More Hope For Selling Our House

Since our house went up for sale in October it has been shown to three couples. The last people who looked liked it very much and had said they were going to start deciding after Thanksgiving. Then we didn't hear anything from them for a month, which left us wondering what they were up to. Our realitor called us last week to let us know that they are now planning on deciding shortly after the beginning of the year, and that our house is still on their list.

This is great news becuase it means that after looking at many houses they are still interested in ours. Hopefully they will want to look through it again and then decide that ours is the one they want to buy. So we need to pray doubly hard that God will lead them to buy our house, and we ask you to join us again in praying for this. Even in this down market and rough financial time God is in control and we trust that he will provide for the sale of our house. It would be so great to sell it soon so that we would be one step closer to beginning our work with the orphans in Romania!

Snow Galore

Wow, have we gotten a lot of snow in the last few days! Last Friday we got nearly 14 inches and then this morning there was another 10 inches in the driveway. It is a lot of snow to get all at once and it just keeps on coming. The next few days are supposed to bring more, so it's sure to be a white Christmas around here. I just wanted to share some pictures of the snow to show how deep it is.

It's been blowing like crazy which is why our wreath is full of snow.

There is a bush in there somewhere.

Our mailbox isn't doing so well. This morning the street plow didn't even come close to the mailbox so Rebecca had to dig it out so we can still get mail.

This is the back of our car after we went to church yesterday. Ours was one of the only churches not canceled, so we braved the weather to get there. It was a great service with the full orchestra and everything, but it was pretty treacherous getting there and back.

Holiday Gettogether With Our Lifegroup

Tis the season for holiday gettogethers! Isn't it great to be able to get together with friends and family and enjoy food and fellowship together? We recently had such a time with our LifeGroup from church. We all brought part of the meal and one couple provided the turkey and hosted the group at their house.

Mark enjoyed carving up this massive turkey. He had to improvise to get it out of the crock pot with a fork and ice cream scoop because we couldn't find the tongs and needed something sturdy to get it out with. Whatever works, right?

This great feast included the turkey, sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, herb bread, poppy seed blueberry salad, cranberry sauce, jello, and pumpkin pie bars. It was all wonderful! After the feast was done we spent the rest of the evening talking and catching up, we were going to play some games but we never got to them because there was so much to talk about.

This is our group, minus a few who couldn't make it. We always enjoy the fellowship we have with them. Our group has grown from three couples a few years ago to two groups with around six couples each. We aren't in both of the groups now but we still enjoy seeing the other group at church on Sundays.

Where God Guides, He Provides!

The title of this post is something that Mary Geegh said in her book "God Guides." She was a missionary in India in the middle of the 20th century. She had many experiences where she was guided to do something extraordinary and God came through with his providence. This Monday we received some surprising news that shows how God is providing for our missionary journey.

One of the owners of the company where I work, Extol Inc, came up to me and told me that they just ran the numbers and found out that for the last fiscal year we turned a profit. This was a surprise because I had talked to him before and it sounded like we would just break even for the year. Thankfully the fiscal year ended before some not so good months, so for that time period there was a profit. Since Extol is a Christian company they give a tithe on any profit, so they decided to support us with a financial gift.

When he told me how much I was floored! They are going to contribute $5,000!!! WOW! This will cover a pretty big chunk of our start up funds that we have to raise before we leave. I have been praying for miracles lately, and this is certainly is an answer to prayer. All Glory to God, he continues to show us that it is indeed his will for us to go on this journey. He will provide everything we need to make this happen. Amazing, isn't it?

I have to say a huge thank you to Extol for donating this money, it will enable us to minister to the orphans in Romania. What an awesome group of people we have at this company, that they would make a donation like this is really outstanding. Above all, thanks to God for providing this for us. We continue to pray for more miracles like selling our house and raising the rest of the start up fund and monthly commitments. God is so faithfull and we are looking forward to more surprises!

