Familia

Here is a wonderful article on Spain. TEAM puts out a semi-annual magazine called TEAM Horizons (a free subscription if you would like to receive it). I love it because it has wonderful pictures, and highlights what God is doing throughout the world. You'll have to go to page 28 to read the article, or you can scroll down to the bottom of the page to download the article in PDF format. This article is from 2008, but it's words and pictures still capture my heart. Enjoy!

http://new.teamworld.org/index.php/media/teamhorizons-magazine/book/10-teamhorizons-january-2008-volume-3-issue-1/3-teamhorizons-volume-3

Great Video

Yes, I know that the World Cup has passed, and most of us have moved on with our lives. But Spain winning still makes my heart flutter just a little. :) We came across this video, and it makes me smile. It shows two Spanish commentators right at the moment where Andrés Iniesta makes the winning goal. If only we were all as passionate. It's on a Spanish site, so I can't post the actual video, but if you click the link, it will be well worth your time. Enjoy!

http://www.as.com/futbol/video/camacho-canta-gol-iniesta/dasftb/20100712dasdasftb_3/Ves

Update

We are still waiting here for our visas to come in. They should come in anywhere between now and November (we're hoping for now :) ), and we're doing everything we can to be ready to leave whenever they come. We're kind of in limbo, finishing up our time here in the US and simply waiting. It's a strange time, yet God has been so faithful to us during it. We have seen Him work in so many ways, and we are able to spend some last times with friends and family for the year. Waiting is the name of the game, however. God has truly tested our patience, and hopefully it has grown. I will say that we look forward to being able to share with you the day we receive our visas! What a wonderful day that will be!

Another great item of news is that we are at 100% of our one-time expenses and at 95% of our pledged monthly support! What that breaks down into is about $2,000 cash or $175/month left to raise! God has blessed us so much with providing for our needs for the year, and we give Him the credit for it. It certainly wasn't us--I know that sounds cheesy, but it is so true.

Please pray with us that our visas would come in soon. We hope to arrive in Spain by October 4th. We hope to attend Spanish language and culture classes at a University in the town in which we'll be staying. If we don't make it by that date, we will either have to wait until January to take the next semester of classes or find another form of classes. Obviously God knows the best timing, and we trust that He knows exactly where our visas are and when they will come in. Please pray both for the expediency of our visas and for trust in the sovereign timing of our Lord. Thanks so much for being a part of this with us!

Here's a picture of the University we hope to attend--Universidad de Alcalá

A Time

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven". Ecclesiastes 3:1

"The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." Job 1:21

The past couple of weeks have been characteristic of these verses of Scripture. At the beginning of the month, Micah's uncle, Bob Henderson, passed away after fighting for a while with kidney problems. Micah's mother Donna has a sister named Betty June. Betty June was Bob's wife of almost 61 years.

Last Thursday, August 19th, Micah's Grandmother, "Granny", Mary Alice Yaun, passed away peacefully early in the morning. She was buried on her 91st birthday. Granny was Micah's father's mother.

We can rest in both of these deaths because we know that they both are rejoicing with Jesus even now as I write these words. But while they are rejoicing, we are still here on earth. The reality of life and death has been impressed upon us in the last few weeks. Time is so short. Life is but a breath. Yet we still wait. We wait for our visa to come in, and we wait for our ultimate home. Waiting. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Let these words encourage your heart.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal;a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh;a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose;a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew;a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate;a time for war, and a time for peace." Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Two Weddings, One Champion, and Two Roadtrips

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for us! We've been to Miami, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and back--and lived to tell about it! :)

The first thing on our calendar for July was my (Kimberly's) cousin's wedding. My cousinChase McCallister married his bride Lauren on July 10th. Their wedding was at the beautiful Botanical Gardens at the Riverbanks Zoo at sunset. The ceremony was gorgeous, and we all had such a blast at the reception--even my Oma got up with her walker and danced on the dance floor!

