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Archive for March, 2008

Another Trip Update

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

The conference in Ontario, Oregon went well Tuesday night. Whereas, it is often a bit difficult getting back into the conference setup routine, this one was very smooth. The Lord orchestrated circumstances so that we are able to remain with the family who has been hosting our family earlier this week until Friday. This will allow Steve to accomplish some bus work. It is also easier on our family when get a break from the frequent moving that is characteristic of our road trips. We are enjoying the fellowship, activities, views, and hospitality of our country stay. Grandma is doing a great job of shipping, and Melanie is staying down while her family comes in during the day to stay with her when Nathan is at work.

Trusting in Jesus,
Teri

Joseph

Joseph doing a repair project.

John

The boys helped a fence project.

Mary

Mary — feeding an animal cracker to an animal .

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Baby Max.03

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

Just a quick BabyMax update. Melanie is being a great sport with her bedrest. Her family is over daily to keep her company and assist with household tasks. We miss my family but are grateful hers is close. The Lord is also faithfully providing help for our nursing home services, this is a huge blessing.

Melanie still has contractions off and on. We’ve had some moments of concern where we’ve wondered if a trip to the hospital was in our immediate future. Ultimately, only God knows when this child will come. We are grateful for each day that passes and praying that baby stays put for … a week, five weeks, 13 weeks.

Thank you all for your prayer support. It is very comforting to know that this child’s well-being is constantly before our Father’s throne.

Nathan, Melanie and Baby Max
Psalm 77

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Now in Idaho

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Saturday, we didn’t make it out of Steamboat Springs until around 3:30 p.m. Thankfully the work got finished, and we now have power on the bus, which means a refrigerator that works and lights.

We are staying with a family in the country until Wednesday morning, and we’re looking forward to the conference in Ontario, Oregon (about an hour outside of Boise, ID) tomorrow evening.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Nathan, Melanie, and Baby Max. We are extremely grateful for your prayers and encouragement. We know people are also remembering Nathan and Melanie in prayer, because it was this time last year, that little Susannah went to be with Jesus. Nathan and Melanie are blessed by your prayers for them. We’ll keep you updated about Baby Max, but right now, he/she’s staying put, for which we’re grateful.

Joyfully His,
Sarah for the rest of the family

Dad working on some wiring Saturday.

Christopher working

Christopher doing some clean up.

Dad with the two workers that installed the system.

Joseph working on building a shelf around the batteries.

A windmill up close! We haven’t seen the windmills this close to the road, so these windmills must be new since we last went through.

Mountains are a beautiful reminder of God’s Creation!

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Today in Steamboat Springs

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

Joseph, John and I spent about twelve hours with the installer today, while the rest of the family spent most of their day in the hotel room. They did take one trip out to see if they could find Jesse a cowboy hat. He’s been wanting one a long time, but the didn’t find one that fit.

The installer was a craftsman and takes great pride in his work. The negative, is things always take longer than desired. We will pack out of the room tomorrow morning and the family will wait on Uriah while we try and complete the work.

After they finish we drive six hundred miles to Twin Falls, Idaho, unless it gets too late and we are too tired after the bus work. Sunday we go on into Ontario, Idaho where we have a conference Tuesday night.

Our hearts are very much back with Nathan and Melanie. We know so many are praying and we are very grateful.

We received a very amusing email today from a family we will be seeing soon. They knew we were in Steamboat Springs today and decided to check the local webcam to see what the weather conditions are. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words, below is the webcam photo that they saw this morning.

God bless.

In Christ Jesus,
Steve

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We Arrived Safely

Friday, March 21st, 2008

Just a quick post to say we arrived safely here in Steamboat Springs–praise the Lord!

Sarah for the rest

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Driving Through Winter Weather

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

We stopped for diesel outside of Denver, and the weather was beautiful: it felt like spring and in the 70′s. After we left Denver and started up into the mountains, the temperature dropped, and soon we hit light snow. We drove through light snow for awhile until suddenly the combination of snow/altitude created a whole different situation as the roads changed to snow/slush. Please pray as we go the last 60 miles to Steamboat Springs. We do have chains we can put on the bus if necessary.

Only for Jesus,
Sarah for the rest

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On the Road

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

We are now on the road, several days earlier than was the original plan. Dad decided last week that it would be good if we could leave today, instead of Sunday. We are going to stop in Steamboat Springs, CO for a little over a day to have some electrical things installed as an initial step as we work toward converting Uriah. It was a perfect stop on our way out to Idaho, so we’re grateful that the Lord opened up a way.

(We missed Nathan and Melanie today during our prayer time. They waved at us from their window.)

Thank you for your prayers for Nathan, Melanie, and Baby Max. Your prayers and notes are extremely encouraging to all of us. For those who are wondering, yes, Melanie is on bed rest. She has such a sweet spirit. Melanie had originally planned to ship our Titus2 web orders while we were gone, like she has done in the past, but obviously the bed rest made that not possible. With very short notice, Grandma willingly agreed to ship orders for us this next month. Thank you, Grandma, for your help. Grandad and Grandma will be spending many hours taking care of the ministry and house while we are away. We are blessed.

