September Prayer Update

Hi again!  It has admittedly been far too long since we've used our blog, much in part to not being able to post pictures of Raelyn while she was in foster care, and due to the rise of easier things like Instagram.  However we realize that staying connected is really important and this blog is a good way to communicate.  We've been thinking about using the blog to give more prayer requests and ministry updates, so here is our start.

I write this to you on the eve of our going on our big trip, first to spend time with friends in Finland and then on to Romania to see our kiddos (who mostly aren’t little kids anymore).  We enjoyed our trip to San Diego a few weeks ago to see our friends who we worked with in Romania, and Raelyn really hit it off with their daughter who is her age.  Raelyn did well flying so we are praying that is the case for this trip as well.  We will drive to Chicago and fly 9 hours straight to Finland, then take a 4 hour train ride to our friend’s place.  It will be a long day of traveling, so we ask for prayers that all will go well and that we’ll be able to rest on the way.  Also for Raelyn to be able to travel well and maybe sleep a lot, since normally she is very active and wants to run around, which won’t be possible on the plane!

Raelyn got a cold after we came back from San Diego and is still recovering from that so we’ve been low on sleep.  Also Rebecca’s jaw (mainly left side) has been hurting her pretty badly at times.  We’ve been praying a lot for healing and we invite you to join us as well.  We were blessed by some help from friends to buy a new bike to replace my old one which was stolen last month.  It has been nice to have a bike again to commute to church whenever I can, and I was able to upgrade some of my safety/security equipment.  Then a couple of weeks ago Rebeccas computer died and we had to have the motherboard replaced, which was very expensive, but she uses it for scheduling prayer ministry so we felt it was necessary.  Still, we are thankful for all that God has done for us and continues to do and we praise his name for all of his blessings in our lives.

Things have been going well at church, I have spent a lot of effort getting everything ready for us being gone.  It has been like a jigsaw puzzle with many moving parts but it seems like everything is in place now.  We are still praying for more workers in our children and youth areas.  God has given some guidance on how to restructure a little and shift people around, also asking a few new people to help, and it seems like when we get back we will be able to do some building up and strengthening of our teams.  

In our youth group we have started studying the book of Mark, with a vision of teaching the youth how to study the Bible for themselves.  Last week there was a lot of excitement around figuring some things out and we hope that continues.  We also desire to continue to be led by the Holy Spirit and to be open to times of spending time listening to the Lord, journalling, and/or asking for inner healing.  The leadership team is also rotating leading responsibilities which is how we are keeping it going while I am gone.  We sense that the enemy will ramp up attacks and ask for prayer for our youth and us leaders.  We ask for protection for their housing situations and for more friends to come.  

An answer to prayer has come in that a family from church was facing eviction and it was looking like moving in with some friends in Florida was the only option.  We prayed for something to open up and as they were packing to go something did.  It is not too far away in Wyoming.  We are praying that this family, which has two youth in the youth group and other children in our children’s ministries, will stay with us as we really enjoy having them as a part of our church family.

It is so hard to believe that fall is here, and we’re finally getting some fall weather.  Thanks again for all of your prayers, we appreciate it so much!

Love you all!

Mark, Rebecca and Raelyn

Easter Celebration at Gold Avenue Church

This has been a very joyful week for me as I reflect on everything that God is doing in our midst.  On Easter Sunday nine people stood up in front of our church and professed their faith in God, sharing with us their stories of how Jesus has worked in their lives up to this point.  Five were baptized for the first time and two participated in a remembrance of their baptism.  This was a day to remember for our church as we have been regularly praying for revival and are excited to see how God is answering those prayers.

The preparation for this day began last fall when I started hearing from some of the youth in our youth group that they were thinking of being baptized and professing their faith.  I was also working on preparing materials for a change to our communion policy that would allow all baptized believers, including children, to participate in the Lord's Supper.  It seemed like the Lord was leading to have a class of preparation that would be available to our youth and anyone else in the congregation who wished to profess their faith and be baptized if they hadn't been already.

Twelve people took the class, and the preparations for it and the Easter service when we would celebrate their professions and baptisms kept me very busy this spring.  We studied the foundations of our faith including getting to know God the Father, Jesus the Son, and The Holy Spirit.  We learned what it looks like to have a vibrant relationship with God, living as a new creation and using our gifts to build up the church and to share the gospel with those who don't know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  Each person taking the class had a mentor who walked with them through it and helped guide them through the many questions and faith building exercises.  It was a blessing to be able to lead this class and to be a part of their discipleship.

On the big day we started out with wonderful worship, singing praises to God.

Pastor Dave then led the time of Profession of Faith, where each person who had gone through the class was able to share their faith story and to affirm their relationship with God (three youth are waiting to do theirs at a later date when more family will be able to join them).

We love that we had such a diverse group.  We pray on a continual basis that God will bless us with more diversity as a church so that we can be a welcoming place for all who come here.

One of our youth had the great joy of professing her faith and being baptized together with her dad, we are so thankful for how the Lord has brought their family to our church!

Pastor Gina gave a wonderful sermon on the gospel which tied in most of the faith stories that had been shared during the professions of faith.  There was an invitation at the end that many responded to, we praise the Lord that he was working in powerful ways.  

You can listen to the sermon and follow along just like these guys by clicking the picture below.

Then followed the remembrances and the baptisms. 

I was very blessed and privileged to be able to take part in the baptisms, it was a first for me but I'm praying that there will be many more to come.  Please join me in praying for all those that took this step of faith on Sunday, for God's blessing, protection and leading in their lives.

To close out the service we celebrated communion, welcoming the children for the first time.  As we remember Jesus' sacrifice for us through communion, we come before him with thanksgiving and gratitude for the grace that he poured out on us.  Jesus welcomed the children to come to him and it was really special to see that welcome extended to participating in communion along with the adults.