My cousin Chase and I

My new cousin Lauren and I

The next day was the final of the FIFA World Cup 2010. The cup was down to two teams--Spain and the Netherlands. Obviously, we were rooting for Spain to win! After all, it is about to become our new home! Since my cousin's wedding was the night before, many of my cousins were still in town and were able to watch the final game with us. A few of them actually grew up in Spain, so it was great to be able to feed off of their passion for the team. In the end, after a tense roller coaster, we were finally able to celebrate that Spain holds the title for the 2010 World Cup Champions!! This is the first time Spain has EVER won the world cup, and it is also the first time a team has won the world cup after losing their first group match. Needless to say, we were pretty excited! The only sad note is that we weren't able to be in Spain for the actual celebration!!! What a joyous day. :)

Celebrating Spain's win with my cousins

Right after the game was over...like RIGHT after...we left for West Palm Beach, FL.We stopped in Jacksonville, FL for the night to break up the trip. Thankfully, we have wonderful friends in Jacksonville who offered their house to us both on the way to and from Southern Florida. Monday morning after breakfast with our friends, we drove down to West Palm Beach to stay with our good friends the Smythe family. We spent our time in West Palm Beach visiting my old church, having a wonderful reunion with old friends, sharing about our internship in Spain, and of course going to the beach for one morning! We had such a wonderful time there. In between all of these events, we travelled down to Miami, FL to apply for our visas at the Spanish consulate. Yes, you heard me right, we had to go PERSONALLY to the consulate to apply. We miraculously (literally) got an appointment for the week we would be down there so that our documents wouldn't expire. Everything seemed to go without a hitch--Praise God! The only thing we are waiting on now is for one last document to be translated and mailed to the consulate--then they can begin processing it. They say it should take anywhere between 1 and 3 months to process our visa. Then we will be free to leave for Spain!! Hooray!

Us with the Smythe family who hosted us while in West Palm Beach

The Church I attended while living in FL, Wellington Presbyterian Church

Then it was back to Columbia for another friend's wedding on Saturday, July 17th. Daniel and Rebekah Hodges both went to CIU with us, and Micah lived on the same hall in the dorm as Daniel. Side note: I actually attended Ben Lippen School with Daniel in the 8th grade! They had a lovely ceremony and reception, and we were able to get caught up with several college friends that we hadn't seen in a really long time!

Micah with Daniel

After a one-day rest on Sunday, we headed to Knoxville, TN on Monday, the 19th. We stayed with Jon and Rae Farra and their sweet little almost one-year old girl named Rosalee. Jon was the interim youth pastor at our church for a year in 2005-2006. They both teach at a Christian school in Knoxville. We were able to share a little bit with their small group and visit several churches in the area to share about our internship. On Thursday of that week, we headed down to Chattanooga, TN to visit with Micah's best friend from childhood (and through to adulthood) Stephen Humphries and his wife Taryn. We had such a great time hanging out with them since we don't get to see them too often! They opened our eyes to a wonderful used book store called McKay's (sadly only in Tennessee)! We were also able to give our information to some churches while in the area as well.

Us with Jon, Rae, and Rosalee

Us with Stephen and Taryn

The next Sunday we returned home--all travelled out. We then packed up and moved all of our stuff to Micah's parent's home, in which we will be making our home until we leave for Spain. Now we are [almost] settled in to our room, and are looking forward to being in Columbia for the better part of the month. God has taught us so much about flexibility and kindness throughout our travels thus far, and I know He's got much more in store for us.

Another HUGE news item! It is with GREAT thanks to our Lord that I can say that He has brought us to 72% of our total funds! We are thrilled with His provision so far, and He is only proving Himself to be trustworthy. Thanks for bearing with this lengthy post! Looking forward to sharing what God will do next!

Drowning in all that is Visa...

Visa, visa, visa! I feel like that word has come out of my mouth more than just about anything these days! I mean, I knew that getting visas were complicated, but now we can join the ranks of those who actually know how complicated it truly is. Just to give you a taste...we have several documents we need to present in order to apply for our visa--in person--in Miami. The most interesting thing we have had to come up with is a certificate of good conduct from the FBI that required us to get fingerprinted! Now whenever people in CSI and Law and Order look through the fingerprint databases, ours will be among the ranks searched! HA! But seriously, we have to come up with several documents, then we have to get them legalized with the Apostille--who has EVER heard of an apostille?!? Well, now we have! Then, if all that wasn't enough, we have to have ALL of our documents translated into Spanish! (side note--the Miami consulate--who has jurisdiction over SC residents--is one of the only consulates that requires that you translate your documents into Spanish) Needless to say, we are definitely looking forward to the day when we have applied for the visa and just have to wait for it to come in.

