Missio Colonia | Kevin and Kathi in Cologne, Germany

Yesterday, Kathi and I traveled over to Western Pennsylvania to visit one of our support churches - St. John's Burry's Church in Rochester. This was the same church we wrote about a few months ago, which began supporting us after an older GEM couple they had supported retired. Sunday was our introduction to the church body. We spoke in their Sunday morning service, and then we attended a dessert social that evening.

We are really excited to be a part of this family. What really struck us was how diverse and vibrant the church was. They had people of every age their worshiping God. And, they are really active in reaching out to the community. I think that this is going to be a relationship that's going to be important for us as long as we're in ministry.

Please pray for Kathi and I tomorrow. We have an appointment with a church in the Sugarcreek area. We're hoping God opens up this church to come unto our support team. Pray for us and that God would give them the desire and the opportunity to partner with us.

Update: The meeting went very well. We sat down for almost two hours with their missions committee chair and the pastor. They were so encouraging to us, and they were enthusiastic about being a part of the ministry. We're definitely hopeful that this will develop into a good relationship. Thanks for all of your prayers.

This morning we sang and spoke at the two United Methodist churches here in town. It was really an amazing time. When we got there we realized that they were expecting us to deliver the entire sermon, and we had only prepared for a short introduction into our ministry. Well, the Spirit really moved through us. The pastor said that the church was really responsive to what we are doing. Praise God. We have been continually blessed by how God has been working in the local congregations. Continue to pray for our relationship with these churches.

I've been convicted lately that we've begun to neglect some of the priorties in support raising that we had when we first started out a year ago. Specifically, the priority of thanksgiving. This has shown itself practically in how far behind we've gotten in sending out thank you cards. But, even more important is the heart of thanksgiving that has been slowly growing cold. The expectations that we've been placing on ourselves and other people have really sapped our thankful hearts.

If you are currently supporting us either through giving and/or prayer, we want you to know that we are so so thankful for you. We have been so focused on how far away we are from being done and have forgot how far we have been brought by your faithfulness. Thank you.

Please pray that we would have renewed thanksgiving to people in our lives as well as toward God. Especially pray that we would be more diligent to seeking Him in prayer both to give thanks and to continue to ask that He provide. We remember now that we love doing this. God is so faithful, and His Body is so wonderful and supportive.

We found out from someone over at Greater Europe Mission HQ that the Pre-Field training we were planning on attending in October actually begins September 5th. On top of that, if we want to have a spot in that training, we need to be at 70% by the beginning of August. This is has really put a wrench in all of our expectations, but I do believe that God has been preparing us for this the past couple of weeks.

He has been showing us that we have been putting too much hope in our own timetables for this ministry. He's spoken to us through several different avenues to put our trust in him and not in our effort to get there by a certain time. So, now that this has happen, we actually feel a great peace about it. We probably won't make this fall training (not that God can't make that happen), so we'll end up going to Pre-Field sometime late winter, probably in February. This gives us plenty of time to get to 70% and beyond. Ideally, we could be close to completely finishing by the time we go. Either way, we are at peace about the whole thing, and we are confident that we'll be joining the team in Cologne in His timing.