All The Latest Happenings

Wow, a lot has been happening with us recently, and it's been a while since the last post. Let's back up to Thanksgiving. We had a great time spending the day with our family, eating wonderful food and hanging out having some fun. We watched the classic Home Alone and played a great game of Scrabble.

On Black Friday we did something really stupid, we went shopping. This was something we had said we would never do but there was a terrific sale on a laptop computer at Best Buy, so we went with a friend at MIDNIGHT and waited to get a ticket for the computer we wanted. The whole thing was very badly managed and the first 15-20 people in line ended up getting all the best deals, so before the store even opened we left knowing that there wasn't a chance that we would get what we want. It was really frustrating, but now we know to NEVER get sucked in by what seems to be such a good deal.

The rest of the long weekend was fun, we went hot-tubing with a friend, Mark went to the Grand Valley football game (unfortunately they lost, it was a really bad game), and we had dinner and played Wii with some other friends.

We haven't heard anything from the last people that looked at our house, so we are still praying that they will buy it even though they said they would start deciding last week. We are still trusting that God has a plan so even if they don't buy the house someone else will come along at the right time. We had our meeting with the RCA about partnering with them in our mission, and that went well. There is still a lot to figure out there but we are praying that God will open the doors for this to work as well. Our fund raising started by sending out our support letters to friends and family. God is in control of sll three of these areas and we continue to ask for your prayers.

The kitties helped Rebecca decorate recently. They also had fun helping un-decorate by constantly playing with the decorations and pulling down the blankets and tablecloth.

They also liked playing in the snow on the deck.

Rebecca took some great closeup shots of snowflakes.

The snow is really beautiful, just don't ask how fun it is to drive in it.

Our Trip To California Part 2

Here is the continuation from where the last post about our California vacation left off. When we arrived at San Diego we stopped for lunch at a fresh fish place near the ocean. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed the sights and sounds of that part of the city. As we drove to Ramona, which is where the H2H office is, it started to drizzle, to which Jim and Jodi (the founders of H2H) exclaimed "wow, it's pouring!" We laughed because sometimes we get inches of rain in one shower, but it was a pretty big deal there because it only rains once in a great while. The drive to Ramona was really beautiful, mountainous and very rocky. Some of the mountains were covered with boulders the size of houses, left there by passing glaciers back in the ice age.


We stayed with Jim & Jodi at their guest house which was very nice and comfortable. They really know how to treat guests! While we were there we spent lots of time talking about our plans for our missionary work, and we worked on some things like our prayer cards. We talked about our budget and our fund raising approach, and about lots of other things related to the ministry. It was really an energizing experience and it was great to start our planning.

We went to the ocean on Monday and saw this pelican just hanging out on the pier. We enjoyed walking along and seeing all the palm trees on the beach. Monday night Mark did a little off roading with JT (Jim & Jodi's son), and then some of the high-schoolers that helped at summer camp came over. We made pizzas and had brownies while we caught up and reminisced about our experience with the Romanian orphans.

We stopped in at the Realization Gardens, and we realized that we were in a beautiful place.

On Tuesday we went into San Diego again and visited the veterans war memorial. It overlooks the entire city and surrounding area.

We stopped by a tidal pool which was really cool. We touched live sea urchin and saw a flock of pelicans nesting.

Then we visited an aquarium near the ocean and saw all sorts of amazing aquatic life.

The beautiful and deadly Lionfish.

After visiting the aquarium we went to the beach to see the beautiful sunset. Then we went to Austin & Anna's (Jim & Jodi's daughter & son-in-law) house, and then went out for dinner. The next morning we flew out really early and spent basically the whole rest of the day traveling home. Thankfully we had a pretty good trip back.

This was such a great vacation. We got to see lots of friends and figure a lot out about our coming ministry in Romania. We want to express our thanks to all those who let us stay with them and showed us around, it was such a memorable time!

Important Prayer Request

Now that we are officially part of H2H it is time to start raising funding for our ministry in Romania. We will soon be sending out support letters to friends and family, and posting the letter here on this blog. So we are asking for much prayer that God will provide the funding we need quickly so we can start our ministry in April of 2009. This is an aggressive goal but we are putting all of our trust in God that he will work it out. We recently read through a book by a missionary in India and her main saying was: "When God guides He provides." We know God has guided us to minister to the orphans of Romania, so we know he will provide for all our needs.

