Finally an update!

Alright, so our big church traveling tour has ended. It has been great, but it has also been a whirlwind. Here's where we've been so far in 2007:

January 10-15 Santiago, Chile for South American Church Leaders Retreat.
January 15-17 Buenos Aires, Argentina visiting the church there.
January 18-25 Montevideo, Uruguay scouting the land for when we move there this summer.

If you want to know more about this trip, I wrote a much longer summary on our website: SaveUruguay.googlepages.com. It's called Scouting Trip Report.

After we came back to the US, we've been speaking all around Florida about Montevideo. Here's where we've been:

Jan 31 - Jacksonville Church of Christ
Feb 4 - Tampa Bay Church
Feb 6 - South Miami (South Florida Church of Christ)
Feb 7 - North Miami (SFCoC)
Feb 11 - Broward and West Miami (Spanish)
Feb 18 - Fort Myers/Naples Church
Feb 23-25 - Tampa for Family Dynamics Facilitator Training seminar
March 4 - Orlando Church of Christ
March 7 - The church at Shiloh Farm (Tallahassee)
March 11 - Capitol City Church of Christ (Tallahassee)

Our last speaking engagement (that we know of) will be for our home church, the Gainesville Christian Church on April 1.

We are super grateful that God allowed us to do all of these things and share with all of these people. At every church we have received an incredible welcome and so many people wishing us well and saying they will pray for us. I am reminded of the scripture in Luke 12 when I think about this time in our lives:

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48

I feel like God has entrusted us with so much by letting us go to speak at so many churches and share about our mission. I know that we are unworthly, but we are very grateful to be God's servants. I feel like God accomplished a lot in these trips. It seems that at least 3 things happened:

1. Relationships were built.
We were able to become much better friends with various leaders and members in all of the churches. I'm sure that these relationships will be invaluable in the future. Who knows where God will take us, but it will always help to have good relationships with people in many churches.

2. The heart for missions was stirred.
All throughout the state, it seems that there is a re-awakening about missions going on. Each church is at a different place, but I think that our visits spurred each church to consider their committment to missions both overseas and at home. Hopefully also, more people will begin to dream to be used by God in this way. Certainly not everyone is meant for overseas missionary work, but I believe that many more in our churches can dream this way than are right now.

3. Sacrifice was encouraged.
As we shared about a church of seven people, some of whom have a very difficult time making it to church because of the $.70 bus ride, people were encouraged to sacrifice. We, here in the United States are so rich. I believe that greed/love for money might be the sin that condemns more Americans to hell than any other. I'm not trying to judge people in our culture, but I know that our brothers and sisters all over the world are living on very small incomes while we are going more and more in debt and acumulating more and more earthly treasures. I think there are many more sermons that need to be preached about materialism in our churches here, but I believe that many were encouraged to sacrifice more. I know that I need to pray more to be more sacrificial "so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified from the prize".

So, I am very grateful to God for the opportunity to share His Word in so many places. Now we're going to get some rest and get ready to make the most of our last 4 months living in the US.

Not much blogging

Wow, well we haven't posted anything in a while. Life has been crazy these past few months. Most of our updates are on the SaveUruguay website. If you want to see what we're up to, you can check us out there.

Four Baptisms!

Life is great isn't it? Sometimes things are really challenging, but once you make it through the difficult times, the victories can be so sweet.

Yesterday was an amazing day at the Gainesville Christian Church. We had our annual "I thank God for you" service. It was a great service from beginning to end. After the sermon we were able to see four people get baptized! Kay and I were able to participate by baptizing our good friends Tony and Caroline Sofarelli. We actually met Tony and Caroline back in about February through Nick Molino. We got to know them through the spring semester and studied the Bible with them a few times. Then, they left for the summer. When they returned for the Fall semester, they shared that they really wanted to have us over for dinner. It took a while but we finally found time on September 8th. They cooked us Halibut from Alaska and it was great. As the evening ended, Kay began to feel some pains that ended up being the beginnings of labor. So, Tony and Caroline have a special place in our lives as the last dinner before Maya arrived.
God really changed their hearts as they studied His word. They have truly become great discples who desire to help many others come to know God.