Praise Jesus for all He has done here!  Thank you for praying for us and our ministry, we continue to ask for prayers for God's blessing, protection and leading in our family, church, and ministry.  Happy Easter!

October 2017

We started off the month of October by buying a new camera!  After being the camp photographer over the summer and using a pro quality camera, I realized that it was time for an upgrade for me.  I researched for months about what kind, what brand, which model, which lenses, so many options!

  We went to the camera store a couple times to try out a couple models, but all along I had one in my sights: the Fujifilm X-T10.  I bought it used since it is the previous model so it was less than half the price of the new one.  So far we love it and the pictures we are getting from it.  Especially with the wide aperture fast prime lens (50mm equivalent) the pictures are just what I've been looking for.  It is really fun to take pictures with this camera!  We are very thankful for some financial gifts that made it possible for us to buy this, God provides!

It has been so much easier to go and do things with R since she is on a consistent napping schedule and she really loves to go out and watch people.  It is such a bummer that we can't post pictures of her yet because we have so many cute ones!

My Mom and step Dad took us out to Brann's where we enjoyed a good meal.  R loved the food, she loves to eat!

We also went out to sushi with our friends Rob and Amanda.  Of course R wanted some because, well, it's food, but she's not quite ready for raw fish yet.

Right before we were going to go to Sushi Yama downtown, the power went out all over for reasons unknown.  So we went a little further out to Ju Sushi which is a little more upscale.  Both have great sushi!

We enjoyed seeing this neighborhood cat on our porch quite often.  He really liked the chair that we needed to find a new home for.  R would make purring noises when she saw him!

We went one Saturday to make applesauce with Rebecca's parents.  We had fun watching R pick out her own apple and take a bite!

We used our new food mill that Rebecca's parents got us, it is awesome! 

 After boiling the apples with the skin and cores and all, they just go through and the mill and applesauce comes out the chute and the rest comes out the end.  We have enough to last for the year hopefully, it turned out great!

R got to enjoy a to from our childhood, the Little People farm.  The door still goes "moo" when you open it, fun!

We made some Korean food when we had our friend Jay over.  All three of us love Korean food and Jay especially since he has spent much time in South Korea and enjoys ministering there.

We had the privilege of going and seeing our twin nieces be baptized.  We enjoy being an Uncle and Aunt and are so happy for my sister and brother in law.

We enjoyed the get together afterwards at my sister's house.  Here I am with her and my "little" brother.  

She loves to empty out whatever she can and enjoys climbing into whatever she can.

Here is one of her 11 month pictures, we have taken a special picture each month for her to put in her baby photo album.  It is a fun way to see the progression of her growth, it is hard to believe how big she is now!

We enjoyed seeing beautiful fall colors all around us.  While we didn't get out for a scenic color tour, we had lots of color right in our own neighborhood.

There were still quite a few nice days to take walks and we took full advantage of that.

One evening I went to a football game that one of our youth from our youth group was playing in.  It was fun to go and show support and to cheer him on.  Being able to make connections like that outside of the group is really great and I think means a lot to the students.

We also went to watch a GVSU football game, it was an away game that was shown on the big screen at GVSU.  We got to sit on the field which was pretty fun.  We went with my Dad and step mom and sister and brother in law.

We didn't do much for Halloween because I had a youth group party at church.  That was a lot of fun, in order to get the youth to come we asked them what they would like to do.  So we played video games and made snacks in the kitchen, along with having pizza for dinner.  Rebecca and R stayed home and went to visit neighbors.  It went well until our neighbor who was dressed as Chewbacca from Star Wars picked up R and she broke down crying.  Maybe she'll enjoy it more next year!

We were also able to participate in a couple prayer trainings at church.  We learned more about intercession, which is praying for others in specific and persistent ways.  As a church we recognize that all areas of ministry need people covering them in prayer, but especially the leaders.  That includes us as we are involved in leading many ministries here.  We are thankful that we have many people who are committed to praying for us.  We send out periodic emails giving prayer requests and updates about how God has answered previous requests.  If you aren't a part of that and you would like to be, please let us know.  We are trying to raise up a team of intercessors for our youth group as well so if that is something that interests you please let us know!

ArtPrize 2017

Each year we enjoy going to see what our city has in store for us at ArtPrize.  Hundreds of artists compete for having the best art piece in town, and we get the privilege of seeing them for free.  We had pretty nice weather in October so we were able to go and explore.  This was just one thing we did in October but since there are so many pictures we made it into its own post.  Look for a post with the rest of what we did in October coming soon.

Grand Rapids is a very beautiful city, the Grand River is quite majestic at this time of year.

I enjoyed this eagle which was made of metal and around the head were forks, spoons, and knives.

This was one of the grand prize winners this year, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln made entirely of pennies. 

One of my favorite pieces was this underwater scene made out of household items.

There were many amazing paintings as well like this photorealistic one of these horses.  It was one of three in a set.

This smokey looking painting was done to honor those that lost their lives on 9/11.

I almost thought that this said "Let us pray for peace," and I was excited, yeah!  Looking closer I saw that it actually says "play," but I still think it would be better saying "pray."  It is so true that in these trying times that we need to be praying for peace and for Jesus to work!

This is an intricate carved wood sculpture...

These guys were made entirely of cardboard...

And these awesome horses out of metal wire.

Anybody recognize this?  I sure got excited when I saw it!

This is made to look like oil floating on the water of the Grand River.

One last picture taken of a building reflecting in another's glass.  Depending on the angle you are at you can see different buildings reflecting.  

That's about it for ArtPrize this year, next year maybe we'll have an entry from our arts camp!