Things are going well here in Anthony. They got the plumbing laid, the concrete poured, and the gas and water hooked up. I think they're starting the framing next week.
We have been busy, going to several meetings in Kansas. We were in Andover, Kansas for a Sunday night; Hillsboro, Kansas the next Sunday night; and this week we're in Attica, Kansas for a Missions Conference! It is such a blessing to be able to present our ministry! I was also able to play the piano at several churches, Caleb was able to sing and preach.
The kids are extremely excited to be almost done with school! Noah has finished all but one of his PACE's, we are waiting for a few more to be delivered so he can be on the same number in all of his subjects. Kayla is doing great in her reading, once she decided she could read, she has been doing great! She reads blends she hasn't learned about. This summer I am thinking about doing things a little differently. I am thinking of doing one subject a day, and making it fun with everyone involved. I'm thinking of doing a math day, science day, history day, and a something else day. I am going to start planning it, if anyone has any ideas!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Anthony, Kansas
Well here we are in Anthony, Kansas! Caleb considers this "home", because he was born here and then graduated from high school here, even though in between those times he lived all over western Kansas!
Caleb started doing the ground-in plumbing today, and the concrete will get poured on Saturday. The church is very exciting to get started on the construction, and things seem to be going smoothly.
Caleb was able to get a Bond so that he could pull permits. Bro. Newkirk seems to think it went well because Caleb is a graduate of the High School here!
The family is doing well, we are so excited for Spring to be here and we love being parked right next to the job site! The kids are loving playing outside.
As I said in my last update, we were able to get a bigger, newer trailer! It has been such a blessing and it is so nice to be able to send all four kids to bed in their own beds! And it's also nice to be able to shut the door to their room so they can play, and I can sit on the couch in quiet!
The Lord has been good to us, and has provided for us through other churches. We were given money to get a new laptop, and we also have a new supporting church! Praise the Lord!
Thank you for the prayers!
Caleb started doing the ground-in plumbing today, and the concrete will get poured on Saturday. The church is very exciting to get started on the construction, and things seem to be going smoothly.
Caleb was able to get a Bond so that he could pull permits. Bro. Newkirk seems to think it went well because Caleb is a graduate of the High School here!
The family is doing well, we are so excited for Spring to be here and we love being parked right next to the job site! The kids are loving playing outside.
As I said in my last update, we were able to get a bigger, newer trailer! It has been such a blessing and it is so nice to be able to send all four kids to bed in their own beds! And it's also nice to be able to shut the door to their room so they can play, and I can sit on the couch in quiet!
The Lord has been good to us, and has provided for us through other churches. We were given money to get a new laptop, and we also have a new supporting church! Praise the Lord!
Thank you for the prayers!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
We have had a busy last couple of weeks! Our Missions Conference was great! The messages were challenging, the fellowship was sweet, and even though our numbers were down big time, I think it was the best one we've ever had!
On Sunday the 21st we were supposed to be in a church in Sperry, OK in the morning and Ponca City, OK at night but because we had a "blizzard" on Saturday we weren't able to make our morning meeting. It was the craziest thing, we had 70+ degree weather on Friday, snow blizzard and 20's on Saturday, 50's on Sunday and by Sunday night you couldn't even tell we had a snowstorm, much less a blizzard! That's Oklahoma in the Spring for you!
We did make it to Ponca City Sunday night, since most of the snow was melted by noon. We had a wonderful time at Second Baptist Church. The people were so friendly right from the start, and we felt very welcomed. We had told them previously that our laptop was slowly dying; we couldn't depend on it to turn on and when we would get it on, sometimes it would shut off for no apparent reason. They took up an offering for us and the total came to $640 and some odd cents. The next day we went to Walmart (then Best Buy, then back to Walmart! lol) and bought a laptop with all of the extras we were wanting, plus a carrying case, for just two dollars under the love offering amount! It was amazing to see God provide exactly what we needed!
Caleb has still been busy working on our Associate Pastor's house, getting it ready for them to be able to move into it. He took Wednesday off to make some phone calls and was able to set up some meetings in Kansas! Praise the Lord!
Our ETA for Anthony, Kansas is now somewhere in the second week of April.
