life.

Yikes. Life can be tough. Vacation is over - that's for sure. After nearly 5 full days of being unplugged from email, blackboard (for school), my cell phone and my work phone I came back to a 10 hour work day on Monday and haven't stopped running since. Even now I have Microsoft Word running with a paper halfway done and work-related tasks waiting for attention as soon as I finish my school work.

I realize this isn't abnormal - but this week I am desperately yearning for balance. Will it ever come?

Today I am thankful for a wonderful husband who cheerfully writes emails to churches, stuffs support-related envelopes and orchestrates our partnership development schedule. I've come home to dinner on the table 2 nights this week and have had coffee brewed for me each morning. (That's right, I'm back on the black-juice... at least for now.) What a blessing!

World Team is passionate about working together for the glory of God. While some days it is easy to get hyper fixated on oneself and feel completely isolated from community our marriage is a good reminder of how we are already part of a very important team - one that keeps each other going through the good and bad and supports each other in striving for the Lord in the midst of life's storms.

Today I am also thankful for my wonderful teammates at work. There are many - but today I especially appreciate Sara and Mike who do their best to love me and laugh with (at) me on my best days and my worst.

The last shout-out is for my fellow journey-women... thanks for the call and email today. Again, great reminders that this is by no means a solo-journey. The Lord knows I can't go this one alone.

Tomorrow I go to the Life Together book club. If you haven't read this Bonhoeffer classic yet - get your hands on a copy immediately. It challenges us to not take the fellowship of believers for granted, to not hide behind forever-smiling faces, but to get into the muck with one-another in order to experience true Christian community.

Thanks to all those who have gotten in the "muck" with us. We need you! We love you! Help us love you better by sharing your prayer requests and needs with us as we continue to share with you.

A Break for Summer

After kicking off our summer of partnership development last Saturday, Erica and I got to take a much needed break with my family in Connecticut. It was a great time of rest and enjoying some of God's good and perfect gifts: family, creation, good food (especially ice cream), birthdays, games, music, books, movies, and naps.

We even started making plans for our family farm in the Adirondacks. Andy gets to hike, Dad gets to work in the greenhouse, Heather gets to pick fruit, Taylor gets to take care of the animals, etc, etc, etc. Only one problem was brought up by the others multiple times, "What about France?!" Maybe we'll do it in the French Alps instead of the Adirondacks. "But I could never learn French!" mom protests.

We're realizing just how important and precious this time is with family as we look ahead to the future.

And now we're back, catching up on news of celebrities passing away and preparing letters to be mailed (to many of you!) as soon as possible. The letters will officially announce our plans and communicate our need for partners. If you're not sure you're on our mailing list and you want to be, send us an email with your address!

Happy summer to you.

Leftovers

Also thanks to the Wimmer's picnic, I have just now finished eating turkey barbecue for the sixth meal in a row: lunch and dinner, three days straight.

Surprisingly, I am not quite sick of it yet. Close, but not quite.

Sunshiny Rainy Day

Who said you can't have a picnic on a rainy day?! While it isn't recommended, or even preferred, we discovered today it can be done.

Thank you Scott and Minnie for hosting a GREAT kick-off picnic.

Honestly, our expectations for attendance were low... really low. Not Minnie- Upon our arrival, we were greeted by beaming smiles and positive talk, full of faith that it would be a great day. I praise God for the fellowship of believers that allows the encouragement of a sister speak to the core of my disbelief.

Over 50 people braved the rain to join us for a rainy day picnic. The sun showed itself only briefly enough for people to arrive, get their food and make their way to a seat under one of the 3 tents. Shortly after the "program" began, the heavens opened and continued to dump rain down for the next hour and a half.

Scott and Minnie planned a terrific line-up including Allison Janney playing hymns on the harp, Wes Checkeye leading in worship, a challenge from career missionaries/mentors to us, Dan & Jackie Scott, our time of sharing, offering, prayer and closed with Nate playing Come Thou Fount on the sax. We could not have asked for a more meaningful start to our fundraising efforts.

