Desert Blooms

“The Lord is exalted, for He dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and He will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure.” Isaiah 33:5-6

Waiting. Andy and I have been waiting for the two years since we became husband and wife. I have been waiting almost four years since I returned from CLM. We have been waiting since April when we began our tumultuous visa process.

Many times as Andy and I have talked about our waiting in the terms of a desert. Right now, it is easy for Andy and I to dream about what we would be doing if we were staying here. We often catch each other saying things like, “If we were staying here we would look into buying a house or getting a dog or finding a job or going back to school or getting involved in this ministry or...” It is easy for us to look back and long for what we've experienced in the past, a stable physical home, my own kitchen in my case, a pick-up truck in Andy's case. Being stripped of what we knew has shown us how dependent we are on things as opposed to Christ. None of these things we long for are evil inherently, but Andy and I have set up so many of these things as idols. We forget the manna and the quail God has fed us with as we journey to where He has called us. He has indeed fed us abundantly.

We also catch ourselves overly focused on the future. Once again we find ourselves focused on saying things like “When we get to CLM...” or even, “When we get back from Brazil...” Even what God has called us to can become an idol! Yes, God has called us to minister to His precious children at CLM but we are first called to glorify God and become more like Chris, regardless of where we are physically. Please pray that Christ will make us alert to all the idols in our hearts!

“He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water.” Psalm 107:35

The pools and springs of our desert give way to beautiful desert blooms! Let me share just some of the blooms we've admired even as we are in our desert.

Dwelling: God has provided gracious hosts for us to live with. First Gary & Mary K who gave out of their extreme busyness and opened their home. Then there are Andy's parents who have to be some of the easiest in-laws to live with. Now we have the opportunity to live at the old church cabin that my uncle owns and offered to us to live in completely unlooked for!

Fellowship: We have had the blessing of deeper and new friendships with Brothers and Sisters literally from across the country and around the world! There are the dear friends from MTI, especially David and Janna Wilson who have encouraged us so much. Then there's the ECHO family. We are so privileged to have spent time with Scott and Martha Britton and George and Lollie, what fellowship! We were also blessed with the opportunity to attend a Brazilian church in Ft. Myers and spend some time talking to the congregation members there and being reminded of the culture and language we are going to be adopting. We are also so grateful for more time with our supporting churches here: Northfield Christian and First Mennonite.



Time with our families: Andy and were able to take my three youngest siblings to St. Louis and spend some time with them at the zoo and Grant's Farm.

Learning: We feel so much more prepared to help with the farm at CLM after our two weeks at ECHO. If we had our way we would have already been in Brazil and missed the opportunity to study there.

Self-examination before God: He has been showing us so much through this time, revealing sinful attitudes in our hearts and reminding us our identity is not in what we are doing for Him but who we are in Him!

What is This Chill in the Air?

We arrived back in Illinois on Saturday night after a mere 20 hour car ride from North Ft. Myers, Florida. After spending two weeks working in 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity, 70 degrees here in central Illinois seems downright chilly.

The last two weeks I have learned more information about small-scale agriculture than I ever thought was possible to stuff in my artistically minded brain, but I did find it quite interesting. ECHO is a non-profit organization that trains missionaries how to minister through agriculture and meet not only the world's spiritual needs but it's physical needs as well.

Andy and I found out about ECHO during our training at MTI earlier this summer. Andy was immediately interested in visiting ECHO because he will be helping out on the CLM farm as part of his duties. Even though he was a lot of experience with large-scale commercial farming, he wanted to learn more about small-scale subsistence agriculture. He arranged for a two week work-study program and I agreed to go along party because I didn't know what I'd do without him for two weeks and his passion and vision for the CLM farm is infectious.

We spent the mornings working with the interns at ECHO weeding, planting, constructing raised beds, fixing irrigation systems and helping with animals. We spent the afternoons studying in ECHO's wonderful library or attending seminars presented by the ECHO staff about soil fertility and water filtration. The work was hard but we enjoyed being outside and getting hands on experience.

In addition to our work and study, we enjoyed getting to know some of the interns and visitors at ECHO. The interns spend a year taking care of a specific area of the farm and learning about techniques for farming in various regions of the world. We shared a duplex with one of the interns, Scott Britton and his wife Martha and their daughter, Liliana. They were so much fun and we loved sharing some meals with them and getting to know their family. I've found that in our travels this summer, the hardest thing is getting to know our precious brothers and sisters in Christ and then having to say goodbye. We will miss the ECHO family!

Visa Update

It's been awhile since we have actually had something to report about our visas but we finally have bit of news to share!

We sent in our documents to our expediter the end of July. He spent some time looking over our documents first and getting some of our documents legalized at the consulate. After the prep work he submitted our documents to the consulate for review the second week of August. The only error the consulate found was that Andy's ordination certificate had not been legalized which was easily remedied. The staff at the consulate even commented on how complete our application was because they usually find a bunch of mistakes (!) that have to be corrected. Our expediter resubmitted our documents last week and they were sent to Brasilia last weekend for processing.

The consulate told us the processing time is 30-45 days. Our expediter will be asking each week at the consulate for us and he seemed very positive that that processing time is about accurate. Please be praying that our visas will be processed quickly and we can be in Brazil by September or October. My younger sister is currently spending three months at CLM Turvo and we would love to be able to spend some time with her in Brazil before she returns to the States in November.

