Start Of The Year

Wow, it's the middle of October already, and now we know it's fall because our beloved nice warm weather has left and the cold has come in it's place. But I guess that is to be expected in October. Eight years ago when we got married it was pretty cold already, dare I say nearly snowing that day. We celebrated our anniversary with our new couples, and amazingly Steven and Haley's is the same exact day.

Josh and Missy made us chicken parmesan and apple crisp, and I made the second dessert of cinnamon rolls.

The hours it takes to make these are worth it, they are sooo good, if I do say so myself.

We started our programming this week and worked a lot on scheduling. We started with a plan and knew that it would change a lot, but it actually didn't too much.

We are working in all of the locations in this area now, with many more kids than we worked with last year. Since we are staying the whole week we have much more opportunity. We are teaching English, math, biology and character to kids of all ages. The hope is that this will not only help them do well in school but get to know us better, and through that will be pointed to God.

At youth group we did Amazing Race games and challenges, complete with authentic looking envelopes and clue cards.

The kids had to put together a puzzle according to the picture...

...Solve a word search with each person missing one of the senses...

...And keep drinking pop until they found the one with the X in the bottom. They all had a lot of fun. It was pretty crowded in the small living room with 30 of us in total, but we're used to that from last year. We hope to be able to have an impact on these kids even though we have been forbidden by their director to talk about God. We know that God will work in spite of that and will do amazing things.

The last three weeks have been an emotional roller coaster with the apartment search. We have been so close to finding a few but each time something hasn't worked out. Right now we have a great prospect, one that is very nice and the price is right and everything seems to be in order, except that the owner lives in Italy and he didn't leave the legal papers with his brother-in-law who is in charge of the apartment. We would love to move in there but need to have some sort of contract with them, so we're trying to figure out how to do that. Please continue praying for this to be resolved. We know God will provide as he always has up to this point. It's just hard to put aside our worries and stresses after having such a hard time finding anything. We appreciate all of your support and prayers as we go through this, thanks!