Sitting under a tent, with rain pouring down on all sides singing songs to the Lord was incredible. Call me crazy, but I loved it. During the time of worship I sat in disbelief, is this really happening? Are these people truly here to listen to us talk about France? Wow. Then again when we got up to speak, looking out on this crowd of dedicated and damp supporters, I was struck by the reality of this step. We are seriously trying to get to France. CRAZY.

So, we started talking, and it started pouring.... seriously... I looked out and saw cats and dogs falling from the sky. OK, no, but every time it seemed like the rain couldn't get any heavier (i.e. any louder on the roof of the tent making it nearly impossible to talk over), it did. It got worse, and worse and worse - and somehow, in my spirit, it got better and better and better. It was just such a cool celebration of what God is doing. That He, His work and the team He is building for us is unstoppable. I love it. At one point while Nate was talking I was really tempted to step out into the down pour and twirl around. My own personal celebration-joy-dance. A protest against what could have been so defeating. But God cannot be defeated, and today, with a heavy dose of Scott and Minnie's joy, we weren't either.

Thank you to all who showed up toting slickers and umbrellas. You are troopers! We are thankful for each one of you and were happy to meet some of you for the first time and get to know others of you on a different level. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our journey with you. It is a privilege to serve as your partners in taking the Gospel to France.

Our Sending Churches

We're excited to announce that, as of tonight, we have two co-sending churches. Calvary, the church that we have grown up in, agreed to supporting us on Sunday. Saucon, the church plant we have helped with since January, agreed tonight to also being a sending church.

We are so thankful for and humbled by their support and encouragement!

New: Frequently Asked Questions

We're hoping to create a website that's a little more helpful in the near future, but for now, we're going to be making the most of things with this blog.

With that in mind, we just added a new feature. Look over on the bar to the right, and you'll find some Frequently Asked Questions. Take a look if you've been wondering about some things yourself. And if we're missing an important question, let us know!

Recent Photos

With all these crazy applications and interviews and organizations and whathaveyou, we keep being asked for a recent photo. And that has caused us to realize just how few photos we take of ourselves these days. The best ones we have are still from our last trip to Paris, and that was two years ago now. Maybe it's just my beard and Erica's growing hair, but we seem to look quite a bit older now.

So, to get some recent photos, we resorted to taking a few with the camera on our laptop. These are the best ones we got out of the shoot. Which do you think we should use for the proverbial prayer card and which one for the church website?

Partnership Development

We are now actively seeking partners in our ministry. School is done for the summer for me (although I will be a student in the coming months instead!) but I will stay quite busy! We have some important meetings coming up this week.

We are meeting with our sending churches this week to seek their official support. We'll spend time with Calvary's missions committee on Sunday and Saucon's leadership team or Tuesday. Then, our friends are holding a fundraising picnic for us next Saturday. It will be a busy week, but we are excited to get the summer going with this sort of momentum.

Please pray with us as we seek to find people interested in supporting God's work in France.

Another step...

As of last night, we are proud new members of the Bible Fellowship Church Board of Missions. This is our denomination's mission organization that seeks to support missionaries and facilitate communication with churches. It's another encouraging development in our journey.

What are we doing?

It's been a while since we've actually expressed what it is we're currently working on. Besides our daily jobs, pursuing our masters degrees, and helping out at our church plant, there are a number of things we're doing to work towards our future ministry in France. If all goes according to plan, we will arrive in France in January of 2011. There is much to be done in that year and a half.

1. We're gaining experience. The move to Saucon Church has been extremely valuable. It is making us aware of our own strengths and shortcomings, as well as giving us a real first-hand look at what it takes to lead a young church towards maturity.