And now for our biggest news: the Lord has blessed us with a new trailer! As you know, we were given a 29' trailer in October. It was a huge blessing then, and it has been since, but we have been praying that we would be able to purchase one that has an extra bedroom in the future. We were able to meet the Means family, who are missionaries to Mexico, when we were in Russellville. They are leaving for Mexico very soon and were needing to sell their fifth wheel, or they were planning on putting it in storage. Everyone involved felt that God had brought us together, so we could meet each others' needs! The trailer is a 40' fifth wheel, it has four slideouts, an extra room with two bunks (four beds total) and is available right now!
We need to raise some more support to be able to completely take over the payments, so please pray the we would be able to do this, but we are exciting about what God has provided so far and how He will provide in the future!
On Sunday the 21st we were supposed to be in a church in Sperry, OK in the morning and Ponca City, OK at night but because we had a "blizzard" on Saturday we weren't able to make our morning meeting. It was the craziest thing, we had 70+ degree weather on Friday, snow blizzard and 20's on Saturday, 50's on Sunday and by Sunday night you couldn't even tell we had a snowstorm, much less a blizzard! That's Oklahoma in the Spring for you!
We did make it to Ponca City Sunday night, since most of the snow was melted by noon. We had a wonderful time at Second Baptist Church. The people were so friendly right from the start, and we felt very welcomed. We had told them previously that our laptop was slowly dying; we couldn't depend on it to turn on and when we would get it on, sometimes it would shut off for no apparent reason. They took up an offering for us and the total came to $640 and some odd cents. The next day we went to Walmart (then Best Buy, then back to Walmart! lol) and bought a laptop with all of the extras we were wanting, plus a carrying case, for just two dollars under the love offering amount! It was amazing to see God provide exactly what we needed!
Caleb has still been busy working on our Associate Pastor's house, getting it ready for them to be able to move into it. He took Wednesday off to make some phone calls and was able to set up some meetings in Kansas! Praise the Lord!
Our ETA for Anthony, Kansas is now somewhere in the second week of April.
And now for our biggest news: the Lord has blessed us with a new trailer! As you know, we were given a 29' trailer in October. It was a huge blessing then, and it has been since, but we have been praying that we would be able to purchase one that has an extra bedroom in the future. We were able to meet the Means family, who are missionaries to Mexico, when we were in Russellville. They are leaving for Mexico very soon and were needing to sell their fifth wheel, or they were planning on putting it in storage. Everyone involved felt that God had brought us together, so we could meet each others' needs! The trailer is a 40' fifth wheel, it has four slideouts, an extra room with two bunks (four beds total) and is available right now!
We need to raise some more support to be able to completely take over the payments, so please pray the we would be able to do this, but we are exciting about what God has provided so far and how He will provide in the future!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Back Home!
We are back home in Mustang, Oklahoma now. We came back for our church's Big Day on the 7th. Our goal was 300 but we had 240, Praise the Lord! We had a lot of visitors and we're hoping to get some good prospects out of the day.
We are now in our Missions Conference and the devil is fighting right and left! First our main speaker found out halfway here that his mom died, so he had to turn around and go to Florida to deal with that. And then, one of the missionary's had put on their schedule to be here April 14th, not March 14th! We only had one Missionary family left. While in Russellville we had met a family to Mexico, the Means, and they were available this week and willing, so they joined us Sunday night.
So far the Conference has been a blessing! We are looking forward to what else the Lord has for our church. Bro. Means called a Missions Conference the "Annual Business Meeting to see how blessed we want our church to be". And it's so true! If a church isn't supporting Missions, they aren't going to grow and the Lord isn't going to bless.
We were surprised and blessed to be presented with two gift baskets Tuesday night and tonight Caleb is able to make a presentation of what we've been doing in Arkansas and preach.
We will be staying in Oklahoma for a while, until we can go to our next project, probably in Anthony, Kansas. Right now that project is expected to start the third week of April.
This Sunday we have a meeting in Ponca City, Oklahoma and one in Sperry, Oklahoma. We also have a meeting in April in Kingman, Kansas.
Please pray that we are able to raise some more support! I hope to be able to update this more often than I have been.
We are now in our Missions Conference and the devil is fighting right and left! First our main speaker found out halfway here that his mom died, so he had to turn around and go to Florida to deal with that. And then, one of the missionary's had put on their schedule to be here April 14th, not March 14th! We only had one Missionary family left. While in Russellville we had met a family to Mexico, the Means, and they were available this week and willing, so they joined us Sunday night.
