Missio Colonia | Kevin and Kathi in Cologne, Germany

Today Kathi and I got to play pastor and pastor's wife at church. Our pastor was out of town this weekend for his daughter's graduation, so he asked me to fill the pulpit. It gave us the chance to give a quick update on how things are going with support raising. Then, I spent the rest of the time giving a message on the Kingdom of God. People responded pretty positively. I was thankful for God's grace in preparing and giving that word.

We've been doing a better job of filling up our time with support appointments. We've actually been able to develop a few more contacts, and we're hopeful that these visits will give us momentum to carry into the summer.

Yesterday, Kathi and I spoke at a new supporting church. The First Presbyterian Church in Carrollton recently committed to partnering with us in our church planting mission. So, we took the opportunity to hang out with them and get to know the congregation a bit better. They were a wonderfully encouraging people. And, they were a very small congregation too, which is a trend that has really surprised us. The trend is that our most passionate and faithful supporting churches are usually the smallest. This usually goes totally against conventional wisdom (i.e. bigger is better). Our great joy is that these churches of extremely limited resources have been so supportive and so generous to Kathi and I.

We have definitely been absent from cyberspace the last few weeks. Sorry to all of you who have been wanting updates. The past couple of weeks have actually been pretty eventful. We've heard positive reports back from two churches about supporting us, and we're hopeful that these will turn into commitments very soon. We were also able to meet with some of the leaders of the Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church in Twinsburg, Ohio. We spent a Sunday evening worship service with them, and were able to share our vision for Germany with their missions committee.

We're also beginning to formulate plans for this summer. We are still hopeful that we'll be able to attend our pre-field training in June, but we're still a solid $1,000 per month away from that goal. So, we're also making alternative plans for this summer, and with some of the possibilities that are opening up, we're actually excited either way. So, please be praying that God would be giving us wisdom as we are making plans for the coming months. Our heart's desire is that we would be faithful, yielded, and obedient to whatever He has called us.

This weekend we're flying out to Kansas City to spend some time with some close friends from seminary, Meryl and Neal. It's going to be wonderful to see them since we haven't in almost a year.