July 3, 2009
Back In the US - 2009 Edition
We made it! Despite one of our flights being cancelled at the last minute, everything went really smoothly with our trip back to the US. Seth and Caleb were both really good travellers, sleeping more than half of the trip. Lisa took home the "Best International Traveller - Mom Category" award, narrowly edging out the lady taking two small children on the plane by herself. As brave as that seemed, the judges decided to deduct points after they discovered that the lady was flying first class. Then, the real deal breaker came when she drugged both of her kids up with Benadryl for the entire flight. Those kids may have seemed incredibly well-behaved, but they were actually just drunk on cough syrup! A true champion only drugs their kids as a last resort.
One of the things that we hope to do while we're in the US is catch up on some blogging and talking about our work. Lots of things about our work have changed during the last year or two and we've learned lots of lessons about what works and what doesn't; what is important and what isn't. There have been some great surprises during the last year and there have also been some really big disappointments. We hope that talking honestly about some of these things will help everyone understand our work better and maybe encourage you in the work that you're doing. We look forward to sharing with everybody and we're excited about hearing your ideas, too.
Check back soon as we get ready to start up the discussion!
June 29, 2009
Tomorrow, Tomorrow
I've been quiet for a long time, but I guess it's time to tell everyone that we'll be traveling back to the US soon. Tomorrow!
I hope to be kind of productive at blogging during our 2 month holiday, so look for some regular updates about our work during the summer. See everybody soon!
May 21, 2009
Quick Blurb
Good news everybody! After a long picture drought, we finally put up some new pictures.
In not as good news, there's some unpleasant stuff going on with our school, students, and authorities in other cities. Please petition the Father to keep the student brothers and sisters here safe and to protect the Family in other cities as well. Ask that he'll not only protect them from harm, but that He'll use any difficulties and trials to strengthen the faith of His children.
Lisa, the kids, and I aren't in any danger or trouble. So you can all rest easy about that. But please be remembering our Family here.
May 11, 2009
Catching Up
It's been a long time since I've updated you on what's going on in our world, so here we go.
Our work here with the Family is going really well. There are 2 brothers and 2 sisters in the Family here that are the most serious about their faith and seem to have the most potential to grow. It's always hard to figure out what's really going on in people's hearts, but we've decided to focus our time and energy on these 4. One of those brothers is really, really busy with school and our work with him is more about encouraging him to keep making time for the Father during this busy time. The other 3 people aren't that busy and so we're able to spend a lot of time together. Many times we just eat and hang out together, but we also try to keep them accountable about their faith and quiet time. Then when the situations arise, we encourage them to serve and lead other people.
We feel really good about these 4 people and it's good to see them stay faithful and grow, especially when so many other people fall away or are never very committed to begin with. These four people are named Joe, Carl, Jennifer, and Ya Li. We'd appreciate your petitions about them and their faith. Another girl that we had been focusing on, Mary, is doing a teaching internship in another city. She also needs petitions since this is the first time she's had to face being in a new city without any Family members that she knows.
This past weekend we had a great, city-wide retreat. Brothers and sisters from 5 different campuses went, as well as a few adults. About 50 of us went together to the countryside around Jingzhou. The place was beautiful, with lots of trees, hills, and some water. And after raining every weekend for the past month, we were blessed with great, sunny weather. We shared times of worship, teaching, small groups, petitions, and games. The weekend was purposefully designed to be challenging for the people who went. There was a lot more quiet time and small group discussions than most people were used to, which led to some grumbling, but that's okay. Our goal was to set a high standard and challenge people to take their faith more seriously than they have been. The weekend also gave our closest friends some opportunities to serve and lead.
Our other goal for the retreat was to get all of the foreign workers in Jingzhou working together on something. Normally we all live and work on different campuses, doing our own thing. Several different people helped plan the retreat and almost all of the foreigners were able to attend. So the retreat was a nice chance to work together to build up the Family.
In cute baby news, Caleb is two and a half months old and really fat. He's wearing Seth's old 6 month old clothes. He gets a little bit fussy sometimes, but most of the time he's a perfect little kid. His big brother is still jumping off of things, throwing things into the air, and starting boxing matches with his dad before the bell even rings. Only rarely does he jump on his little brother or knee him in the stomach. And when he does, it's usually on accident.
We'll try to get up some new pictures soon.