Missio Colonia | Kevin and Kathi in Cologne, Germany

On Thursday we got back from the retreat in Ft. Wayne. We're already a little sad that it's all over. Besides the fun of living like a millionaire for a couple of days, the retreat's focus on living and working in Biblical community was so challenging and refreshing. The best part of the whole thing was being able to fellowship with our team leader Adam and his wife Bethel. We got to address with them some of our concerns about our first year in the field and have some of our other questions answered.
Along with all of that, it really provided us with some extra encouragement to see the support raising process through to the end. It made us even more excited to be able to build this kind of loving community in Cologne. We are both feeling an extra boast in motivation to get support raising down soon. Hopefully, this will give us some much needed momentum into the summer. Please continue to pray that we'll be able to attend our Pre-Field Training in June!

Kathi and I have had a chance to live it up a little this past week. We are currently near Ft. Wayne, Indiana at a retreat facility for people in ministry. The facility is actually a mansion owned by a Christian businessman and CEO who opened up his home to missionaries and others in ministry as a retreat place. Let me tell you, it is beautiful.

Aside from the luxury we get to enjoy for a few days, we've been able to meet with a few of the couples on our team and get some much-needed encouragement from them. The training on the retreat focused on building loving and effective community on our teams. So, it's been an amazing opportunity to connect with some of our team even before we move to Germany. We've been so thankful for the chance to rest and rejuvenate as well as gain some renewed vision and excitement for ministry in Germany. I think this is going to be helpful in giving us a boast to make a final push to finish support raising.

The past few days our area had almost a foot of snow fall. This entire weekend we were pretty much house-bound. Added on top of the weather is the fact that it's also flu season. We had our bout with the bug last week, but many of our friends and family are dealing with it right now. This is causing a support raising problem that we ran into last year as well. We had a few appointment schedule recently, and they all fell through either because of weather or illness. It can become frustrating when all you want is to feel like you're doing something. Instead it forces us to wait. This is probably the lesson God is trying to instill, one that we're not very good at learning.

Despite the obstacles, God has been adding some new supporters to our team this past week. We had a couple commit whom we met with way back last fall. We also added a new church. The First United Methodist Church in Carrollton voted to support us month a few days ago! Praise God! We also have several other churches and individuals who are praying right now about possibly supporting us monthly. Please be praying that God would be giving them direction.

We found out yesterday that one of our fellow teammates, Dave Byers, went to the emergency room in Cologne with some mysterious illness. From what I know, they haven't identified what's wrong with him yet. Please be praying for him and his wife as well as the team there in the city. Pray specifically that this would not hinder their ministry there.

This has reminded Kathi and I that missions is a costly endeavor. I'm not sure if we're reading into things, but it seems like sickness or injury follow missionaries much more closely than normal. It's a reminder that even though we're in a Western nation, missions puts us in spiritual harms way.

Update: We got an email from Dave today, and after spending a week in the hospital, he's finally back home. They put him through every test imaginable, and we're able to rule anything too serious like colon cancer. It's my understanding that they're still not entirely sure what's wrong but it's likely a really bad bacterial infection. Please continue to pray for Dave and his wife, who is 20 weeks pregnant.