Ready or Not, Here They Come!

We are so excited to welcome our new teammates this month! Claire (in black & white) will arrive next week, and the McCoy family will arrive at the end of the month. On Friday this week, we'll head down to make sure their houses are all set up and ready to go. Please pray with us for smooth travels & transition for each of them as they move from the States and settle into full time language study.

Yikes!

I don't have a lot of new pics from Tribal Bible College or the BOOST center, but I do have this eye-catching one that they sent a couple of weeks ago. :)
We're headed down there next week, so I should have some additional pics next time, but thought I'd just leave this fun one with you for now!

 

The "Kids"

Yeah, I know they're not really kids anymore, but people still ask about our kids, so here are a couple recent pics. Mikayla is doing well as she serves in an after-care home here for girls rescued out of trafficking. Here is a pic from her recent update, and it features Ben's beagle, Alba, who is loving all the attention at their home.

We also had a blast last week when Mikayla was able to join a soccer tournament for the day; it had been a while since we'd been able to watch our kids play sports, so we had a lot of fun with it. Even though they had never played together (some hadn't even met before that day!), and it had been a looong time since some of them had played, they did very well and even took 2nd in the tournament!

I haven't gotten many pics from Zach recently, but he went back to Missouri for Thanksgiving, and my mom sent me this one as he was the official French Silk Pie chef.

Over Thanksgiving, Ben went on a mission trip to Guatemala. They were able to help with some construction, VBS type ministries as well as an ESL ministry where Ben got to tell Bible stories. They also got to roast marshmallows over volcanic rocks on their day off :)

The most exciting news about the kids is that the boys will be here in just a couple of days, and we will get to spend Christmas together here! So excited to see them again!

Ministry of Meetings

The last couple of months, we've been sick a lot (not any fun pictures from that); besides that, it felt like most of what we did was attend various meetings. First, we had a week of meetings with One Sending Body to do some strategic planning for the future.

Next was a meeting with someone who helps churches with mobilizing them to become mission-minded.

Then we attended the convention meetings for the Filipino Southern Baptist Churches on our island.

Immediately following that meeting, several of our IMB leaders met with leaders of that convention to discuss how to partner more effectively.

Then we went back up to Baguio for a week of teaching at a pre-field training for 2 ladies who are being sent from the nations to the nations. We can't show their faces for security reasons, but Steve led them in 2 days of discipleship training, and I taught for 2 days about culture & language study, with a practicum at the end. Steve also preached at the seminary chapel time while we were up there.

Thanks for praying with us in all the various aspects of our ministry, even the "boring" meetings!