Another important prayer request is that we can partner with the Reformed Church in America in this ministry. We have a meeting with some of their mission executives next Monday, Nov 24. We don't really know what to expect but we are praying that they will be open to this idea. It would mean a lot if we were able to do this, as it would open the doors to all of the RCA congregations, as well as allow us to receive more support from our own church. Also, if we were able to speak in many more churches we could introduce them to H2H and seek people to come on short term mission trips to Romania. Short term trips are a big part of H2H's ministry to the orphans as they bring in lots of people to show the orphans love. Being able to partner with the RCA would be beneficial in multiple ways, so we ask for your prayers that God works this out.

Prayer Request For Selling Our House

Our house has been for sale now for about 2 months and 3 different people have looked through it so far. The first two looked within a couple weeks of being listed, and both ended up going with something else. The third ones just looked at our house last weekend, and we just heard about what they are thinking. Ours was one of the first houses they've looked at and they really liked it, and there were quite a few specific things they liked about it. They want to look at some more houses before making a decision, which they will do shortly after Thanksgiving. So we are asking for your prayers that they will end up liking our house the best and will put in a reasonable offer. This would be huge for us as it would remove this from our list of things to do before we go to Romania.

Only God knows if these are our buyers but we can pray that he works in their lives so they decide on our house. We know God has a plan and that he will provide all of our needs, so we'll see what he does in this. Thanks in advance for praying for this and we'll let you know what happens when we find out.

Our Trip To California Part 1

We recently went on vacation in California to see some friends and go to a wedding. We drove to Chicago Midway airport and didn't get stuck in traffic, and then each leg of our flight was early, which was really nice. When we got to Sacramento, the capital of California, we were picked up by our friend's grandma and taken to their house. Sarah, our friend who was at summer camp in Romania with us, was at work so we hung out with her grandparents for a while. Her grandparents have also been to Romania so we watched a video of their pictures and had a great time getting to know them. Mark & Kristin, two Heart 2 Heart missionaries that we got to know during camp, stopped by to see us and we caught up on what we've all been doing since camp. Then another friend from camp, Marci, stopped by to say hi before she had to go to work. Later Sarah came home and Marci came back after work, and we spent the rest of the night hanging out and catching up with each other.

Friday morning we went to see Sarah at work at the local coffee place. She made us some wonderful drinks. When her shift was done we headed out to San Fransisco for the rest of the day. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the ride there and the sights we saw. We went to the Exploratorium first, a place were there were lots of cool science demonstrations. After that we headed over to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Alcatraz as seen from a far away bridge.

Driving on the Golden Gate Bridge was fun as the clouds began to roll in.

We enjoyed a beautiful view of the bridge and the sunset and the fog rolling in over the mountains was really cool. After that we went in search of dinner, so we drove down by the pier area. We walked down to pier 39 where we watched a guy twirling flaming torches and then we decided to go to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company to eat. When we looked at the menus we were surprised by how expensive it was and how little we liked on there, so we quietly left. It was pretty weird leaving like that but it was worth it because we went to a great pizza place and split a pizza. Overall the pier was really neat with all the different shops and restaurants.

.

On Saturday morning we went to where Marci works: Starbucks. We got some good drinks and enjoyed the sparing between Sarah and Marci over which coffee is better. Then we went to downtown Sacramento and walked to the capital building. There were beautiful gardens all around and lots of orange trees as you can see above. We ate at a great Mediterranean place for lunch and then headed back to Sarah's place to get ready for Mark & Kristin's wedding.

.

.

At the wedding we got to see lots of people we knew from Heart 2 Heart. We enjoyed catching up with them and it was nice to know that we were going to be a part of that organization.

.

The wedding went great and the reception was fun. It was great to see Mark & Kristin and we wish them the best in their new marriage. They are going to stay in California for a year and then return to Romania to minister to the orphans there with H2H. So then we will be working with them again.

