Greetings again and Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, our last Candidate Orientation has come and gone. We had 17 individuals, some heading to France, Germany, Ireland, Austria and Spain. What a privilege it is to be able to walk along side these individuals as they went through our orientation, were appointed and are now raising their support so they can get overseas and engage on a dark continent.

Thank you all for your prayers. It was an incredible time. While Tim served out 7, 14 hour days, the rest of the family did incredibly well in supporting him. Also, this was Tim’s first time carrying the full responsibility for the Euro Quest (short termers) portion of the orientation, and he survived. :)

It is truly amazing to be able to speak into each of these individuals lives and then to be able to continue following their path as Tim now coaches them through this next leg of their journey.

Here is a picture of our group we just sent out.




PRAYER:

We would also appreciate your prayers. A short while ago Tim’s Mom was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and is currently undergoing Chemo therapy. Please pray for her as she goes through this time. My sister was able to visit with Mom and dad for a couple of weeks as someone gifted her with miles to fly back from Prague and be with them as Mom got her first burst of Chemo. We are planning on visiting them over Christmas too. It’s been a while since they’ve seen the grandchildren and we look forward to some quiet family time together, with them and my two brothers + family in the area.

May you and yours have an incredible Thanksgiving. We thank the Lord for provision and that we are able to continue to have an impact on the continent of Europe in so may ways.

Thank you for your continued prayers, Tim, Jennifer and the kids

Prayer

Just a few thoughts.
I have picked up the book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Spirit by Jim Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.
In it he speaks so aptly about prayer.:
A visiting minister said to the congregation one day:
“you can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning.
You ca tell how popular a pastor is by who comes on Sunday night.
But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting.”

CH Spurgeon said:
“the condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, ad from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness I prayer.”

Wow, how does this grip you? I wonder what churches would, could look like if we embraced some of these concepts.
On that note, please pray for us this week as we have 18 new candidates here for training, as they are prepared for ministry in Europe. Pray that the enemies hand would be stayed and that his attempts to interrupt would be foiled.
Tim and Jennifer

Fall tidbits

Hey all again.
Well, we had our first snow on the last day of summer here in Monument, and yesterday we had 85 degrees again. We love Colorado.

The fall semester is in full swing. Jennifer has begun teaching her classes and is loving it. The added benefit of having a wife that teaches strings is that it costs nothing for lessons for our girls. Katya is learning the Cello and Marika is learning the Violin, while Connor continues to work on guitar.

Well, there are new and exciting things happening here. As we prepare for our next Candidate Orientation October 31st, we are moving our last group into full swing with our coaching program. As we do this we are piloting a program called the Tangible Kingdom. (http://www.tangiblekingdom.com/)

We will be walking through this directed learning and living, experience over the next 12 weeks. We have assembled a group of 20 missionaries, appointees and home office staff to discover how this material might be useful to our ministries in Europe in the future.

Please be praying for us as we launch into this cohort and seek Gods direction. There is much enthusiasm and as we reach into this area of creating community, living intentionally and seeking opportunities to witness and bring the Gospel to where the people are, we look forward to seeing what God has in store for us.

On the Austria front, please continue to pray for my friend Hadschi, he wrote me again today ad asked for prayer as he tries to gather his thoughts ad figure out what’s going on with his life. It seems that things have just fallen apart all over in his life

Lastly, please also pray for my parents. Many of you know that my dad has been battling with Parkinson’s for some time. Well, my mother was just diagnosed with non-hodgkin's lymphoma. Please pray for the both of them as they walk through this next stage of their lives.

Thanks for praying, Tim for us all

Hello everyone.

Well, the seasons are moving ahead, the kids are back in school and loving it. While we still have warm days, we have also been met with some fall-like weather like many of you have.

