One of the traits of a good missionary is flexibility, right?
This summer ended up looking very different than we expected. Between shouldering extra responsibilities at DTS, adding a new baby to the mix, beginning preparation for our departure and Grace having surgery – all while trying to make progress on our support development – our summer felt like a whirlwind!
Here’s a quick look at some of what we’ve been up to since our last newsletter:
July
Luke was ordained at Grace Bible Church in Dallas. After submitting a statement of doctrine, he was examined along with our friend Paul by the elders at the end of June. After a 1.5 hour long oral exam, they voted and we passed! Whew! Seriously – it is such an honor to be ordained by this church.
Taught a two week class called “Gospel 101” at Grace. What a blast this was!
Connected with Haiti MAF pilot Michael Broyles and family (love that family!) as well as the legendary Dr. Walt Baker (who has logged over 50 years in Haiti) while on a DTS trip to Colorado. Walt serves on the board at STEP Seminary and it was great to visit with him about some things we’ll face when we get there.
We found a new home for our dog Riley
August/September
We found a new home for our dog Champ – so sad to say goodbye to our pups!
Luke traveled to Atlanta for DTS
We traveled to Missouri to visit with Cornerstone Community Church in Harrisonville. We are SO thankful to have this 
church on our support team! While there we spent the weekend with Sr. Pastor Mark McCune and his family on a 200 acre Christmas Tree farm. We got some fly fishing in and the kids played with the cats and dogs and picked tons of “flowers”.
On Sunday morning Luke preached in the service and we visited with people afterwards. If you’re interested, you can hear that message here.
While we were in Missouri, we were also able to visit with Aunt Eleanor and her family in St. Joseph and connect with staff at the Crossworld headquarters in Kansas City.
Grace had minor surgery to correct something with her eye. The initial recovery was a little tough, but we’re thankful she’s back to normal and having fun!
Luke traveled to Colorado for DTS
Throughout the Summer
Luke served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the course “Dynamics of Christian Leadership” at DTS
We changed something like 23,000 diapers 🙂
Support Update
Our support has grown(!), but not as quickly as we had hoped.
At the beginning of the summer, we anticipated being able to invest a lot of time in reaching our summer goal. Unfortunately, that didn’t pan out like we expected.
We had some major transitions at work over the summer and I shouldered some additional responsibility while we weathered that. We were glad to serve there – but it was difficult to make good progress on our support at the same time.
Thankfully, that season has now passed and we’ve been able to put some things in place to free us up some going forward.
Current Percentage
As of now, we have grown to 37% of the monthly commitments we need. While we wanted to be much closer to 100% by now, we’re trusting that God has the perfect time in mind for us to get on the ground.
However, just when we were starting to get discouraged, we received two gifts from anonymous donors totaling $6,000(!) towards our outgoing/one-time expenses budget.
Whoever you both are – we’re blown away! Thank you!
Thanks to these gifts and the faithfulness of those of you who have been giving all along – we’ve now reached 44% of our one time expenses fund! This is incredible and we’re so grateful!
What’s Next?
Before we go to the field, we’ll need to head to Kansas City for two weeks of Pre-Field orientation (PFO).
We are super excited to be there for this – but here’s the catch: we need to be at 75% of our monthly support (and 50% of our one-time) before we can be invited to the training.
PFO is offered twice a year: November and June. We would love to be at the November training (so we don’t have to wait until June), but we’ll need to reach 75% fairly soon if this is going to happen.
As we emerge from the craziness of this past summer and hit the ground again with support development, would you pray for us?
Prayer Needs
Language Training Decisions: Eventually we’ll need to learn both French and Creole. Soon we’ll need to decide which language to tackle first. We can learn Creole in Haiti, but to get the level of French we need, we’ll have to spend time in either France or Canada. Would you pray for us as we make this decision in the coming months?
Travel: As we travel over the next two months (both for support raising and for DTS), would you pray for our family that the Lord will give us grace to manage the stress that can be associated with that?
Encouragement: To be honest, we’ve been a little discouraged. We know the Lord will get us to Haiti according to his perfect timing – but we’re eager to get going! 🙂 Pray that we will be encouraged as we keep pressing on in support raising.
We love you guys!
Check out the pictures below:
