1 Month Whirlwind in Pictures

So the last month has been a crazy whirlwind of activity.  More downsizing, packing up our apartment, meeting friends and family for the last time in a long while, and yes preparing to move 2,000 miles away to Texas... in August.  One scripture has just been hitting me hard with the greatness of our God and what we are doing.   Luke 5:2,3,5,6,10, and 11 says:

² He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” ⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

 

Wow! Simon had worked hard all night and came up empty. The tough job of cleaning the net was almost done. Then he heard Jesus speak. His words had power. So when Jesus told Simon Peter to put out into deep water it meant two things: more work and doing something that doesn't make sense. I can relate! And Simon said "But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

We do this because Jesus says Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel. How will they hear unless someone preaches and how will they preach unless they are sent?

So here we are going into deep waters with Jesus, preparing for what lies ahead because He called and that is enough.  And the joy of being called and following Him is exceedingly great, for there is joy in His presence forever!

 



Taping out the uhaul trailer in our apartment

5'x8' or 6'x12'

 

Filling up the invisible uhaul

 

Some beloved shirts didn't make the cut

(not my decision)

 

Table gone and mess everywhere but the kids don't mind

 

Our bed is gone and the room is surprisingly spacious

 

Mama and Evie cleaning Grama and Grampa's garage for our stuff while we

are out of our apartment and before we leave.  

 

The invisible uhaul transitions to the garage

 

 

Our stuff in the center (we aren't kidding ourselves

with the possibility of a 5x8 trailer anymore)

My new office in the way back

Evie and Brianna at the A.M. Welles going

away party.  What a great company to work for!

 

Worshipping at New Hope for the last time, so bittersweet.

Evie with her great friend Samantha

 Too much partying for some

Enjoying camping in the back yard 

A rowdy game of broom ball with uncle Joe and cousins
 

Serious discussions with Brita
 

Craziness heading up to pick huckleberries

Evie hitting the jackpot

The cousins

Grampa and Grama enjoying a brat with the grandkids

Special swimming with Nana and Papa

And the cousins too

 

A special gift from our awesome New Hope church family!

 

 

On Tuesday August 13th at 5:00am we leave for Texas!  We love you all and ask for prayer as we go and prepare to cast our nets!

 

 

When all around my soul (and the road) gives way

Here is a recap of our great Fourth of July adventure.  At the end of this post we have prayer needs that we would love to share with you!

 

One of my favorite hymns is Solid Rock.  The third verses says "When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.  On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand".
We saw in a very real way this Fourth of July how bad sinking or sliding ground can be, and how He holds us in His mighty right hand.   

This is a part of the road we trying to get across.  It was dry and dusty when we turned onto the cut across to Black Butte in the Gravelly Range.

We had 9 miles on this road and the last three were like this!  The pictures don't show the steep vertical rise and fall or the steep cross slope.  Many spots there was a steep drop off which made us more than a little scared.  We kept fish tailing as we tried to climb the 3000' vertical feet to the camp site where we were to meet up with our friends.

Sometimes the things that hurt are a great help!  We fish tailed again between ruts and the suburban bounced off a tree.  Not excited about the dent, but so thankful for the tree that stopped us from going off the slope!



At one point it was so bad, I had the kids and Brita walk behind while I plowed through the worst spots.  There was a lot of praying going on!  The kids asked if we would die.  I told them that God was totally in control and that whatever happened would be the absolute best.  It was good for me to hear that too.  Never did we question the safety of the road or try to push anything we thought was risky as we went up the road. One minute it was dry, the next minute it was almost impossible to stay on the road.  There was no turning back once the road gave way.

 

The victory dance (of sorts)! We made it through the worst of the road!



There was no sign where we started going up the road, but as we made it to the other end we looked back and saw the truth put in the form of a yellow and black sign.

 

Yes it was!

 

The kids were so happy to be at the camp spot.  It was a beautiful sight to see.  It was also a beautiful picture of this life in Christ.  We can trust Him, no matter what the outcome is.  He has proven over and over that in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His propose, even when those good things don't seem like what we would choose as the best thing to happen in our life.  The infinitely wise and all knowing God of the universe is far more capable of knowing what is best than I do.  We were able to praise God as a family that night for His provision and His mighty right hand holding us up. 

 

 

This is what we read in our tent that night:

 



 ¹ I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
before the “gods” I will sing your praise.
² I will bow down toward your holy temple
and will praise your name
for your unfailing love and your faithfulness,
for you have so exalted your solemn decree
that it surpasses your fame.
³ When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me.

⁴ May all the kings of the earth praise you, Lord,
when they hear what you have decreed.
⁵ May they sing of the ways of the Lord,
for the glory of the Lord is great.

⁶ Though the Lord is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly;
though lofty, he sees them from afar.
⁷ Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life.
You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes;
with your right hand you save me.⁸ The Lord will vindicate me;
your love, Lord, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.

 

HERE ARE SOME PRAYER REQUESTS.  WE WOULD LOVE YOUR PRAYERS!

 

• Pray that we are able to organize and cut down on more stuff. We are now at the hardest of the hard things to let go of.
•  Pray that my work (Josh) will become a little less stressful as we prepare to leave.  It is hard to leave a job you love so much and I want to finish well and also be able to have time to help Brita with all the preparations.
• Pray that we would continue to see support come in.  We are at about 60% of our monthly budget (or $2,200/month) and have seen God provide so amazingly over the past 6 months!
• Pray that we would be wise in how we spend our last 30 days.  We want to see so many people but the time is just too short.
• Finally, please pray for our church, New Hope Bible Church.  Nearly eight years after it was planted  the church we have called home will be closing in early August.  Please pray that all of the members will be connected into other great churches around the valley.  This has been hard on Brita and I as we prepare to leave, and now we will be without a home church.

