Be Prepared!

We were warned during candidate orientation that we needed to be prepared to do anything at a moment’s notice during deputation. We did not realize how literal that was until these last few weeks! Now, even more so! We went to a wedding today for a couple friends and the pastor that officiated is pastor of the church we’ll be speaking at on the 29th. He and the coordinator for the VBS this coming week (another of my good friends) asked if we would be willing to help. Well..I’m always up for working with kids! So, this coming week, I will be teaching Monday and Tuesday (kinda filling in for someone who can’t be there due to a death in the family) the Bible story for 5th and 6th graders (not my forte, but hey! why not?). Wednesday, Brian and I will be doing missionary story time for all four age groups (about 80-100 children total) all morning. Friday, the pastor asked Brian if he could take his place and coordinate the entire day! Brian will be in charge of making sure everyone gets to where they need to go, the missionary times, and whatever else is needed! Craziness. We’re excited, though. We love working with kids. Kinda what we do best, I’d say! We’ll even get to leave our display up the whole week. Fun!

The friends we’re staying with have also asked their pastor if we could get him some information. He is excited to receive it and will be presenting it to his elder board Monday evening! They may not be able to support us, but they might let us at least present. Very exciting!

Our time at CIT is already proving to be helpful. As much as we’re loving being out here, with family and good friends, it’s not the same. I’m having a harder time than Brian, to be quite honest. We are staying less than a mile from our old home and we drive past it every day. Our good friends are having a baby right around the time we’re planning on leaving, so we’ll only get to see the baby if she goes a little earlier. It’s only been ten months and yet some things have already really changed. Thankfully, we were ready for this! We understand that separation and grieving are all part of the process. I was talking with Terri (our friend we’re staying with) about home yesterday. We’ve both moved around a lot and I said, “You know, honestly, if someone asks me where ‘home’ is, I want to say heaven. And yet, so many people just don’t accept that answer. But, honestly…that’s where home is now. That’s what I look forward to and that’s where I want to be. What’s so wrong with that?” Yes, we’re looking forward to our house and home in Peru, but honestly…if home is where your heart is…my home is heaven. We found out this week that my grandfather is not doing so well and yet, he doesn’t mind because he’s ready to go home, to see Jesus and his wife. What an awesome hope that is! I’m actually a little jealous…

Anyway – that’s my little rant this Saturday evening. If you think of us, be praying that we’ll have even more opportunities to present our ministry and to minister to others while we’re out here. Brian has already done some repairs for our friends and he’s helping someone move this evening. I am constantly in awe of his servant heart!

No pictures for now; this isn’t our computer. You’re just stuck reading!

Housing

Hello Everyone! We are safely in Wisconsin and have been since Thursday. We had a great time visiting my family. It’s always good to see aunts, uncles, and cousins. We leave tomorrow morning, bright and early, for our twelve hour drive to Belle Fourche, SD. We were glad for this reprieve before jumping into life in SD. Should be a good month!

In other news…we have an update on our housing situation in Peru. We had been thinking that we would be put in a guest house on the Bible Institute campus for the first two years and then we would need to raise money to build our own home on campus. However, we talked with Carlos, our director, and he and Marion, his wife, want us to do something a little different.

Carlos explained that the guest house is quite central on campus, making it basically impossible for us to ever get away by ourselves. We would be in the middle of all the activity all the time, which can get quite exhausting. Also, the guest house is just that – a guest house. It was built for people to use for about two weeks at a time, not two years at a time. Carlos and Marion both would like us to actually feel at home as well while we’re in Peru. They want us to feel settled, have room to ourselves, and be able to adjust as quickly as possible. The best way to do that is for us to have our own home.

So, they have picked out three different plots of land on campus that we get to choose from in order to build our own home! Brian will be working on the entire project. This will be his first project in Peru and it will be used as his education time. He will have a team of men who will be working with him regularly and they will be the ones helping build our house. Brian will be learning how to build in Peru, how his team works, and even quite a bit of Spanish in the process.

We do need to raise $8000 in order to complete this project. They are expecting us in late September, so that gives us four months before we leave. We’ve seen God sell a house after four months and raise $7000 for school in four months…let’s see what else He can do in four months!! However, we do not need to have all of the $8000 to go in September. We can live in the guest house until the money is raised and the house is built. But, the sooner we can get it built, the better! Thankfully, this money will cover the entire cost of supplies and building, as well as furnishing the entire place. Amazing, isn’t it?

We weren’t sure what to think of this at first, but now, we are so excited. When we sold our house last year, we thought we wouldn’t have a place to call our own for at least another four years. If you’ve ever been displaced, you know that’s a long, long time. It’s hard to live in houses that aren’t yours and to never feel “at home” anywhere – especially in a foreign country! The fact that our director realized we needed the stability of home is amazing. They are going to let us pick out the paint, the furnishings, the design – everything! We are so very excited. This just shows us, yet again, that God supplies our needs as well as our wants, when they’re in accordance with His will.

If you would like to help us with this new project, let us know. We can get you the address for BCM International and the info that you will need. If you got our latest newsletter, you would have also received a slip to return to BCM if you choose to support us. The housing is not on that because we did not know about it then, so if you choose to give directly to housing OR directly to travel, please just mark it on a note you include in the envelope.

Above everything else, we ask for your prayers! We will be presenting our ministry in SD this month and we are excited to see what all God will do.

This is a newer house on campus; just an idea of what our new home might look like! Thanks for the picture, Adam!

You Gotta See This!

Brian found this video and it’s amazing. It’s about eight minutes long, but trust me, you’ll be extraordinarily blessed. He tried to get me to watch it all week and I kept putting it off. I watched it tonight and I wished I’d watched it Sunday when he asked me to. Take a few minutes and enjoy.

Trip Plans

Well, you can keep praying for us! We are planning on leaving next Thursday morning for Wisconsin, but we still do not have transportation to get there. We have learned over the past year that the Lord always provides our needs, but He also provides them right on time. And apparently, four days early is still too early in His book. We don’t know how this is going to pan out, but we know there is a car waiting for us that will get us to SD without breaking the bank. If you think of it, pray for us!

As I said, we are planning on leaving next week for SD. We’re anxious to see our friends. We’re staying with some really good friends for the entire month and we’re very much looking forward to meeting their new foster baby, Ava. Even though the Lord has not blessed us with a family yet and we know that it’s going to be awhile, we’re thankful our friends have families so we can enjoy their kids!

Hopefully, within the next week, we’ll also have a better picture of when we’ll be heading to Peru officially! We’re anxious to get going. Right now just feels like major limbo.

We’ll keep you posted! Pictures and everything!

Calendar

We finally look like we have some plans for this summer! Here’s what our summer is looking like so far…

• Leave for SD between May 21-23 (all depends on a vehicle at this point)
• Speak at Christian Life Center in Belle Fourche, SD, on June 29, in both AM services
• Be “Missionaries of the Week” for a CEF Day Camp here in PA for a week in July (dates to be determined)
• Be “Missionaries of the Week” for Camp Sancanak (a BCM Camp in Pughtown, PA) the week of August 3-9

So, between all of that, plus speaking in small groups, we should be quite busy. There is a chance of speaking in a church in Kansas during our SD trip and a chance of speaking at a church in Florida before we fly to Peru officially, but neither of those are confirmed yet. We ask for your prayers! We’re very excited to get this summer started.

We have a small lead on a car, but nothing yet. Please continue to pray about it and if you know of something we might be able to look into, please drop us a line!