Also Maya has continued to grow. She is getting happier every day. And we continue to take pictures of her. She was able to meet her great Aunt Kay and great Aunt Judy (my mom's sisters) for the first time yesterday also. Of course they loved her!

God is really great in the way he blesses us and takes care of us. Its hard to imagine all that he wants to do through us and with us. We look forward to the finale of 2006 and a very exciting 2007!

October 06

October 2006, what a month! I thought that September was crazy, but October has only been more crazy. But maybe that's just an "in the moment" perspective. But, now that its over, October was a great month.

First, things with Uruguay got firmed up. There were some moments of reconsideration. There were some suggestions that made us think about Brazil, but after many talks and much prayer, we're still going to Uruguay. We never questioned our decision to go to South America, but it was just a question of where the best place to go would be. Now that those things are sorted out, we are fired up at the opportunity to go to Montevideo and help the church there. I'm looking forwar to January because I'll probably be able to travel down to MV, scout out the city and meet the disciples there. Now, we're just working on raising the money and recruiting some people to go with us. I know that God is going to provide all that we need.

Maya has continued to grow. As of the 31st, she was almos 10 lbs. Its amazing to watch her grow each week. Recently her eyebrows and eyelashes have gotten a lot longer. We created a google slideshow of Maya pictures. You can see it by clicking here.

Kay is doing great as a mother. I'm so greatful to have an incredibly dedicated and hardworking wife to parent Maya. I'm amazed a how much work it is to take care of Maya and I am grateful to be able to share the responsibilty with Kay.

Also in October, I celebrated my 26th birthday. Kay surprised me and took me to SilverSprings in Ocala for my birthday. We had a great time seeing giraffes, bears, panthers, alligators and other amazing animals. God has blessed me in incredible ways that I'll never be worthy of.

Finally, we had a retreat with the Campus ministry. At the retreat a good friend of mine, Mitchell got baptized in the ocean. A week later another good friend, Handley got baptized. Both of these guys have been studying the Bible for a while and have really grown in amazing ways. I'm proud of both of them for taking the step of faith to get baptized. You can see Handley at the center of the picture.

Hopefully November will be a little slower of a month. But who knows? We certainly have life to the FULL!!

How Quickly Things Change

Wow, its October 2nd. I can't believe how quickly this past three weeks has gone by. Maya arrived on September 9th and things have been a blur since then. My parents came up to Gainesville to hang out with us and help us get adjusted. Mom was able to stay a few extra days. Then on Sept 18th Dan & Mary came into town from Afghanistan. They were a terriffic help as we tried to figure out our life with a newborn.

For the first few days, Maya slept in our room with us. But she started making a lot of noise at night so we decided to put her in her own room. Since then we've been sleeping (a little bit) better. She is quickly getting used to sleeping in her own bed.

Our time with Dan and Mary was great. We spent most of it hanging out at home and watching the baby. Its amazing how long you can stare at a little baby. Maya has a really cute wake up routine that we watched every day. We also got to go to a movie and hang out at the mall with her. Yesterday, Oct. 1 was her (and Kay's) first Sunday at church. Even though she was only 3 weeks old we decided to take her because Dan was preaching. Its not too often that Kay gets to hear her Dad preach. He did an amazing job talking about pouring our lives out for God. Dan and Mary are definitely examples of that as the live in Afghanistan. Their work with HOPE Worldwide is growing week by week. There working on initiating some new projects all overAfghanistan. If you want to check out their blog you can see it at http://hopeafghanistanblog.blogspot.com/
He challenged us all to be willing to face our fears, fight against worldliness and dream great dreams for God.

We are continuing to pray for next year and for the small church in Montevideo. If you want to learn about the country of Uruguay you should check out this blog: http://fromuruguay.blogspot.com/
. It has some great info about Uruguay.

Another great thing that has been going on is a Colossians class I've been teaching for the Campus Ministry. Each Thursday night we have our midweek service for the Gainesville Christian Church and the whole campus ministry has been working our way through Colossians. I love the way that Christ is Supreme and held up high above any other "gods." This upcoming Thursday we'll be studying Colossians 3 and talking about how to "put to death" whatever is worldly and "put on" Christ. We've had discussion after every class and I think people have really been enjoying it.

Well, its time to go hang out with Maya. We'll put some more pictures up soon.