2. We're paying off school debt. In general, it stinks to owe people money. But we definitely want to get rid of as much of our college debt as possible before relocating to France, and this is a requirement given to us by World Team. At our current pace, we can get rid of the rest of our loans in three years. That means our 25-year repayment plans will have taken only seven. Yet, it is our real desire to see the remainder of our debt gone when we leave for the field, in half the time it's supposed to take. We're waiting to see what God has in store.

3. We're reading. Instead of sending us to seminary and racking up more school debt, we've been assigned several books to read. It's been a challenge to get to them amidst everything else life is throwing at us, but we're getting there slowly and surely.

4. We're being counseled and mentored. We are attending some counseling on a regular basis and also meeting with some mentors. The personal growth that is resulting has been so helpful to us. So helpful, in fact, that we now recommend counseling and mentoring to everyone! Yes, you! Give it a try!

5. We're raising support. The jargon for this is "partnership development," but I'd like to think of that as more than just jargon. We want people to become partners in this ministry. This isn't a long vacation in Paris, but rather, we believe it's the work of God in furthering his kingdom, and it's worth the attention of more people than just the two of us. Developing those partners is the tricky part. It means finding many avenues of effective communication. So many different causes are crying out for people's attention; how do we make our voices heard, too? It also means approaching churches and individuals and ask for their financial support. That will start in June, and much of my spare-time in the summer will be devoted to this project.

So that, in a nutshell, is how we are working toward this calling of ours. If you want to pray for us, send us a quick email and we'll send you the updates! But you'll definitely be hearing and seeing a lot more from us right here over the summer. Thank you for your interest.

This was the last photo we took in France, which might look familiar. We walked out of a train station and there it was. I paused on the street corner amidst the busyness around me, snapped a photo, and went on my way. The bottom right corner shows a man doing the same, and it says "You are here." As I walked away and looked back again over my shoulder, something longed for the day that I would be back, making that short statement true again.

Loving Christ

It's been a while since I've shared about Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus, but I'd like to pick up where I left off. If the Christian leader must claim irrelevance, than what is his leadership based on? Nouwen's answer is loving Christ.

"Look at Jesus. The world did not pay any attention to him. He was crucified and put away. His message of love was rejected by a world in search of power, efficiency, and control. But there he was, appearing with wounds in his glorified body to a few friends who had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand. This rejected, unknown, wounded Jesus simply asked, 'Do you love me, do you really love me?'

The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: Are you in love with Jesus? Perhaps another way of putting the question would be: Do you know the incarnate God?

Knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him are the same thing. The knowledge of Jesus' heart is a knowledge of the heart. And when we live in the world with that knowledge, we cannot do other than bring healing, reconciliation, new life and hope wherever we go. The desire to be relevant and successful will gradually disappear."

Christ tells us that if we love him, we will feed his sheep, and if we want to feed his sheep, we must love him. Our ministry is based on nothing more and nothing less than this.

Furthermore, knowing Christ and loving Christ are one in the same. If you do not love him, if you are not ready to give up your life and relevance for him, it is because you do not know him. And you might think you love him, but if you do not know him, your love is not based on any secure foundation.

Gone are the new ideas, the latest theological fads, the stategies, the programs, the longing for normalcy, popularity, acceptance, relevance. Do you know him? Do you love him? The life of the Christian starts and ends with this one single idea, and all priorities and missions and life activities are immediately aligned thereafter.

Is France next to Texas?

Sharing with the Kindergartners was even more challenging than we expected. Most kids that age always need to get a word in somehow, so we heard about everyone's mom and dad and aunt and uncle who have been to this state and that state and that other state, too. Aunt Suzy has never been to France, but she goes to New York pretty often and she even went to Iowa once.

One boy politely waited until our talk was over and approached me politely. "Um, can I tell you something?" he asked, as if he had a matter to discuss privately. How could I refuse? "My mom travels for work. She goes to Texas and Germany a lot." I was just so impressed in how he approached me; I went on to show him on the globe that Germany is right next to France, but explained that Texas was still a little far away.