Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We drove down to Eureka Springs and spent time with Aaron's family. One of Aaron's cousins rode with us from here in Kansas City. Another one of his cousins had flown in with her family from the Air Force in Belgium. We shared a condo with Aaron's brother and his family and the girls had a wonderful time playing with their 4 girls. Praise God we had a safe trip and made it home all well on Friday.

On Saturday the girls "helped" Grandma and Grandpa put the tree up and decorate it. Evie just doesn't know what to think of all this. Sunday morning I noticed Evie was pretty quiet for a bit and went in to find she had pulled 4 ornaments off the tree and was very proud of her work. You can't help but to laugh for a minute and then tell her NO, NO! So I guess we are ready for the Christmas season and we even have a couple gifts under the tree from some extended family and it is killing Mylee to not open them.

But among all the trees, presents and busyness we are going to remember and celebrate the real reason and I hope your family will too. Be sure to say Merry Christmas as much as possible! Next weeks post will come with stories from God's Mountain this next weekend. Enjoy the last week of November. Can you believe it!

We made it!

Aaron and I, after receiving our appointment certificates Wednesday morning at a separate ceremony.

Standing behind us is John Floyd, IMB Trustee Chairman. For a full story click on the IMB link at the bottom left of our page.



Hello everyone! We made it home safe and sound. What an amazing week we had. I don't think I can say that for my parents because they drove and had my kids all week. But they all barely survived.

I am having a hard time coming up with words to convey how much this trip meant to us. We were able to see all our friends from Candidate Conference in July, that we have been keeping in touch with since that week. We were also able to meet 3 other couples and another lady who will be joining us at language school in Costa Rica. They are all very special people and can't wait to see how God will work in our lives as we spend a lot of time together.

During the week they gave us time to prepare a "testabyte". Because there were 82 appointees we were only allowed 75 words per couple to tell a piece of our call or testimony. We also had to have it memorized. So we practiced on my parents which was a pretty good time. We spoke it in front of 1500-2000 people that evening. We weren't nervous at all. Maybe I should speak for myself (Gabe).

We played lots of Farkle (dice game) and Nutsy (card game) with all our friends and had a blast. After playing the first night I woke up the next morning and couldn't extend my arm and it was in a lot of pain. So everyone was saying I had "Farkle Elbow". But the only think I can think of was that I pulled a muscle while getting the luggage on the bus. Who knows. But it was all the way better after 4 days.

On the flight out there we sat across the aisle from 4 members of a Mexican Band who was touring in the US. I tried my minimal Spanish on them and it gave them a pretty good laugh. But I told them we were going to be missionaries in Mexico and the lead singer said he was from Mexico City and his uncle lives in Puebla. We were so excited to have had this opportunity to speak with them and who knows, our paths may cross again someday.

Aaron was able to witness to a homeless gentleman in Subway on Sunday after church. He shared his sandwich with him and spent about an hour with him talking about the love of Jesus. This meant as much to Aaron as the Mexican band did for me. God is once again confirming our call even as we are appointed.

We will now just enjoy our time with family and friends for the holidays up to February. Thanks for all your prayers during our trip and if you have any questions feel free to ask. We would be glad to tell anyone about our week that changed our lives forever.

Ready to Go!

We are a day out from leaving for Appointment Ceremony in Springfield, Illinois. What a week we have had with Halloween stuck in the middle. We helped with Trunk' n Treat at Maywood Baptist Church in Independence. We were the Woods Pumpkin Patch. I was hoping to post some pics but we didn't get any good ones and forgot to have someone take a family picture of us. But us girls were pumpkins and Daddy was the farmer of the patch. When asked what her favorite part of the night was Mylee replied, "Um...Lucas, Caelin, Carson, and Brennan." Here we go again with the boys. It was a pretty big deal before we left about the scary faces. She was real worried about this, so we prayed that Jesus would protect her and help her to not be afraid of them. So after asking about her favorite part she piped up with this: "there were a lot of scary people there. But I wasn't scared of them. I just faced them!" Where she gets this stuff I don't know, but we were pretty proud of her.

I have the girls and myself packed, which puts me more ahead of the game this trip than for any other trip in my life. So tonight should go real well just getting those last minute items together. As we have been praying for this trip we asked that God would keep us safe and to continue opening doors for us as he has done the 2 and a half years in this process. We feel truly blessed to have such a clear answer as to what God's purpose is for our lives. Thank you for praying us through it and know your prayers are being answered. Also pray that Satan would be defeated this week as he tries to get us down. We are already seeing his work the week before so are prepared for the attacks to come. Hope you all have a blessed week and will see you when we get back-Thursday, November 8.