crash!

i was in a car accident tonight. (before i start, let me say that it was not my fault. all the witnesses, and cops, said the same thing.) i think that makes like 10 bad "car incidences" in the last 2 years. well...not exactly 10, but there have sure been a lot. the worst part is that the driver of the car that hit me (as he ran a red light, mind you) drove off. i was a victim of a hit and run. amanda can relate to that. excuse my language, but it sucks!!!!!!!!!!!! big time.

i am doing ok though. this accident doesn't change what God has done in my body in the past 2 years since the other, more physically affecting car accident.

i will say that i felt very taken care of by the uptown community who witnessed this act. two different people came over to me with the car make and license plate and Mike, a helpful, if alternative fellow (who looked just like Gus) said that i should, and i quote: "get 'em and make 'em pay!! that just ain't right" it was nice that the folks at Rudolfs on Lyndale and Franklin cared enough to watch my back after this brutal attack....i mean car accident. :)

on a lighter side, what is with my car??!!?!?! seriously, if i didn't know the Lord i would think that my sweet little Honda was cursed! but i know it's not. so, with that, anyone want to buy a lovely, if slightly scraped-up Honda???????? it runs great!

oh, and the damage to my car was minimal. i was able to slam on the brakes before the imbecil hit me. it could have been worse.

We want your thoughts

It is the 60th anniversary this month of the United States dropping the Atomic bomb on Japan. Heidi and I were discussing what people thought of this and we want your opinion. Please leave comments and tell us. We will tell your our opinions if you ask, but we want to know what people think.

One of the reasons we bring this up is that last week I watched two excellent films on World War 2. Each movie was about Allied soldiers in Japanese POW camps. Both films I recommend, but neither should be viewed by children. These movies deal with true but terrible times and do not gloss over the events.

The Great Raid is currently in theaters and deals with the survivors of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. It is a patriotic, flag waving, true story of a raid by American soldiers to free 511 POWs held by the Japanese. The movie does give its due props to the Philipino guerillas who aided the Americans.

The second film, To End All Wars, is a low budget film that had a short theatrical run in 2001 and went to DVD. While also a true story, it is different from the other film in that the main character, (who wrote the book it is based on) came at it from a Christian point of view. The story is of him and his fellow POWs coming to grips with forgiving their brutal captors. Hollywood had to get its hands on it and dumb down the Christian message, but it still shows clearly that the teachings of Christ were the turning point for those men. The end of the movie shows the soldier clutching a Bible and talking about how his life was transformed through that experience. It is a powerful film.

We look forward to hearing from you.

leaving comments

We fixed our blog site so that you no longer have to register in order to make comments. Maybe that explains the sudden surge of blogs. Sorry about that! So comment away!

In case you forgot what we look like!

State Fair Time!!

We are going to the State Fair this Thursday if anyone wants to come with us!! It's a MN tradition - here comes the food on a stick!

Missions Update

We are meeting with Mission: Moving Mountains (www.movingmountains.org) for the third time tonight. We are planning to attend their orientation in October and then start filling out our lenghty applications at that point.

So far we really like what we've heard about this sending agency and are proceding with prayer until we feel we ought to go in another direction. It's exciting!

Any feedback? Has anyone out there had any interaction with M:MM?? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Summer in the city

Today Heidi and I did what all Minneasotans do on a beautiful summer day. We visited the great outdoors. Runner's World magazine rates the Twin Cities as the #2 running city in America. The crown jewel of the Cities is the chain of lakes in south Minneapolis. I ran two of the lakes while Heidi biked. Normally we go together, with her riding slowly while I run, but today we parted ways. In the hour that I ran alone, I saw many interesting things. In the first 5 minutes, I saw Jody and Gretchen, women I have worked with at YouthWorks. I also saw 6 women practicing belly dancing by Lake Harriet. At least, that is what it looked like. On the south side of Lake Calhoun, I passed a guy who was riding his bike on the walking path. I told him that he was on the wrong path and his response contained a word I will not repeat. (This is a family blog.) I guess even on a beautiful day like today, people can be jerks. A lady with a jog stroller ran past me as I was running on the west side of Lake Harriet. That has never happened to me before. It seems I am not in as good of shape as I used to be. There was a group of people from Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie passing out water and God's love on the north side of Lake Calhoun. I give them props for being out there. Heidi finished her 4 loops around Lake Calhoun about 5 minutes after I finished my run. We loaded up her bike and headed home having enjoyed a rare perfect Minneasota afternoon.