.

On Sunday we went to church with Marci, and then we had to say our goodbyes. We went to the airport and met up with Jim & Jodi Sorrels, the founders of H2H. Anna & Austin, their daughter and son-in-law and JT their son were there too, and we flew out with them to San Diego. You can read about the rest of our vacation in the continuation of this post in a couple days.

It Is Official - We Are Going To Romania Full Time!

This is big news! We have officially been accepted by Heart To Heart International Ministries as missionaries! The H2H board went over our application and references and decided that we would be a good fit with their ministry. We are very excited!

.

Our goal is to start our ministry to the orphans of Romania by April 2009. In order to do that we will need to raise support funds for our ministry. We will be sending out support letters soon and will also post the letter on this blog. We will also need to sell our house before we go, so if you know anyone who is looking, please let them know about our house.

.

Above all we really need your prayers, please pray that we are able to raise our funds and sell our house quickly. Also pray for all of the planning we have to do before we go. Pray for guidance, wisdom, and strength.

.

We are looking forward to being used by God to change the lives of orphans in Romania. This is an amazing opportunity and a big life change for us. We know that God has placed this call in our hearts and that he will provide for all our needs. Praise God!

.

A Teaser Post

Wow, it's been a long time since our last post.  We have been quite busy lately, and a lot of different things have been happening.  Right now we are in Ramona, California, hanging out with some friends.  We got some big news recently too.  So when we get back home we will be posting quite a bit to catch up.  Stay tuned!

Fall Colors

This has been a beautiful fall and we have really been enjoying the burst of color in the trees. This year the reds, oranges, and yellows seem to be more vibrant than before, probably because we've had ample amounts of rain. Even though our yard doesn't have a lot of trees we are still getting quite a show.

This is the same tree as the picture above, only a week later.

.

We've also been enjoying the late blooming of some of our rose bushes, it's always nice to see them come out.

Fireproof Movie Was Awesome!

On Saturday we went to see the movie "Fireproof" at Rivertown Crossings Mall. We had heard great things about the movie and wanted to see what it was all about. The movie was so amazing and had such a great message, this is a must see movie. I'll write a little about the movie without giving too much away.

.

The movie is about a couple that is having severe marital problems. They are both constantly at each others throats and are not feeling in love like they used to when they dated. It gets to the point where they both want out and decide to get a divorce. Caleb (the husband) calls his dad to talk about it and his dad asks him to work through a book for 40 days to try and save the marriage. He is reluctant at first but as he works through it some changes take place. It is a hard road but in the end it pays off.

The movie's main theme is that marriages are meant by God to be a permanent covenant, not just a contract that has escape clauses. It places great value on saving marriages that are failing, and that it is well worth the work it takes. It stresses that love is a choice and not a feeling, and that you must put your spouse first in order to have a great marriage. I think that if everyone saw this it would give hope to strong and struggling couples alike.

The movie also gives a very clear presentation of the gospel with nothing held back. This was another central theme of the movie, that marriages work best with God in the center.

Fireproof was a great all-around movie, with lots of action, comedy, and drama, and a heartfelt story. There were quite a few tear-jerker moments too. The only hard part about watching the movie was realizing the pain and hurt that so many people go through in their marriages. It felt very real and it will surely hit close to home for many people. I highly recommend this movie to everyone.

.http://www.fireproofthemovie.com/

http://www.fireproofmymarriage.com

Pictures From The Weekend

Here are a few pictures from our trip to the Post Family Farm last weekend. It was a lot of fun as you can see.

.

Rebecca had fun with Brian & Tarah's daughter Johanna in the corn maze and on the hayride.

TJ & Rebecca's son Micah had fun playing in the pumpkin patch.

Chris & Heidi's daughter Molly and Mike & Nicole's son Evan had fun in the corn maze too.

Ryan & Kara's boys Andrew & Michael enjoyed a ride on the pumpkin train.

