October Update

First of all, Happy Birthday to my dad! I’d tell you how old he is, but if you know him I will leave it up to your imagination. My guesses are that not very many people could guess his real age! I think you could say he has been blessed with a face that ages well. ;)

(If I had a recent picture of him where he is actually looking at the camera, I would insert it here. Sorry, Dad. That’s what you get for always trying to dodge Kodak moments!)

Ryan got back from a short trip to Haiti a little over three weeks ago and left early yesterday morning for Kentucky to spend a week taking his on-campus classes. He came back from Haiti excited and ready to pack up all our things and go back! Which, of course, made me all the more eager to do the same.

I have never actually been to Emmaus Biblical Seminary. I’ve only been to Haiti once (over 2 years ago) and I was more or less on the opposite side of the country. That said, after not having been there for so long the excitement to go back had kind of dwindled down. But I can say that in the past two years, right now is the most excited I have been to start our journey there. I’m so excited to see what God has in store for us and to see how He can use us there, as well as to see how He can use others there to impact our lives!

Partial credit for my excitement can be given to Sharon (and Martin ;) Mishler, who has been crowned the title of missions-fairy-who-has-magical-dust-and-gets-all-things-mission-related-done-with-an-“abracadabra.” (No wand needed!) Not only is she able to give me far more insight than I ever had about going to the mission field – Haiti, in particular – but she really takes care of us. Sharon, we appreciate you more than you’ll ever know!

And on top of all of that, she has started working with us on learning Creole! I imagined that transitioning into this new language would kind of a burden after spending months of learning French, which was not an easy feat! But it has really been the opposite. I am so incredibly thankful for being able to spend the summer in Quebec because now I see just how important learning those French-speaking skills are in regards to learning Creole and also being able to speak and comprehend French in the academic setting while we are there! Learning these languages have been such a blessing!

I suppose I’ll give a bit more of an update of our day-to-day things. They seem too mundane for me to make multiple posts over, so this blog page has been pretty silent for a while. I am just making my way through my last semester at Washburn. I’ll admit – I thought this semester would be a piece of cake since I am only in 4 classes, rather than 8 or 9! But a couple of these senior-level finance classes are kind of kicking my behind! But I’m trying my hardest and praying for the best outcome.

Ryan has been extremely busy, to say the least! Between going to Haiti and Kentucky for two weeks out of the last month, he works as hard as he can to get things done and not fall behind in his classes. His online classes require up to 20+ hours of watching lectures alone, plus reading tons of books, taking quizzes, and writing a few papers here and there. Thankfully he is able to get quite a bit done in his downtime at NorthRidge. And speaking of that, he has also been working with the youth group in Falls City for a few weeks now. It has started out with pretty small numbers of kids, but we are praying that more will continue to show up each week and that this youth group will be beneficial in their walks with Christ.

Other than daily things, we are really working hard to find financial support so that we can be sent to Haiti by February, the beginning of the new school year at Emmaus. We have quite a way go in reaching the amount needed before we can leave! This has been somewhat of a challenge since we simply didn’t grow up going to church. We don’t really have a lot of personal connections or ties with many churches because of that, so that has been the biggest challenge for us. We are so blessed with the generous giving of the people here in Sabetha, but we are hoping to find some individuals outside of NorthRidge who feel led to join us in this mission so that we don’t leave the bodies of Christ at our "home" church with that big of a financial commitment. Please pray for us that within the next few months that we will have the chance to be used by God to impact the lives of others who may choose to join us with support - financially, emotionally, physically, and/or prayerfully.

If you know anyone or go to a church that you think might have members who would be interested in joining our mission, please contact us! We would love to share more about what God is doing in our lives and why we feel led to do foreign missions. February will be here before we know it, and God-willing, we would love to make it to Emmaus by the time the visiting professors leave and the semester-long classes begin. Please be in prayer with us, and feel free to share this post if you know of anyone who might be interested!

And just for giggles, my handsome husband must really love me if he is willing to wear this in public! :)