We’ve had a few changes on Uriah for this trip. First, Dad decided to bring a refrigerator, so we no longer have to refill a cooler and repack it every few days. We’re careful not to have the door open very long, since it can’t be plugged in all the time until we get the batteries and invertor installed in Steamboat Springs tomorrow. Anna and Jesse spent many hours pulling wires for temporary lights for the bus. It’ll be a blessing to have light in the evening.

Dad installed a speedometer with an odometer, but he didn’t have enough time to be able to get it calibrated correctly. No problem, though. We used the small GPS unit to figure out the speed, and here’s a picture of how the speedometer currently looks.

Dad is hoping he’ll be able to work on it at some point during the trip. Steamboat Springs is several hours past Denver in the mountains, so we would appreciate prayer for safety as we drive in tonight, and then that the work would go smoothly on Uriah tomorrow.

Serving Jesus,
Sarah for the rest

Uriah was mostly loaded last night, which was a blessing.

Posted in Family News, Misc., Travel | 2 Comments »

Baby Max.02

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

Thank you for every one’s prayers. Melanie was released from the hospital this afternoon. There has been no progression in labor and no internal changes. All this is an answer to prayer.

We’re amazed at how quickly life brings changes. Yesterday at 9:00 am we were enjoying the final moments of seeing our baby on what was to be the last ultra-sound of this pregnancy. At 9:05 the ultra-sound tech was telling us she was very concerned, a dr was coming in echoing those same sentiments, and a few moments later Melanie was being helped into a wheel-chair to be admitted to the hospital. This is of course a very simplified overview as there was alot of questions of the medical staff mixed with tears as we sought the Lord’s will with the new information/events. Our world so changed in 10 minutes. But, God is in control and wasn’t surprised by any of it. I kept thinking that I was crying out to Him who calmed the winds and waves, and that the winds and waves that were buffeting us still understood His voice and knew Who was in charge.

Specific prayer requests:

Baby Max (just the nickname, we have no idea on the gender) needs to stay put. Goal is 34 weeks, we’re at 26.
Dilation needs to not increase (we’re praying that it will decrease)
Contractions need to be minimal and not show up very often
We need to know when things do pick up when to go to the hospital. We have no desire to have a preemie delivered by paramedics.

Praises:

That Melanie got to come home.
That we were able to seek counsel of a number of key health-care providers that affirmed that Melanie going home was not taking unnecessary risks.
That baby is very active and looked good on the ultra-sound

Nathan, Melanie, and Baby Max

Posted in Family News, Misc. | 26 Comments »

Baby Maxwell Prayer Request

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Quick prayer request…. A routine ultrasound found that Melanie is dialated. She has been admitted to the hospital for observation and possible pre-term labor treatment. We covet your prayers. She is 26 weeks along.

Friday marks the one year anniversary of Susannah’s birth, here at the same hospital. That makes things a little more emotionally challenging.

Nathan, Melanie and Baby

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Life was going smoothly until this week…

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

Often the last thirty days before a trip are very difficult but when challenge after challenge hit, the reality has settled in that the usual pre-trip barrage has begun, as Satan tries to hinder and thwart our family. We would covet your prayers over the next week: that we would keep our eyes on Jesus, gladly welcome the challenges, and experience God’s peace. Anna remarked to me today that this must mean it’ll be a great trip (because of all that is happening). Even Titus2 went down solid tonight, and Joseph and Dad had to make a trip into Kansas City to swap out a power supply in the server .

We are excited about the trip, and we will continue to press on amidst the down-pour .

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9).

Only for Jesus,
Sarah for the rest

Posted in Ministry News, Misc. | 10 Comments »

One Day at a Time

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Show me the staircase, that I have to climb, Lord,
for my sake, teach me to take, one day at a time….

Last Thursday evening, our family plus Nathan and Melanie, attended the funeral of another dear sister, Maggie. It was a Christ-honoring time of reflection on her sweet life. The next morning, we prepared to head for Salina, but not without some challenges.

We had the incredible privilege of being asked to provide the funeral service for our dear sister in Christ, Mrs. Laferre who had lived 95 years on this earth, and is now with her Lord Jesus. I had decided to rent a vehicle so we can be all together, since Uriah is getting some work done. I was told that no vans were available, but the car rental reserved a large SUV that would hold all 9 of us. Friday morning arrived, and as we got ready, they called me to say they didn’t have the vehicle. The agent drove to the airport in an attempt to retrieve one that would work. The end result was a very nice seven seat vehicle with no luggage room for the children’s instruments. We almost drove two cars but I wanted us to be together for the six hours we would be driving roundtrip and so we were a little more “together” than we had planned on.

(Teri took this from the front of the vehicle.)

Throughout the funeral, Jesus Christ was shared, as that would have been Mrs. Laferre’s greatest desire and with the family’s consent, the plan of salvation was clearly presented. The children sang two of her favorite songs, One Day at a Time, and Just a Closer Walk with Thee, and one of her great-granddaughters also sang. It was a true bittersweet time.

In Christ Jesus,
Steve

Thank You sweet Jesus, for all that You’ve done
I placed my faith, in Your shed blood on Calvary’s tree
Your mercy was there, my sins You did bare
Sweet Jesus You taught, me to take
One day at a time.

(A verse written by someone in our family for the song, One Day At a Time.)

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