September 2017

In September we enjoyed some unseasonably warm weather, and we tried to make the most of it.  We enjoyed spending lots of time outdoors with family and friends.

We went up to my sister's cottage and enjoyed some wading, since the water is so shallow.  R enjoyed playing in the water, and had some fun floating in an inner-tube until a big wave came and splashed her in the face.  

On Labor Day we went to the beach for the annual Jasperse family pancake cookout.  It was another perfect kite flying day.  I taught Sam how to fly my new parafoil kite, it is a real blast to fly.  I also was able to fly my new kite train, I took 6 cheap kites and made the strings to tie them together so they can fly in a train.  The wind was pretty strong so they pulled a lot.  Later I took them apart so that each of our friend's kids could fly one.  It was a lot of fun!

I traveled to North Carolina again for the graduation of my year long course that I have been taking there.  A big group from our church took this course to learn how to minister healing and deliverance in Jesus' name.  We enjoyed seeing all of the other people from around the country that also took the course, and we got to present our projects to the whole group.  This is an exciting ministry and we are thankful that we have been able to pray with people often and see them experience freedom.

I always have loved the mountains!  We stayed in a mountain chalet with this view!

R continued to grow and thrive, her personality continued to come out more and more.  She enjoyed playing with other children whenever she had the chance.

She loved going on walks to the park during the day with Rebecca and seeing the geese that were there.  She also enjoyed picking apples off of our tree and biting them.

At the end if the month we decided to take an impromptu trip to Beaver Island for our 14th anniversary.  We left early Friday morning and took the ferry over.  It was really windy and rough and I think that R was the only one of us that wasn't feeling a little queasy.  

This was our first time to Beaver Island and we enjoyed it very much.  It is a very beautiful place and because we went so late in the season it was very quiet too.

We stayed at an apartment we found on AirBNB, it was very close to the ferry, right in the main town.

The owner was great, he let us borrow his car so that we could drive around and see some sights that we wouldn't have been able to on foot.  We saw lots of deer everywhere we went.

We got to explore this old lighthouse...

We saw lots of beautiful scenery...

And R was very fascinated by the deer head on the wall at the restaurant we ate dinner at.

We were able to catch a beautiful sunset...

Visit the other lighthouse on the island...

And take a nice walk along the beach, spotting some parts of an old shipwreck along the way.

All of this was in one day!  While we were there we decided we would like to stay a little longer than we would have been able to if we had taken the ferry back, so we booked a flight on a small plane in the afternoon.

This was our first time flying in such a small airplane, it was a 6 seater!  It was really fun, definitely one of the highlights of the trip.  Plus it kept our streak alive of flying at least once a year for the past 10 years.

R really enjoyed it too, she wasn't afraid at all, it figures with how adventurous she is.  She is such a great fit in our family!

At church it was a busy month too as we launched Children's Worship for our older children after being off for the summer.  Our youth group met for most of the summer so there wasn't much of a launch there but we started doing lessons again that focused on teaching some basic ways to pray.  It was a great month as we saw lots of fruit from the ministry that happened over the summer months.  

September was a nice and memorable month, we are thankful to God for the many ways he blessed us and took care of us.  We are thankful too for all of you that prayed for us and encouraged us as we continued to navigate through the uncertainties of the foster care process.  We saw God bringing fruit there as his plan seemed to be coming together, something we saw even more of in October.  That post will be coming soon!

Summer Recap 2017

We hope to someday get to the point of being caught up on this blog, so that we can post things closer to when they happen.  I think that would be better than trying to play catch up all the time.  This post is an attempt to get us there, since we only wrote a couple ministry updates during the summer, this is a recap of what else we did over the summer months.

Of course our little one is growing so fast, she started crawling in the early summer and she hasn't looked back since.  Once she was able to crawl her next goal was to pull herself up on the closest piece of furniture, next was achieving the balance she needed to walk along the furniture.  

Amidst the busyness of the summer we were still able to fit in many fun things to do.  We went to the zoo and played with the penguins.

We went to the Asian festival where R loved all of the action, especially the break dancing music!

We joyfully welcomed our new nieces Anna and Clara into the world.

We were reminded just how fast time flies when we remembered that R was that small once but not any more!

We took a week off to go on vacation in the Manistee National Forest.  We stayed in a little cottage on a small lake.  We enjoyed the quiet and being away from the hustle and bustle of the city.  

We also enjoyed mostly sunny and beautiful weather while we were on our vacation.

While we spent lots of time relaxing at the cottage we did go on some excursions.  We went to Manistee and had a nice time on the beach.  R hasn't been too sure about sand but she seemed to tolerate it after a while.

We went on several hikes through the forest, this was one of R's favorite parts.  She had a seat in my hiking backpack, and she loved every minute.  She surprised us by roaring loudly for quite a while after we started, we think she was calling the bears!  We did actually see one at a very far distance, I was hoping to get close enough to take a picture but it was gone before we got to the spot.

We saw lots of deer, and many of them weren't too bashful.

We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets as well.  This was such a blessing of a vacation!

We also hung out with family and friends whenever we could.  I went kayaking with my dad while Rebecca and R stayed with step mom Julie.

We saw my mom for her birthday along with my step dad Herb, we enjoyed some nice weather in our shaded back yard.