Ministry

We have already gotten back into the swing of things here. Tim has already been up to Christian Colorado University for a missions-fair. He is also preparing to connect up with Missionary kids on campus. We are preparing our trips for next summer already, putting together a couple of 9 week trips throughout Europe, Internships and other trips. Now we are working at bringing these opportunities to people who feel God’s leading to go.
Our group is also preparing for this year’s Urbana Missions Conference. It is no longer hosted at the University of Champagne as it has grow to over 30 thousand participants.
Our next Candidate Orientation will be end of October, beginning of November. So please be in prayer for us during that time. We will remind you again before then.
In the mean time Tim has started a men’s group at the office. It is a place where we are challenging one another to right living, coming alongside one another and growing together in the Lord.
It has also been a pure delight for Tim to continue coaching the new appointees from our last Candidate Orientation in June. The response to the coaching has been great and Tim is able to really provide an alongside encouragement to a number of them.

Family

The kids are enjoying their first weeks of school. Last semester brought about a lot of stress for Connor who is very bent on getting excellent grades even though we were trying to help him focus on doing a good job, no matter the grade. Some of his stress probably came from being sick ad missing almost 1 month of classes. This semester is going far better for him, he is loving school and feeling free again. Praise the Lord for that. The girls are still doing great and enjoying their classes. All three of the kids are incredible readers too.
Jennifer continues to heal, though she wishes she was able to run, her knee and leg are still slow on the mend. She is enjoying teaching strings and continues to crochet up a storm.

Church

Our church in Monument is moving the coming week, to a larger facility. It appears that the Lord is growing the congregation and so we are bracing for the changes. We have had some very intense conversations with the missions committee, now that we actually exist with a budget. One of our goals is to get our pastor on a short missions trip as he has never been overseas yet. Please pray for wisdom as Tim leads this committee, and every beginning is tricky.

Austria

Please continue to pray for our friend Hadschi. He just recently sent Tim an E-mail and told us that his marriage is over. His wife has decided to live with another man. From his facebook entries we can see that he has experienced some significant pain through this. He is also in a new relationship of his own, with a gal he call, a great Christian lady.
Also continue to pray for Sabse, the gal that Tim is counseling/coaching in Germany via Skype. She seems to have backed off a bit. In the mean we have found someone who has good friends in the next town over and is trying to make connection there.
Thanks for your continued prayers.

Please pray for:

continued healing for Jennifer

for Tim’s mouth – it looks like it is going to cost us a fortune this year. Due to bad jeans (genes) his teeth have always been bad, with his night time breathing machine, it has gotten worse. He has already had to have to crowns this year and needs a bridge ($7,000). And our insurance has already covered their part.

For the many ministries we are participating in.

For our church in Austria that God would bring a couple to Klosterneuburg to step into the work and relieve some of the pressure for our co-workers Joe and Brenda.

Please continue to keep them in your prayers as well as Joe continues to battle with prostate cancer.

Please also pray for our friends Andrea and Arleta in Klosterneuburg, who I am trying to get connected up with our co-workers. Pray that they would attend a service, as they have show real interest in what we are all about.

Pray also as we are trying to launch, locally, as well as with some of our people on the field a 24 month effort toward missional living, here and there.

God bless you all and thank you for your significant part in the work of Christ which is far reaching.

Summer update

Hello everyone.
It has been a busy summer and we are looking forward to school starting again.

Last week we had what we call HMW (Home Ministry Welcome). It is a ministry to our missionaries, a week where we meet there spiritual and emotional needs, encourage them and give them Soul rest. During this time the Missionary Kids are also tended to, loved on and given the tools to deal with transition back to the US. For some of the MK’s it is their first real connection back to the US in 4 years and a lot has changed as they’ve grow older.

Tim was able to serve as the leader for the 8-12 year old group of MK’s. Connor served as Tim’s assistant and it was a great time for father and son to work together.

We had 5 youth who kept us on our toes all week. While we did some activities and had some outings, we were able to get down to some root level concerns, such as saying good bye to friends, preparing for a new school, dealing with cultural faux pas and some saying good bye to their adopted country. Tim also had opportunity to connect with some of the teenagers during the week and saw how at least one of the young men went from being very angry to finding a place of safety where he could share and feel accepted.

Jennifer and girls were able to stay on the campus with Tim and Connor where the week was being held. It was a nice change of pace and we all thoroughly enjoyed the Colorado scenery.