An Action Packed Weekend

Last weekend was really great as we got to relax a bit and see lots of friends too. On Friday we watched "Mr. Bean's Holiday," which is a great movie, classic Mr. Bean. It was a relaxing night and we just enjoyed spending some time together.

Saturday morning we went to a fun outing at the Post Family Farm with our LifeGroup from church. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was so refreshing to be outside with our friends. The farm has a corn maze, pumpkin patch, and lots of animals. There were hayrides and some play areas and games for the kids. The corn maze was really fun, and the corn was very tall this year. At the end we enjoyed fresh doughnuts and apple cider, it doesn't get any better than that! I will post some pictures from this in a later post.

We had the afternoon to spend together again, and we ended up watching "Iron Chef" on the computer, that was one of our favorite shows while we were dating and still is to this day. At dinnertime we went to Peppino's Ristorante and met with the group we went to Romania with last spring. Jim Sorrels, the founder of Heart 2 Heart, was up from California for the weekend so we got to visit with him. We had a great pizza and found out that his meeting with our church went really well and was very encouraging. We always enjoy getting together with our Romania group, they are so friendly and caring and are some of our best friends.

Sunday Jim came over after church and we had some Pad Thai for lunch. Then we went on a drive to see some color because it was just such a beautiful day. It was great spending time with Jim, he is a great guy and a great friend. He'll also be our boss when we become missionaries since he's the president of H2H :-) After Jim left we headed out to Mark's sister and brother-in-laws place to visit. We had a campfire which was very nice and relaxing. Mark's mom was also there. We had a great time hanging out with them.

A Very Memorable 5 Year Anniversary

Saturday October 4 was our 5 year anniversary! It doesn't seem like it's been 5 years already since we've been married, time has just been flying. We celebrated with three types of chocolates, and Rebecca made a picture collage for us both to enjoy. We wanted to do something fun and out of the ordinary but we didn't want to spend much because we'll be going to a wedding in California soon, so that will be our big 5 year anniversary vacation. So we looked at different nature preserves and came across the Saul Lake Bog Nature Preserve. Rebecca had been there before for some biology classes and had really liked it, so we decided to go there. It was a little over an hour drive but it was a beautiful day so we really enjoyed it. It was brisk outside but when the sun came out it warmed up a bit, such a nice crisp fall day.

When we got out to the bog we were surprised that there was no boardwalk through it, just a couple observation decks to look out over the entire thing. We decided to walk into the bog, because we wanted to do something fun and just looking over it wasn't what we had in mind. As we were walking around our shoes started to get wet, so we took them off and walked around barefoot.

.

Mark had never been to a bog before so it was a new experience, and walking on sphagnum moss was totally wild. With each step the moss would sink in a couple inches and water would fill in the hole. When we jumped up and down we could feel the whole area around us moving up and down, it was a little freaky but really fun walking on a floating land mass.
.

There were all sorts of cool plants, like this pitcher plant. We were really excited because pitcher plants are one of our favorites. There were thousands of them because we have had quite a wet year. Rebecca didn't think the bog had ever been this wet when she was there before.

A natural cranberry.

As we were making our way back to the observation deck, we had to cross a small stream that was running through the bog. As Rebecca walked through she took a step and fell in up to her hip! We both laughed so hard and then we had to figure out what to do with her mucky pants and legs. We were going to go out to eat after we were done at the bog, and going home to change would have taken two hours more of driving. So Rebecca got creative...

She used Marks socks to clean her legs off and then used his sweatshirt to make a skirt. It actually looked pretty convincing as you can see above.

We walked around some more trails after we were done in the bog, and then we headed over to Pietro's Italian Restaurant. We started out with some Bruchetta and great homemade bread. Rebecca ordered Chicken Fontina, which was a chicken breast with Fontina cheese and a sweet glaze, and Mark ordered Talapia Piccata with a white wine sauce. It was all very good and the restaurant was quite nice. We were just about done eating and the power went off. It was really weird but thankfully we were by a window so we could at least see what we were doing. We got to order our desserts since they didn't need to be cooked, so we got some Chocolate Mascarpone, which was very delicious. Anyone just coming in could only order salads or wood fired pizzas since the entire kitchen was down with the power outage. We got a hand written bill and had to use the old fashioned credit card swiping machine. Quite an experience. It turned out that someone had hit a power line or transformer so the whole area was out of power. When we left we were thankful we were going right because traffic was backed up really far going the other way.