We celebrated Rebecca's Dad's birthday at a restaurant where R enjoyed people watching and getting lots of attention from everyone. 

We went sailing for a day with our friends John and Karen.  We were able to enjoy more beautiful weather and a fun cookout on the water.

R loves to play with other children which is so great!

We also enjoyed a bumper crop in our garden this year, with some of the biggest heads of broccoli we've ever grown, massive tomato plants that produced dozens of pounds of tomatoes, and beans that kept on producing.

We made batch upon batch of tomato soup, paste, and sauce, so we have enough for the year.  We will miss the fresh tomatoes though, there's nothing like a BLT with fresh tomatoes from the garden!

This was a summer full fun, lots of ministry opportunities and many ups and downs of the foster care process.  We are grateful for how we saw God working and for all of the prayers and encouragement that came our way.  Thank you for reading and see you next time! 

Upward Challenge 2017

This summer I had the awesome privilege of taking some of our youth group kids to a camp called Upward Challenge.  This was a weeklong camp in North Carolina at the same location that I've been to several times this year for my inner healing and deliverance ministry class.  It was a great experience for myself and the youth and I can't wait to share about it with you!

On the way down we stayed at a friend's house in Kentucky in order to break up the long 12 hour drive.  The kids enjoyed banana splits (some for the first time) and pancakes made by Al.

We were very excited to finally make it to North Carolina, especially me because my back was really out and stiff from all the driving (I'll talk more about that in the next post).

The Community of the Cross is PRMI's headquarters, it is beautiful and on 25 acres of mountain land.

Around 50 campers came from youth groups all around the country. 

At the beginning of camp most of my youth were feeling well out of their element.  They hardly leave the city and only one had ever been out of state.  We found out that there would only be one shower available the whole week, that we had to use outhouses, and that there were bears on the property (and of course our girls saw one right away!).  I thought there was going to be a revolt, a mutiny of epic proportions.  But I urged them to give it a chance and to be open to trying new things.  I am thankful that God made it possible for them to do just that, and he worked in their lives in amazing ways.

Each day we had a large group gathering in the morning and evening.  As a leadership team we felt that there was a great need for sharing the father heart of God for the youth as many were questioning if God exists and if so why it would matter.  So we focused a lot on this and sprinkled in some of the original topics having to do with how God works through the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts that He has for us.

Many testimonies were given by young leaders and their stories really connected with the campers.  The testimonies reminded us that we aren't the only ones who have experienced pain and brokenness in our lives and that it is God who wants to heal us from those things and set us free in Christ. 

There was a lot of healing that took place in these group settings.  Truth is powerful when coupled with the love of Jesus.  Having these experiences during the large group prompted many to seek to have a prayer appointment.  These are a time spent with 2-3 leaders where Jesus is invited to speak and work in the life of the one receiving prayer.  I will talk more about this in a future post as we have been working on launching this type of prayer ministry at Gold Avenue Church, and this is what the training I have been going to in NC is all about.  

Several of our youth had wonderful experiences in their prayer appointment.  One accepted Jesus for the first time.  Another felt burdens lifted from her and has been much lighter and joyful since.  One was able to let go of anger and anxiety when Jesus showed up in a vision and showed her that he is with her.  In the same vision he also gave her a glimpse of her mom, who had died unexpectedly a couple years prior.  He let her know that her mom is ok and that she doesn't have to worry about her any longer.  These are significant encounters that will help shape their faith and their walk with God.  This is what we yearn to see happening in our youth group on a regular basis here at Gold!

Worship was a wonderful piece of the large group meetings.  On our way home a couple of the girls looked up the songs on their phone and were singing along.  This is another thing we'd like to incorporate back into youth group at home, and are praying for the right opportunity.

We also had small group time where one of the students was the leader.  Then there was a young adult leader and an older wiser leader - guess who that was :-)  These were good times for us to process what happened in the group and to pray together.  This is my group here.  In addition to helping lead this group, I also participated in early morning prayer, helped lead prayer appointments, and was the official camp photographer.  In addition to sleeping in a tent with the boys it made for a very busy and exhausting week.  God got me through though and I am thankful for his grace!

I was very fortunate and thankful that our friend Jaci came with us.  She is a leader in our youth group and wanted to come to experience this with the youth.  It was also great to have a helper for driving especially because I was having back issues on the way down and I was beat on the way back.  We all had a really great time together.

We also enjoyed free time and games each day - swimming in the river was fun...  

Joking around and laughing a lot was fun...

Arts and crafts were fun...

And, well, I didn't experience this one, but I heard that nail painting was fun too!  This is our friend Stephanie who was one of the co-directors of the camp.  She has been a part of our Gold Ave Church family for almost a year since she moved up here from Florida to do ministry here.

Games were fun too, this was sock wars, basically capture the flag but to get people out they had to be hit with a sock full of dirt.

Here is the whole group of campers and leaders, it was a great group!

At the end we prayed for each group that left and blessed them for the trip back home.

On the way back we were able to stop at Chick-fil-a, one of our favorite stops along the way.

This was an amazing camp experience for me and I know it was for many others.  Many people were praying for this for quite some time and I believe those prayers were answered!  Now we move to continue discipleship for our youth.  I appreciate prayers for this and for protection, because the evil one would like to steal away this progress!