Net week we are planning to go on staycation (it’s where you STAY home for vaCATION). We plan to enjoy our own part of Colorado with day trips to places we have not visited yet. This will fit better into our budget than going somewhere this year.

Thank you for your continued prayers.:

Jennifer’s leg and knee are healing well and she should be out of her brace soon.
The children have been having a vacation.
Tim continues to be very involved in many aspects of GEM home office ministry.
And Jennifer is preparing for the fall to teach the strings classes.
Please continue to pray for our financial need. We are still undersupported by $1,000 per month.
Sending you our love from sunny Colorado, Tim, Jennifer, Connor, Katya and Marika

Update

Hi everybody.
Wow, what an incredible week we had with our Candidate Orientation.
Thank you for your prayers. We had a group of 17 candidates whom we were able to approve for service to Ireland, France, Germany, Portugal and North Africa. It was an amazing time with group of people who love the Lord, have come from varied backgrounds and who knit together as a group in an incredible way.

It was a long week and exhausting but the Lord had His hand on it. On Wednesday we did a prayer walk through a residential area of Monument. It was amazing to listen as we walked and prayed for the people of our town. One of our groups eve had the opportunity to talk to someone who was out in the yard and working.

We feel as a Mission that we need to be involved where we are as much as the work overseas.
That all took place two weeks again. Last week Tim took some time off to work around the house. Besides gathering and cutting several quarts of wood for the Winter, Tim and the children cleaned up a ton of branches that needed moved to a space in the garden where we can chip them later. Jennifer has been working hard on her Strings class and violin lessons. She is in fact gaining some notoriety in Monument. She is really loving being engaged with her violin again.

A prayer request. Please continue to pray for Sabse, she is taking the next day or two to really seek the face of God and seek a deeper relationship with Him. Please also continue praying as some of our friends in Germany locate a fellowship of believers that she might get connected with.

Please also continue praying for our friend Hadschi in Austria. He is facing some very difficult decisions right now. He found out that his wife has been cheating on him for years and everybody knew it but him. Sadly he is looking for solace with another woman himself now. Fighting his own demons. Our co-worker is working to connecting up with Hadschi to serve him and stand by him. Please be in continued prayer for the family, with their two young children and this huge mess.

For His Kingdom, Tim, Jennifer ad the Kids

Hello all.

Just wanted to send out a quick note.

Please be praying for my friend John. He is a sheriff’s deputy. I met him at the church where our children attend AWANA. The church has a police presence there for security purposes. At any rate I’ve been able to talk at length with John. He has had some pretty bad experiences with churches through break ups and other. But he has graciously allowed me into conversation with him. He also served as a translator in Germany for the army, so we have found a good common ground. He’s a great guy. Please pray as we are planning to catch coffee together in the next week or so. I am thankful for the relationship that is building and pray that the Lord will open his heart to the possibility of a real relationship with Christ rather than seeing the painful relationships inside of some church contexts.

Also, be in prayer for Jennifer as she finds her way into the strings community in Colorado Springs and area. Many of you have been blessed by her playing and so know what a blessing it is that she is getting connected here. In order to help our family make ends meet in our support shortage, Jennifer will begin teaching a strings class the summer and the fall, through the school district. It is an opportunity that God has provided through relationship and we’re thankful for.

Please also pray for a new friend Sabse. She's a German gal (early 20’s) who contacted me over Facebook a while ago. Initially she contacted me because we have a mutual friend in Austria. Then one day she saw I was on-line and she texted me and asked if I had walked with the Lord for a long time. I knew immediately where this was going. Since then we have been texting on Skype every week as I counsel her. She is the only Christian in her town outside of Stuttgart. She is alone and trying to figure out how to walk with the Lord in addition to dealing with a number of other issues. Her family is hostile toward her faith and her friends don’t altogether get it. It has been great to see her move from a place of hopelessness to joy in just a couple of weeks. We are also moving toward engaging her friends a little more on faith issues. I also have friends I Germany working on finding a Christian community to plug her into. Please pray with us that her family will see the incredibly irresistible light of Christ and be drawn to it and that she will get connected with other believers in Germany who can become her family and support structure.
Thanks

Tim for us all