Thank you so much for your partnership and sacrifice for the gospel of Jesus!  We are so thankful for all of you!



Yet another downsizing!!

As I sit here looking at the paper chain getting smaller and smaller I realize that time does march on whether we are ready or not! 

Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to in the last few weeks!

paper chain getting smaller...

 



Loading up the burb from the storage shed.

 

 

 

"A generous person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed."
  Proverbs 11:25

We were privileged enough to experience this proverb first hand. As we are downsizing we had the opportunity along with our church to bless a wonderful family whose little son has a rare form of dwarfism. Benjamin has had numerous surgeries and will need more medical assistance in the future. So we were able to refresh them by donating a lot of the stuff we needed to get rid of. The yard sale was able to raise over $2,000 for Benjamin and we were truly refreshed by the Lord to see faith and love in action!

 

 

Not all of that is ours... just most of it :) 

 

 

Good-bye storage unit!

 

Getting smaller..... 

Fun 100' slip N slide at Mauritsens

 

 

Carnage from the 100' slip N slide. 

Never seen a kid so excited he got a broken finger!



Where we are now.  Aghh!

Tick.Tick.Tick. :)

Thankfulness!

"Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable His judgements and His paths beyond tracing out!  Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?  Who has ever given to God, that God should repay Him?  For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever, Amen."        Romans 11:33-36

The Madison River after the fire last spring

 

Can something become more beautiful without changing?  Can some common event become more exciting though nothing has physically changed? 

 

I feel an overwhelming gratefulness to God for the privilege to live here.  I have lived all my life in Montana and have really taken for granted all that is here.  For example, a full winter snow storm in May? 

 

Normally this is a pain and inconvenience.  But when you are re-awakened to the wonder of things like snow, knowing you may not see it for a long time, you remember it is declaring praise to God!  "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow..." Job 38:22

 

Or a normal Caddis hatch on the Madison River .  I had the joy to take two hours and be surrounded by the wonder of 100,000,000+ caddis bugs swarming the river as the fish gorge themselves on a tasty treat.

 

 

 

As I was catching this trout, a bald eagle flew by with its own catch . I have fished this river and the caddis hatch many times, yet somehow knowing this is not a guarantee to happen again it was almost too much to take in! "The heavens declare your praises"

 

 Kids are such a blessing from the Lord!  They teach you so much!  When was the last time you were grateful for a letter?  A real letter from the mail?  Evelyn shows me so often that it is the everyday things that are a wonder too.  This was her first letter in the mail all for her!

 

 

 "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." James 1:17

And all this from a new perspective on the routine, everyday things in life.  I will never know why God chose to open my eyes to see Him at 19, to fall in love with my Savior and really know Him.  That is the ultimate gift!  And I can't wait to be trained to tell others that have never had the chance to even hear, let alone know this God.  And what pleasure and joy there is in knowing the Creator of all these wonders.  They are beams of the light of His glory.  If we only look at them we miss the point. 

They are meant to be pointers to the source of the wonder and awe!

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
¹⁰ For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.

¹¹ You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:9-11

 

That path is through Jesus! 

 



100 Days!!

Counting down the days until we leave for Texas!

There are only 100 days left until we leave Montana and travel south to the Center for Pioneer Church Planting in Los Fresnos, Texas!  It has been a long wait, but we are beginning to see the end of this stage.   We are so excited to tackle the tasks that need to be done before we load up the Suburban and trailer. 

• Continue to raise support
• Have a garage sale 
• Get the old suburban ready for the long haul
• Continue to save as much money as we can
• Move out of our apartment
• Tons of miscellaneous small things!

100 days... That's only 14 weekends.  It may sound like a lot but it is going to go very quickly! 


We received an update on our support on May 1st and are praising Jesus for his continued provision!  Here are the new numbers:

• 37% of our monthly living expenses are met (groceries, rent, insurance, taxes)
• 90% of our one time expenses are met (tuition, books, week long trips into Mexico, etc)

It is so exciting that we now have enough to pay Josh's tuition!  Hopefully we will get that done in the next couple of weeks. 

We have been so blessed by all of you who have already committed to pray for us and/or support us financially!  We have even received some great notes of encouragement that has meant so much to us.  You are the other half of this mission!  We give up our comforts to go, just as you give up your comforts to give.  We are partners!  Thank you!

Would you please commit to praying with us that we will be fully funded before we go?  Trusting God to provide enough through financial donations is actually no different than trusting him to provide enough through a salary or an hourly wage.  But it sure feels different!  It is an amazing opportunity to allow God to grow us in our faith, and we feel we are being stretched.  From past experience we know that this is exactly where we want to be - fully relying on God because He is fully in control! 

If you have not already partnered with us financially would you consider joining with us?  We are very much in need of more monthly supporters!  Currently we have monthly supporters giving anywhere between $20 and $200 dollars.  The wonderful thing about monthly gifts is that they are a reminder every month that you are with us and that you are praying for us.  Any amount is an incredible gift!  One time gifts are no less important and as soon as our one time needs are met they will be spread over the year to help with our monthly living expenses.

It is hard to put in to words how excited we are to begin to train to be long term cross cultural missionaries!  We will be part of ongoing church planting every month in Mexico while we train.  So we really will be doing the work of spreading the gospel starting this summer!