In other news, we had a fantastic garage sale in which we sold over half of our stuff! God has used this time to remind us that we don't belong in this world and what's truly eternal. I am so grateful that God impressed upon our hearts the desire to go to Spain before we even got married. All of our possessions we have been able to hold lightly knowing that we were just going to turn around and get rid of them very soon. Anyways, it's been a huge relief not to have to keep up with all of our "stuff" anymore! It's all taken care of for the year we're gone!

Also, God is continuing to provide for our financial needs. We're currently at 43%! That means that we have about $22,500 left to raise. God has been so faithful to provide for us so far, and we know that he will be faithful to provide the rest. We have a few support trips coming up. We're going to Savannah, GA and also to Jacksonville, FL this week to visit with family and share about God's work in Spain. Also, as soon as our paperwork comes in, we will be travelling to Miami to apply for our visa and to visit a few other cities in Southern Florida. We're also hoping to travel to a few other places in the Southeast within the next month or two. So our basic timeline is once our paperwork comes in to go to Miami to apply for our visa, wait until our visa comes in (3-4 months), then go to Spain!

Thank you guys so much for praying for us! Here are a few things you can keep on praying for:

--Pray that God will continue to provide our finances, and praise Him for providing what we have so far.

--Pray that God will open our eyes to opportunities for ministry where we are right now. There are already ways that we see God working to the people we're coming in contact with.

--Pray that God will strengthen our marriage during this stressful time.

--Pray for the people to whom we will be ministering to in Spain and for Mark Johnson, a TEAM missionary who will be our supervisor.

Looking forward to sharing what God is doing!!! Thanks for joining us in the journey!

On the Road Again

Ok, cheesy title I know...but it seriously has been what our lives have consisted of for the last couple weeks! On May 16th, we drove almost 14 hours from Columbia, SC to Peoria, IL to visit my (Kimberly's) Grandma. It was so good to see her as I haven't been able to visit her since I was 14 or 15!

Me with my Grandma

From Peoria we drove up to Wheaton, IL to begin training with TEAM on May 18th. From that Tuesday through Friday we had all day intensive training sessions to help prepare us for our year in Spain. It was so refreshing to be there, to meet new people, and to learn (and be reminded of) so much! We had a great time there, and feel better prepared for ministry.

All the TEAMServers

We were able to leave early enough on that Friday to make it back to Columbia, SC late that night (or should I say early Saturday!). We had been planning to split up the trip into two days, staying with a good friend in Tennessee, but we were able to leave earlier than expected and made it back in one day! :) And, boy were we glad we made it back that night! The next day around noon, we get a text letting us know that we were about to have a new baby in the family! Micah's brother Nate blessed our family with our first nephew! (We had only girls before that) Skye Logan was born May 22, and he is a beautiful, healthy baby. We love him so much!

Skye Logan

We then were able to speak at Covenant Community Church in Lexington, SC (Red Bank area) the next day, May 23rd. We have a friend from college, Kent Suits, that works at this church, and he connected us with the people there. We were able to share during the Sunday School hour and had the privilege of leading worship for the church service. We had a blast sharing what God has done and is doing in Spain! We were even able to play with an old friend that we didn't know attended Covenant! Mike had gone to our church, Faith, a while ago, and it was so fun to play on a worship team with him again! And many memories were brought back to us as we played with Kent because we had both been on CIU's chapel team with Kent for a year.

We also had the opportunity to travel to Augusta, GA this week. We had meetings with two churches, and we also dropped off some information packets at a few other churches in the area. We then were able to visit with some friends we hadn't seen in a long time! Tim and Emma Strong moved out of the Columbia area several years ago and have since had a baby girl named Elena! We got to meet her for the first time--and she's definitely not a baby anymore! Elena is 20 months old, and she is hilarious--just like her parents. :)

Please pray for us as the next week will be spent on three main things:

1. Packing! We still have more packing to be done at our old house! Next Saturday (June 5) we will be having a HUGE garage sale. If you've had a garage sale before, you know we need prayer to organize and get things done!
2. Planning for various support trips. Some trips that we are trying to get together for the nearer future are to Charlotte, NC and Chattanooga, TN.
3. Visa preparations. We have to have several documents officially translated into Spanish, wait for certain documents to arrive from the Spanish government, and also try to plan a support trip around this trip to Miami. Please pray for us--it's very complicated to work everything out just right!

Thank you guys so much for praying for us, and we look forward to what God will do! Like Hudson Taylor has said, "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply." We're still at 30% support, and we trust that God will provide!