Pain Report

I wanted to give a brief pain report for those that are praying for me. The past few weeks have been relatively decent over all, with a few incredibly bad days where I have done nothing but lay in bed. While the headaches persist, we've found a couple natural pain relievers that seem to help a bit.

PLEASE continue to pray for me and for us as we stand against this affliction. Having a community of faith around us is vital and we praise God for those of you that are faithful to pray for and with us. We know that these headaches are temporary and we are faithfully standing on and trusting in the Word of God for my complete healing.

God is so good!! We love you.

family, family, and more family

This week has been filled with family! Tim's whole family was here in MN for almost a week so we were busy cooking, laughing, shopping and spending time together. My parents even joined in the festivites when we took the boys to the zoo. Chase, our nephew, was more than thrilled to have 5 adults to play with. Amy and Christi left on Tuesday and Tim's parents and brother, Larry leave tomorrow. They are staying with us tonight. After having Am here for a few days, Amy and Christi for a few nights, and all the rest, we have sufficiently broken our house in for guests - it's been great! Please come to visit anytime!!

Am's party was great, it was wonderful to spend time with college freinds and reconnect. We will miss you when you leave again Am! She leaves for another year in Japan this Sunday. You can also check out her blog at www.japamberly.blogspot.com

On the job front, Tim has a second phone interview next Wednesday for a job we are really excited about. It's with the National Marrow Donor Program for a recruitment coordinator. It's right up his alley in terms of experience. So please pray that this interview would go well and would lead to another!

Other praise God news: the mother of a dear friend was just given a clear report for what we thought was a cancerous growth. Praise the Lord!!! We rejoice with this family as they celebrate God's goodness!!

Today is the end of the first week that neither Tim or I have had to go to work during the day. It's been an unusual week given all the family time, but are greatly enjoying this opportunity to be together all the time. It's wonderful! There will likely not be another time where neither of us are working, so we are blessed.

For all you ladies out there, I bought the CUTEST little dress at Marshalls for $10 to wear to Tim's reunion next month. It's white and bright lime green, in a sorta fifties style, very fun! Can't wait to show you.

End of an era. . .

I am putting forth my first blog entry. This begins a season of many firsts for me. After of six years of working in the YouthWorks! Inc. office, I am moving on to new adventures. I love YW and would never change a thing about my time there, but after much prayer and conversations with trusted people, I felt it was time to try something new. I am excited that I am not going to travel any more and I can actually spend time with my wife. The process of finding a new job does not fill me with dread, instead I am excited to try something new. The eventual goal, of course, is for Heidi and I to serve the Lord overseas and I would love to find work that would support that goal. I will pray for patience.

The next couple weeks I am going to play some disc golf, run some trails, and ride my bike. More than that, I am excited to spend some time with the Lord and with Heidi. I hope to reconnect with some friends that I have not seen in a while. In the summer, I end up putting a lot on hold and now I want to pick things up again.

Life is exciting and I look forward to this next chapter. Maybe I'll have time for some yard work. . .

God bless you all.

Tim

tan lines and scissors

I rode my bike to Tim's office this morning to say bye to a few people who I may not see again. Such wonderful people work there! It was really fun. We ate leftover pizza from the year-end retreat at the pinic table and talked about GI Joe.

I am trying to get rid of my tan lines from the summer so I can wear a cute strapless dress that I recently rigged to actually stay up. It was one of those buys where it didn't really fit right, but it was on sale, so I bought it and then never wore it. Tim loves that. But I cut out the shelf bra and now it fits great! Praise the Lord for scissors.