So far the Conference has been a blessing! We are looking forward to what else the Lord has for our church. Bro. Means called a Missions Conference the "Annual Business Meeting to see how blessed we want our church to be". And it's so true! If a church isn't supporting Missions, they aren't going to grow and the Lord isn't going to bless.
We were surprised and blessed to be presented with two gift baskets Tuesday night and tonight Caleb is able to make a presentation of what we've been doing in Arkansas and preach.
We will be staying in Oklahoma for a while, until we can go to our next project, probably in Anthony, Kansas. Right now that project is expected to start the third week of April.
This Sunday we have a meeting in Ponca City, Oklahoma and one in Sperry, Oklahoma. We also have a meeting in April in Kingman, Kansas.
Please pray that we are able to raise some more support! I hope to be able to update this more often than I have been.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Life is moving here in Russellville! The men are working hard and getting things done. They've had to make a few adjustments and changes so there was a slight holdup, but they're working with a plan now! We've been blasted with several snow storms! It seems like wherever we go, we get record snow falls. But the kids love it, and we love being parked inside.
School has been going well for us, I made a daily schedule plus a chore chart, so we are getting things done. Kayla is ahead in her work, and doing well. She is starting to put sounds together to make words. She can read words like cat, tub, and shut. As long as she doesn't try to guess what the word is, she does a great job! Noah is cruising through his work. He will start times soon and he's dreading it, but I tell him that he mastered cursive, so he can do multiplication too! Lela thought she wanted to start school, but then she discovered that school wasn't as thrilling as she thought it would be! I bought her a preschool book at Walmart and she quickly got tired of the coloring and drawing lines, and now she only wants to cut and paste!
Anna is amazing us all. She is crawling, climbing stairs, trying to climb onto the couch and getting into everything! She is very inquisitive and wants to know what everything does and how it does it! You can see her brain working and moving.
We will be going home to Mustang, OK for our church's Big Day on March 7th. It's the anniversary of us moving into our new building, built by New Testament Church Planters, USA. Our goal is to have 300 people. Please pray that we would reach our goal, so that more of our community is reached! We might be staying for the Missions Conference the next week, but we're not sure.
Future projects for us would be Anthony, Kansas (south of Wichita) and Joplin, Missouri. We're not sure of the timing right now. Caleb is looking at plans and making plumbing lists and suggestions. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!
School has been going well for us, I made a daily schedule plus a chore chart, so we are getting things done. Kayla is ahead in her work, and doing well. She is starting to put sounds together to make words. She can read words like cat, tub, and shut. As long as she doesn't try to guess what the word is, she does a great job! Noah is cruising through his work. He will start times soon and he's dreading it, but I tell him that he mastered cursive, so he can do multiplication too! Lela thought she wanted to start school, but then she discovered that school wasn't as thrilling as she thought it would be! I bought her a preschool book at Walmart and she quickly got tired of the coloring and drawing lines, and now she only wants to cut and paste!
Anna is amazing us all. She is crawling, climbing stairs, trying to climb onto the couch and getting into everything! She is very inquisitive and wants to know what everything does and how it does it! You can see her brain working and moving.
We will be going home to Mustang, OK for our church's Big Day on March 7th. It's the anniversary of us moving into our new building, built by New Testament Church Planters, USA. Our goal is to have 300 people. Please pray that we would reach our goal, so that more of our community is reached! We might be staying for the Missions Conference the next week, but we're not sure.
Future projects for us would be Anthony, Kansas (south of Wichita) and Joplin, Missouri. We're not sure of the timing right now. Caleb is looking at plans and making plumbing lists and suggestions. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!
Monday, January 11, 2010
A New Year!
The new year is upon us, and I can't believe 2009 is already gone! So much happened last year, it's fun to remember what we were doing exactly one year ago. We were getting ready for our third leg of deputation into the southwest, I was just getting over my pregnancy sickness and starting to enjoy pregnancy, and the kids were turning into real missionary brats!!
This year we are still in Russelville, Arkansas. The worked has slowed while the Pastor has to wait for money commitments to be fulfilled. The building is starting to look more like a church and with more families back from Christmas vacation, things are really going to start shaping up!
With this new year we are going to get down and get serious about school. At the end of Fall doing school with the kids was kind of sprung on me, so we ended playing catch-up until the end of the year. We've finally gotten caught up and now we're going to start fresh. Lela has been asking and begging to do school so I got her a Preschool workbook and I'm going to start teaching her. If anyone has any advice on how to teach a 2nd grader, Kindergartener and Preschooler all at the same time, plus watch a crawling 7-month old, I would love to hear it! I'm thinking we'll have to do the girls in the morning and Noah in the afternoon, but that's as far as I can think.