We had a great day and had some fun adventures. We are so thankful for each other and are glad that God brought us together and has blessed our marriage. We know we will have many more wonderful years together.

Missionary Application & Selling Our House Update

Now that we have posted all the pictures and stories from camp we can start writing about what's going on in our lives right now. I had posted a while back saying that we had decided to apply to be full time missionaries in Romania, and now we are in that process. For the application we had to fill out a statement of intent where we talked about the why and how of what we want our ministry to look like. We are now waiting for some of our references to come in, and after they do then our application will be reviewed by the Heart 2 Heart board. After we are accepted we will start planning a budget and come up with a plan to raise our funds. How ever long it takes to raise our funds will be how long before we go there, so we're not really sure when that will be.

We've spent the last few weeks cleaning up our house and going through lots of stuff so that we could put it up for sale. We went through all our childhood stuff and kept only what was really meaningful, and we went through anything else we had stored or that we don't use very often. We donated lots of things to a local second hand store, including a bookcase and computer desk. It was a lot of work but it feels really good to be clutter free, and our house feels a lot more open. Last week we had a realtor come over and we listed our house with him. He is the same realtor who we bought the house with and we were very pleased when we worked with him last time. So if you know of anyone who is looking for a house in our area please let them know about ours. I put the links to the listing at the end of this post. We are really praying that God provides a buyer for our house, especially with the market the way it is.

Grand Rapids Association of Realtors (MLS Listing)

West Michigan Lakeshore Association of Realtors

Our Netherlands Misadventure

After we flew out of Romania we were delayed in Amsterdam for 2 whole days. Apparently the pilot had been sick for the last flight and for ours, so the airline wouldn't even fly us somewhere else because there were too many people delayed. So we were stuck, and the among other things, we didn't have any money. We had spent our last money in Romania thinking that we were as good as home, not even thinking of the possibility of getting stranded somewhere. We tried using our credit card but apparently you need a PIN number in Europe to use credit cards, and we didn't have one. We tried to get a cash advance from a bank but it wasn't working even though we called the credit card company twice and they said it should work.

.

Also, the airline wouldn't give us our checked luggage, and we had mostly dirty clothes in our carry-ons. We were really unprepared to be delayed like this. Usually delays are a few hours, or maybe even overnight, but we'd never even heard of a two full day delay.

.

Thankfully the airline put us up in a nice hotel with all meals included. The bummer was that the airport and hotel were too far outside of the city to walk and we couldn't take public transportation without money. So most of the time we relaxed, talked, watched one of the two English channels on TV, or walked around. The full day that we were there we decided to just go on a walk and see what we would find. So we took off through the field behind the hotel.

This is the view from our hotel window. Talk about the middle of nowhere.

We walked through the field and saw these pony's, I liked their haircuts. Our hotel can be seen in the background.

This was the coolest house that we saw on our walk, outstanding shudders.

This is a traditional thatched roof home.

We saw quite a few beautiful gardens like this one.

After walking for an hour we reached Burgerveen, a very nice little village on a lake.

.

This horse seemed huge after seeing the Romanian horses.

This donkey was kind of crazy, we could hear him braying from our hotel room!

We were glad that we decided to walk, otherwise we wouldn't have seen anything in the Netherlands except the airport, some highways, the hotel, and lots of fields. It was still a bummer that we couldn't go into Amsterdam though, because this was like a free mini vacation. In any case, we really just wanted to get home so this delay was pretty frustrating and stressful. We survived though, and made it home OK. Next time we travel we will be sure to take some emergency money, and to plan better for a delay like this. Hopefully it never happens again, but with the airlines these days, who knows?