Have a great day and enjoy the sun!

trials of faith

The rain this afternoon was a nice little repreive from the sticky heat. Although I can't really complain as I have been out at my parents place the last few days enjoying the comforts of the suburbs. Gosh, it was nice. Tim is in Denver. His last trip - hooray! I am no longer a "Youthworks widow" as of this Friday! No more giving up my husband every week for the greater good of Youthworks. I can't even begin to express how thrilled I am. YAY!!!! That's a start :)

Well, on the job front, there have been a few bumps on this journey. I did not get the job as a Volunteer Coordinator ( the job I really wanted ) and I did not get the job at St. Thomas ( that sounded really cool ). I had a second interview at Bethel which went fine. Truthfully, I don't know how excited I am about the job though. Fortunately, God has a plan for my life, one to prosper me and not to harm me. After shedding a few fat tears over the Vol. Coord. gig, I was reminded of a few encouraging verses in Isaiah and snapped out of my short-lived funk. Since I was home, Dad was able to contribute to the ammassing evidence that God does indeed have an amazing plan for Tim and I in the coming years - dads are good for that - and I went on my semi-merry way to Super Target to buy soymilk. (Another benefit of the suburbs.)

After further thought, as well as more enlightment from Dad (he's amazing!), I was able to see yet again the testing of my faith in this circumstance of job searching. I had complete faith yetsurday morning that God would provide for us. I just thought it would come in the way of one of those two jobs. I still have that same faith, even if things aren't going as I had hoped they would, b/c He keeps him in perfect peace, whose mind is steadfast on Him.

One of the songs we sang at church (www.bcfnations.org) on Sunday had a lyric that said: "Through good times and bad, You are still on the throne. You are God and you alone." Praise be to God.

grape flavored ice

Well, the interview at Bethel went well. They said I will be contacted for a second interview by early next week. Yay! It would be amazing to work there. After 9 months, I could take classes for free and finish up my M.Div. and after 2 years, so could Tim. Talk about good benefits!

Now that I can almost see the end of all my glorious free time, I no longer feel bad sleeping in and watching A Different World reruns in my pjs as I eat breakfast. Life is good. Paychecks are good too. Today my goal is to paint one of the walls in our living room a lovely earth color, aka brown. If I ever figure out how to post pics, I will do so.

Last night we went with some friends to the National Night Out celebration in our neighborhood to gorge ourselves on roasted corn, hot dogs, root beer floats, cotton candy, and snow cones. I even met Ronald McDonald. He said he'd see me at the family reunion....what?! Good times.

Fun New Toy

So I (we) have only had a blog for about 9 hours, but it's like having a fun new toy! Maybe it's just that my (Heidi) head is swelling with the idea that people will log on to read my thoughts regularly. Kind of a rush. For now anyway, I would imagine that it wears off.

Here's the latest breaking news on the job front: I finally got a job interview at Bethel University! Yay!! Still waiting to hear the verdict with the interview at St. Thomas as well as for a third at the Metro Agency on Aging. God is so faithful to us. We are just amazed at His continued provision and blessing. Please pray for all three of these opportunities and that God would open the right door(s).

On another note, we attended an AMAZING conference this weekend by Voice of the Martyrs called Enduring Faith and it was more than fantastic. The condition of the persecuted church around the world blows my mind and causes me to fall to my face in intercession for these dear brothers and sisters. Is there any other responce!? God is moving in miraculous ways as our brothers and sisters are clinging to Him and to His word. I only pray that my faith in Christ would have a fraction of the purity as that of my brothers and sisters as they are literally surrounded by their enemies. The comfort of our beds, the convenience of our cars, our access to resources... many things to be thankful for.

If you feel so called, please visit these websites to learn how you can support our international family:

www.persecution.com
www.prisoneralert.com

In the beginning

Well, we have finally started a blog. All of our friends were doing it. 'Nuff said.

We hope to use this as a means of update and communication with friends and family once God opens the door for us to travel overseas for ministry. I had some time today, in the misdst of job searching, so I put us online.

Blessings!