New Job!

After several months of transition a routine is starting to emerge!  On August 1, John started his new position with Food for the Hungry.  John’s new position is Program Director for the Luke 2:52 project and Director of US Church Engagement.  (That is the name we are using now, although the title is subject to change as the position becomes more clarified.)  John will begin his job focusing on organizing and launching the expansion of the Luke 2:52 program. 

The Bible verse, Luke 2:52 talks about the wholistic growth of Jesus.  These four areas (mental, physical, spiritual and social) provide the framework for all development strategies used in the FH fields.    The Luke 2:52 program is a project that seeks to encourage and strengthen local indigenous churches through wholistic ministry principles.  By taking churches through a 10-module training, over the course of 5 years the program seeks to reveal God’s intentions for the local church and its role in overcoming all forms of poverty within its people and the community for which it is located. 

The Luke 2:52 program has existed and been running for over 10 years in several Southeast Asian countries and has produced incredible results.  By empowering local churches through ideas and principles rather than finances and material resources the program is changing the way local Christians think, which is in turn changing the communities they live in.  Over the past ten years 1,000 churches have been trained through this program and several hundred have declared their local communities as having been lifted from severe poverty through this project. 

John’s connection to this program is as follows.  For the past 3 years in Bolivia John has been working to implement this program among local churches around Sucre.  Through training up 3 Bolivian pastors as project leaders, the project has slowly “taken off’ in Sucre.  Though only a few of our churches in Sucre have officially graduated the program, much positive fruit has been observed  As we have witnessed the churches walking in obedience to God we have seen God be faithful in providing for them in numerous ways. 

Around 6 months ago, John started the process of handing over this project to several key pastors and leaders.  This transition has happened in order for John to take his current position, which is overseeing the expansion of this church-strengthening project globally.  As this project looks to expand into other countries and regions John will be in charge of organizing and launching these programs.  John will spend a great deal of time developing new training curriculum and organizing manuals for teachers and students alike. 

Along with the Luke 2:52 project John will also be working with a variety of churches and organizations here in the US to train and implement Missions education.  John will teach and train in various lessons dealing with poverty, worldview, and the role of the local church.

We are very excited about this new role and look forward to sharing more as his position grows! 

Debriefing

In mid July three of us (John, Jennie and Ella) took off for Colorado Springs to attend missionary debriefing and renewal (DAR) with an organization called MTI (Missionary Training International).   We spent a week at a retreat center call The Hideaway with 16 other families that were also moving back to the US from various countries all over the world.  The main topics we touched on were stress, transition, and soul care.  Most importantly it was a time to share with each other the good, the bad and the ugly, and to discover that what we are feeling is completely normal!

The Hideaway

Ella had her own "class" of 5-6 year olds.  Everyday she also talked and played with kids that were in the same position as she was.  Her amazing teacher, Sandy, helped these kids to learn how to figure out how they were feeling and helped them to put words to those feelings.  We as parents learned invaluable strategies to work with Ella in helping her grieve in a positive way and adjust to a new culture.  We learned a lot about how this transition is different for her than it is for us.  We left Bolivia and came back to something familiar.  For Ella, Bolivia was what was familiar and more "home" to her than the US.

We can't speak highly enough of this amazing opportunity to attend DAR.  We met incredible people and cherished the chance to take a break from our crazy life-in-transition- to really process what we were going through emotionally.  We learned wonderful coping skills and made great friendships as well.

The beautiful view of Pikes Peak we woke up to every morning.

Ella's class

DAR debriefing group, July 2012

July: Still on the Move

After 2 great weeks we said our final good-byes to friends and family in Cincinnati.  Sunday afternoon June 24th Jennie and the girls took a flight from Columbus, OH to Sioux City, IA and then on to Yankton, SD by car.  John took off with the moving truck the next morning.  He stopped in Indy to pick up our good friend Bill Fisher, who graciously offered to accompany John on the 15 hour drive to South Dakota.  It certainly made those 15 hours fly by and we are so grateful for Bill's willingness to come.  

For the month of July, Yankton was our home and Jennie's parents let us "move in".  We can't thank them enough for making their home our home and helping out with the girls as we took on the task of transitioning our lives back to the US.  Our list was big and at times very overwhelming: house, cars, insurance, cell phones (surprisingly the most stressful decision!) schooling for Ella, etc.  Jennie's parents were pactient with us as we slowly made progress and the Lord was so good in providing for our needs. It was indeed a very special time to live with parents/grandparents.  One that doesn't happen often, but we really had a great time and enjoyed our late evenings of pinochle.

Enjoying the "beach" at Lewis and Clark Lake, Yankton SD

One of the amazing ways the Lord provided for us was in our housing arrangements.  We knew we would have to start out renting, as getting a mortgage without having lived in the US for several years was going to be impossible.  We really wanted to find a house (rather than apartment or condo) to rent since John was going to be working from home and needing an extra bedroom for an office.  We were really struggling to find something in our price range that was in a decent neighborhood.  We discovered that good homes were renting really fast.  So Jennie made several appointments to see a few rentals and we headed up to Sioux Falls one weekend.  The very first home we went through had been foreclosed and stood empty for 2 years.  A couple purchased the home and were in the process of redoing everything...so it was in rough shape.  But the potential was awesome and it was in our price range.  We filled out an application that same day but were bummed to learn that 3 others had filled out an application that same day as well.  The only thing we could do was to sit and wait.  Two days later, we received a phone call from the landlords saying they wanted to rent their home to us!  Just one day of house hunting and 2 days later we were able to cross off a huge item from our list.

Moving day was three weeks later.   We went back to the storage unit in Sioux Falls where we had unloaded all of our things a month earlier.  A big thanks to my family for helping us move in.  (Uncle Dean, Dan-O, Cousin Riley, Uncle Dave, Cousin Matt, Dad and Mom for watching the kiddos!)  We've moved that stuff into and out of storage units quite a few times in the past 2 months, and all the help really made it all seem pretty easy!