We are so thankful God led us to this expediter through the recommendation of PAZ (Project Amazon). He has done a great job and we highly recommend his service if you are applying for a Brazilian visa. Thank you all for your prayers, we're not finished with the process yet but we are encouraged by the progress and we hope you as our ministry partners are as well.

Update on our Increasingly Crazy yet Blessed Life

A new entry is far overdue. I'll start by giving you all a summary of our past month or so...

-We finished our time at MTI on June 26th. The PILAT language program was very beneficial and we are looking forward to implementing the techniques we learned during our six months in language school and throughout our time at CLM. We highly recommend both the SPLICE and PILAT programs to any future missionaries.

-On our way home from MTI we stopped off at Willow Springs Boys Ranch in Chandler, Oklahoma. The high school youth group from our church was in the midst of a short-term mission trip there and we swung by to talk to the leadership there and see how the staff at Willow Springs run their boys home. We thought it was worth going out of the way for and the staff was quite helpful.

-Upon our arrival back in good old Central Illinois we moved in with Andy's parents. Andy is doing odd jobs around the farm, working for his dad and brother. I'm working on our visa paperwork and packing.

-We spent last weekend in St. Louis with Andy's family for one last hurrah of family togetherness before we leave for Brazil. We did all the fun St. Louis stuff such as ascending the arch and having Italian on the Hill. We enjoyed the family time.

-On Tuesday we received our much anticipated paperwork from Brazil. Since we last attempted to apply, we have been networking with PAZ (another mission organization working in Brazil). The people from PAZ have been so helpful, they gave us the name of the expediter they have used and a lawyer in Brazil who can help push our case through. We are hoping to send in our paperwork in early next week.

-As of June, we have 72% of our monthly support and 85% of our one time costs pledged. We are so humbled at how God has been providing.

-We just got back today from a very relaxing two days at Mission Oak Inn, a bed and breakfast in Henry. We loved our time there, and also highly recommend it.

-Next week we are enjoying our last Bike Trip to Indiana for awhile. We will be riding our bikes to Huntington, Indiana. This trip has a special place in our hearts since that is where we met.

-Andy's hoping to go to back to Colorado Springs the first week of August to get some additional training about sustainable and renewable technologies that would help CLM become more self-sufficient.

-Beginning August 10th we will be in Fort Meyers, Florida for two weeks for training at ECHO, a non-profit organization that teaches missionaries about subsistence agriculture. Andy is very interested in learning more about the small-scale farming that he will be involved in at CLM.

We are still hoping to leave for CLM in early September, but that hinges on our visa. We know God has us still in the US for a reason and we are glad we can take advantage of the unplanned time here to enjoy being close to our family and friends a little longer. Let us know if you want to get together!

Palmer Lake, Colorado: MTI

We've made it to the 3rd week of our training at MTI. We are in the last week of our SPLICE training which is the program that covers the personal aspects of missionary life. Next week we will start PILAT which covers language learning techniques. So far we've been very impressed with the training offered here at MTI and we definitely feel it has been valuable and we highly recommend it.

One of the elements that is emphasized by the staff at MTI is building a community among the participants. They told us that their goal is for us to have painful goodbyes when we part ways with our fellow SPLICE attendees. We have gotten to know our fellow future missionaries very well and we can already tell it will be hard to say good bye. We have been encouraged by the fellowship we've had with the many like-minded people around us, and it have been refreshing to talk with those who are wrestling with many of the same issues we are.

We've been taking advantage of the plethora of hiking trails around this area. We've also been biking when possible which isn't all that often because the weather up here is rather finicky. We used to think that the weather in Illinois changed quickly but it's nothing compared to the mountains. It has also been pretty cold, one day last week the high was only 50 degrees. I will admit it is pretty cool to enjoy a morning bike ride with a view of Pike's Peak.

We will keep you all updated as we continue to learn and explore the area around Palmer lake.

Colorado: Colt Ranch

On Friday May 22nd Andy and I left for our required training in Colorado Springs. Our training here at MTI begins officially today, but we decided to take a few days over the weekend to relax and reconnect after a busy and stressful semester. Andy picked out a wonderful bed & breakfast (Colt Ranch) in Southern Colorado, just North of the New Mexico boarder.

The couple who run Colt Ranch breed highland cattle and have several horses and burros. Their property also includes what is now the abandoned mining town of Primero. We had a beautiful view of the mountains from out window and went hiking between the rain showers. The local scenery reminded us a lot of Turvo with all the pine trees, hills and adobe-style homes.I had never been west of Missouri so I have been soaking up all the new scenery, we are definitely enjoying the diversity of God's beautiful creation.

This morning we drove our last 2 1/2 hours up to MTI. We'll have our orientation later on this afternoon.

Follow this link to more pictures.

Visa Drama

Finish school: check. Move out of our house: check. Begin fund raising: check. Turn in visa application: not quite.

Here's an update on our visa situation so far. Our applications have been turned down twice by the Brazilian consulate in Chicago. The first time we were rejected because applicants for a missionary visa much apply in person. After some last minute scrambling, Andy made the trip up to Chicago on April 24th. We were rejected again, this time because we lacked a necessary document from Brazil. Currently we are waiting for this necessary document to arrive. We were hoping to receive it on May 7th (yesterday) and go to Chicago today but that didn't happen.

Both Andy and I are frustrated about the visa situation, and even though we would love to just have deliverance we suspect God's trying to develop us. We hope we can get our applications turned in before we have to leave for Colorado on May 22nd. We covet your prayers.