I hope no one has been holding their breath in eager expectation for the next blog. If so and you are reading this, you might want to contact Guinness Book. I not sure, but I think you might have done something big.

As for us, we haven’t been holding our breath, but doing what we do after school ends: a wedding, a two-week road trip family vacation (a little longer than usual, but what a great time.  And when is the last time you ate fresh grouper throat just pulled from the Gulf?), starting some projects that we can’t do in the fuller flow of ministry (an egress window in a basement bedroom is the big one now), sending off summer teams, and starting up summer ministry.

We have a team of 7 in South Asia for the summer.  Please be praying for them as they are sowing a lot of seed and helping with some church planting.  They are also way hotter than they are used to in Colorado, so pray they can maintain good attitudes amidst the oppressive heat and spiritual climate.

There are also 9 at a training program in Denver.  They are working full time jobs during the week and involved with small groups,  training, and service during the evenings and weekends.  The entire group spent a Saturday at our house and the Pruett’s house working on various projects.  The goal was to wear them out and that we did.  This is a valuable part of training as it displays character which students have.  You can see who works hard and who hardly works.  You can also teach some good skills and show what hard work looks like.  Three small groups even came back the next week for more glorious hard work.

We also just added a hamster to the family.  Pretty exciting.

In all things Christ.

We are preparing to drive to Oklahoma.  My mom called this morning and had to let us know that my dad suddenly died this morning.  It is an incredible shock.  We appreciate your prayers as we drive to be with my mom and sister and family and deal with the details.

Heb. 13:7

Our leaders at Challenge are called Losers (remind me to explain this more fully).  Normally the Losers meet once a month on Sunday afternoon, which is a loser kind of time because it always feels like nap time, not meeting time.  However, our last meeting was a good reminder of why we are here.  It was kind of exciting, even though there were many yawns.

Bobby asked people to share those they knew who had a new relationship with Jesus and those who were close.  Without giving names here was our list:

M, C, C, H, G, L, M, and T (and many of our Losers were missing due to serving at a children’s camp)
These are those who we have relationships with and who are moving closer to Jesus.  So pray for these letters who are real students on a journey to know Jesus and whose paths have intersected with ours. And pray for us to do all we can to help them move closer to knowing Jesus.

Wow!  Right when we least expected it, a great house went up for sale last Friday.  We had been looking at the piece of junk/BAD foundation house when a call came about a house down the street from the Pruett’s (the Challenge director and our temporary home until Nov.)  It was listed at a great price and looked really good.  So Julee, after stepping off a plane from a week in OK, and I looked at it the same day and made an offer the next morning.  It seems to be a God thing from location, to price, to provision and is more than we could have asked for.

Now of course it is not ours yet (we close March 3), but we are thrilled to have the opportunity to own a house in Boulder, where you get less house for more money.  This will put us just 3 miles from campus and students will be able to easily get to our home to hang out, pray, party, eat, be involved with family life, sleep, eat, etc.  And I can ride a bike or bus to campus, or even walk.  So because ministry here is so centered around our homes this is an answer to prayer and something I wasn’t sure could happen like this.

We appreciate your prayers as we move forward.  We are also very aware of how God has led us here and desires us to serve Him at CU and invest our lives in students.

Thank you for your prayers.  The house opportunity we were looking at was just not good at all, so wisdom said to walk away - and we did.  And then an opportunity came out of nowhere for another house.  I will have more info for you tomorrow.  Very exciting.

Please be praying for us.  We have found a house in Boulder that is in the realm of reasonable price wise - only 339,000.  Its such a low price because its a piece of junk and would need some serious, serious work.  We are going to walk through with a builder on Monday and find out if it will be feasible for us.

The upside is that we would be in good location and can design the house to meet our needs.  The downside is that it may cost too much to get it there because it has some serious foundation issues.

So we would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and good sense and possibly strong backs and endurance.

Hooray!!

God has made a place for us to pitch our tents.   We have found a house to rent for awhile and have moved out of our storage unit.  We are grateful to have some more space and we can actually invite people to our house.  Julee is thriving as she organizes things and its kind of like an early Christmas opening boxes we haven’t seen for 5 months.  The kids have had a great time setting up and organizing their rooms.

So 5 months after moving from Arizona, we have a settled, established feeling.  We are also grateful for the incredible Pruett family who have shared their home with us during this time.  God blessed in ways we would have never guessed.  Our families have bonded in a way that would never have happened otherwise.  We are connected now very deeply and its like our family has expanded by 10.  Its a little hard to explain, but it was very good, even with all the challenges.

Thank you for your prayers in this matter.  And pray that we can still find a house to buy (and be able to buy it) in Boulder.  We are hoping that by next summer we will be in a home we own.

I’ll get some pictures up soon.

Colossians 4:2-3

Challenge students have had a wonderful time spending time with a group of Japanese students here for the year. They love them dearly and have deep friendships. They would also love to see these students come to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Pray that as our students interact they would help Jesus make sense to their friends. Many of the students have said they can’t become Christians because they are Japanese. So pray that God could begin to break down these mental and cultural barriers to a relationship with Jesus. Also pray that they could ’see’ Jesus in our students so that words and deeds both will be used by God to draw these students to Him.

Colossians 4:2-3

One major item is for a house. At present we are living with another family, which is a great blessing, but we would like to move into our own place soon. It will take a miracle for us to buy a house in Boulder and we believe God is in that business. We are looking right now just to rent something that will work for our family and ministry.

Pray for a great house.

Pray that we will learn all that God wants to teach us in our present circumstances and that we will be a blessing.

Pray that whatever germ is continuing to circulate thru our family will die.