October 2012

Life on the border is treating us well here in south Texas.  As you probably noticed, we made some changes to our missions blog and there are now tabs at the top that you can click to learn more about our family, see our school calendar, how to partner with us, prayer request and about the missions agency we are serving with.

David and I got to enjoy some wonderful training classes in October.  We both spent a full week with Dr. David Edgington learning about Biblical Counseling and how to work alongside other missionaries on a team.   Then David spent the next week in Mexico working in "Village M".  David Depew taught a week on Ethno-Theology and then David Morris spent a week teaching about "Christ in the Old Testament".  That's a lot of David's right? The training classes this past month were so rich and wonderful and it is such a privilege to be here learning and growing.

As a family, we are learning about Biblical Storytelling.  David is receiving instruction in their classes and the kids and I are learning it together during some of the Friday afternoon classes.  It has been truly amazing to see how quickly the kids have caught on to this way of orally sharing the gospel and I have no doubt they will be great at sharing it on the mission field soon.

Speaking of kids, we started an entirely new homeschool curriculum this week.  We needed something that worked with our busy schedule here yet gave the kids everything we felt like they needed each day.  We are all excited about this new material. We are continuing to build relationships and friendships with the other families here on campus and enjoy having friends and even some of the instructors over for dinner too.

After visiting around for quite a while, we have found a church family to worship with during our time here in south Texas. We are attending First Baptist Church of Los Fresnos and really enjoy it.  The preacher is a former missionary in Venezuela and our Sunday school teacher is originally from Tennessee (he still has his southern accent!).  It is a bilingual congregation, as most churches down here are, and we are enjoying getting to know the people there and building relationships right here in our community.  David and I also have plugged into their music ministry so David is playing guitar and I am playing piano on Sunday mornings. We feel very blessed to be part of this congregation during our time here.

We've been having a little bit of fun despite our busy schedules too.  We've been enjoying watching  Alabama Crimson Tide football games each Saturday night here on campus with 2 other families that are also from Alabama.  We took the kids to the Los Fresnos' OctoberFest at the local park on Halloween night and they had a great time playing carnival games and getting candy.  Then we had a birthday party/costume party for one of the girls on campus so we got to all dress up that weekend too.  We also visited the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville for the first time and it was awesome!  We were given a 1 year family membership so we will be going to the zoo as often as we can over the next year because we loved it as much as the kids did.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us and our ministry.  

"Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." - 1 Pet 1:13