We're back in Oklahoma for this week so we can get our taxes done and go to the Heartland Home Missions Conference. We're ready for an exciting week of preaching, seeing old friends, and maybe raising some money or support!
Thank you for your prayers and support, we are thankful for everything God is able to do for us and through us! Leave a comment if you can, we'd love to hear some feedback from those few that might read this!
This year we are still in Russelville, Arkansas. The worked has slowed while the Pastor has to wait for money commitments to be fulfilled. The building is starting to look more like a church and with more families back from Christmas vacation, things are really going to start shaping up!
With this new year we are going to get down and get serious about school. At the end of Fall doing school with the kids was kind of sprung on me, so we ended playing catch-up until the end of the year. We've finally gotten caught up and now we're going to start fresh. Lela has been asking and begging to do school so I got her a Preschool workbook and I'm going to start teaching her. If anyone has any advice on how to teach a 2nd grader, Kindergartener and Preschooler all at the same time, plus watch a crawling 7-month old, I would love to hear it! I'm thinking we'll have to do the girls in the morning and Noah in the afternoon, but that's as far as I can think.
We're back in Oklahoma for this week so we can get our taxes done and go to the Heartland Home Missions Conference. We're ready for an exciting week of preaching, seeing old friends, and maybe raising some money or support!
Thank you for your prayers and support, we are thankful for everything God is able to do for us and through us! Leave a comment if you can, we'd love to hear some feedback from those few that might read this!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
New Place
Well we are now in Russellville, Arkansas converting an old Sports Complex into a Church! The men are going to be building an auditorium, finishing classrooms, expanding the kitchen and building a Fellowship Hall and making a Missions Apartment upstairs big enough to hold two families. It will also have a washer/dryer! (that's exciting when you've lived in missions apartments for a year!!) More families from NTCP are coming this next week and the work will resume after Christmas. It should only take about two months to get the job finished.
Our family is doing great! Noah is speeding through school, he tries to get done as fast as he can so he can help pick up nails or so he can play his Lego Star Wars game! Kayla is doing great at school, she's started recognizing how to put sounds together to form words. She likes to guess at what the words are, though, so I have to be careful and make sure she's actually reading, not just guessing. Lela is a big girl now, she turned four on the 1st. She doesn't want to do anything little anymore, she wants to be big! Today we went to the park and she refused to go down the little slide, she wanted to go down the BIG slide with Noah and Kayla! It's amazing how fast kids grow. Anna is our littlest baby so far, but she has big attitude! She smiles almost constantly, we can even get her to smile while she's crying. She's starting to try to crawl, she gets up on all fours and rocks and growls, but she hasn't figured out the arm movements yet!
We're having fun living in our trailer still. It's amazing to think of how much room we used to require, and now we all (somewhat) fit into this small trailer. But the Lord is good to us, and when you know you're doing what God wants, it's easier to adjust to what that life is for you.
We've met some good people and made some new friends. We were sad to leave the church in Lincoln, they felt like family, but it's exciting to look forward to the new people we're going to meet!
Our family is doing great! Noah is speeding through school, he tries to get done as fast as he can so he can help pick up nails or so he can play his Lego Star Wars game! Kayla is doing great at school, she's started recognizing how to put sounds together to form words. She likes to guess at what the words are, though, so I have to be careful and make sure she's actually reading, not just guessing. Lela is a big girl now, she turned four on the 1st. She doesn't want to do anything little anymore, she wants to be big! Today we went to the park and she refused to go down the little slide, she wanted to go down the BIG slide with Noah and Kayla! It's amazing how fast kids grow. Anna is our littlest baby so far, but she has big attitude! She smiles almost constantly, we can even get her to smile while she's crying. She's starting to try to crawl, she gets up on all fours and rocks and growls, but she hasn't figured out the arm movements yet!
We're having fun living in our trailer still. It's amazing to think of how much room we used to require, and now we all (somewhat) fit into this small trailer. But the Lord is good to us, and when you know you're doing what God wants, it's easier to adjust to what that life is for you.
We've met some good people and made some new friends. We were sad to leave the church in Lincoln, they felt like family, but it's exciting to look forward to the new people we're going to meet!
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