Seriously? Can we catch ONE break around here, please?!"

We knew she had a virus ever since she first got sick back in November. Our naturopath (Dee Baudoin- love her) told us that she had massive amounts of bad bacteria AND a virus in her body, but she was SO sick that her little body could not handle being treated for the bacteria and a virus at the same time. And since the strep was dangerous, we had to treat that first. Now that the bacteria is gone (Hallelujah!!), her body can handle the next phase of treatment.

Dr. Oz describes Epstein Barr this way:

The Epstein-Barr virus is the most common viral infection in humans. It can lay dormant for years and cause crippling long-lasting fatigue. But most people never know that they have been infected.  

Infection with Epstein Barr Virus is virtually inescapable; in the US, 95% of all adults will be infected by age 40, and 50% of all children by age 5. Many people don't realize they have been infected because they never feel sick. Once infected however, you harbor the virus for good. 

Everything else Dr. Oz says about Epstein Barr isn't as good, so I didn't post that stuff. ;)

The only thing we've noticed is that she is a lot more fatigued than normal. 

She is also a lot more emotional- moody, crabby, whiny. 

Oh yeah. 

It's been a barrel of laughs at the Bodin house.
Did I mention I got off my antidepressant too?
Good times.

We think that since she's been taking the Epstein Barr series, this is the real reason she's having fevers. I think it was coincidental that she got a little stomach bug during this treatment, but again, it could also be from the series. Either way, we have to get through another month of treatment. Come on summer.