Make me patient

I call to you, O Lord, from my quiet darkness. Show me your mercy and love. Let me see your face, hear your voice, touch the hem of your cloak. I want to love you, be with you, speak to you and simply stand in your presence. But I cannot make it happen. Pressing my eyes against my hands is not praying, and reading about your presence is not living in it. But there is that moment in which you will come to me, as you did to your fearful disciples, and say, "Do not be afraid; it is I." Let that moment come soon, O Lord. And if you want to delays it, then make me patient. -- From A Cry for Mercy by Henri J.M. Nouwen

As we prepare to leave in two weeks for Germany, we realize that we are truly struggling with mixed emotions. We are starting to feel the pressure of the enemy and are wrestling with being impatient, fearful, nervous. At the same time, our confidence in what God has called us to do fills our hearts with joy & excitement. We are about to embark on the biggest change and adventure of our lives. Some times we feel God's presence in our lives in amazing ways; other times we are in a quiet darkness.

We can relate to Nouwen's cry. We know God is with us, even when we feel alone. We know that God hears the cry of our hearts, even when we don't feel His presence. We will continue to cling to the Lord and know we will have that moment with the Creator of the universe where we hear him say, "Do not be afraid; it is I".

On the road again

We are on our (hopefully) last support raising trip. We left on 30 May and won't return to Colorado until 25 June. We are going from Colorado to the Chicago area to New England to Washington DC to North Carolina and back home via Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma!

The beauty of these trips is truly reconnecting with old friends and family. With our goal of moving in August, these visits are more precious. We realize it will be a long time before we see many of these folks again. We must admit the time in the car does get old very fast. Yet, our visits have been very amazing!

Here Lou is with our old friend Garret Maki. Garret and his wife, Min-Yi, live in Minneapolis - at least for now. They are moving to Houston in the next few weeks. It was great seeing Garret and catching up on life.

We also enjoyed seeing Elena Schlueter in Crown Point, Indiana. Elena is very special to us. She is the first born child of my cousin Debie and her husband Anthony. We prayed and prayed for her and she is a true blessing! Elena is investingating the fun behind watering flowers.

Our next visit came in Boonville, NY. I (Cathy) have a dear friend that lives there. It is a small town near Syracuse, NY. We had a great visit with Nancy and we saw our first woodchuck. The joys of living near woods. :-)

We have managed to enjoy a night at the ball field. As most of you know, Lou is an avid baseball fan! We had a night off and went to the Baltimore game. It was "floppy hat" night at Campden Yards. I'm not sure this is the best look for me, but we had a fun and relaxing night at the ball field.

Next stop....Washington DC. We will enjoy five days in the DC area visiting with friends and family. We are amazed how many people have entered our lives over the years and we cherish these relationships. With our move to Germany just around the corner, we are enjoying this opportunity to see folks before we head overseas.

May was a blur!

We can't believe it has been a month since we have journaled. The entire month of May has been a blur. We returned from Germany and hit the ground running: meeting with more people, starting to pack for our move overseas, graduations, graduations and more graduations!

We have gone to three graduations. Andrew Hess graduated from Denver Seminary. Sue Smith graduated from UCCS with her nursing degree. Mike Laney graduated from the Air Force Academy. He will be reporting for pilot training in Mississippi later this summer.

When you attend three commencements and hear three speeches, you begin to reflect on life pursuits, dreams, goals and life in general. We began refleciting on our own life pursuits and dreams. When you graduate from high school (for us it will be 30 years this June), you have all these ideas of what you want to achieve, the person you desire to become, how life is going to play out.

When 30 years go by, you realize that the journey usually turns out very different. For us, we didn't think we would be about to embark on full-time ministry, moving overseas or spending a year preparing for this next adventure. But, here we are. Getting ready to move to Germany. It is exciting and scary! We are still amazed at God's goodness to us. We know that He will move and by His grace use us, despite our short comings. We are grateful, thankful and blessed! To be continued!

Germany...here we come!

We just returned from two weeks in Germany. We had the opportunity to see the house we will be living and serving in, we met lots of super folks, served Easter dinner to about 100 people, and met the other members of the Cadence European team.

Here is our home. Fred & Diane Stock are the current house directors. They will be leaving in June and we are hopeful to arrive in July. The top floor is the living quarters. There are three bedrooms and an office. There is also a loft area that we will be able to convert to a nice study area for us.

The basement consists of two storage areas, a guest room, a teen room and a child care room. There is a ton of space and we will need it with the volume of people that come to the house.

The main floor is where the ministry happens. The house currently has a Couples Study on Sunday afternoon, a Mens Study on Tuesday nights and Friday Night Dinner and Study. On Friday nights, we are serving dinner for approximately 75 folks. We had an opportunity to serve over the Easter weekend. Check out the picture of some of the folks that were with us on Easter Sunday! It was an exciting time to be in Kaiserslautern!

We enjoyed meeting some of the folks that are part of this ministry. We had a special connection with three young men and can't wait to see them again this summer: Kyle, Nick & Jacob. Kyle is from Washington, Nick from Georgia and Jacob from Nebraska. They are stationed together, but in different jobs, yet they met at the Hospitality House. We truly enjoyed hanging out with them all weekend, hearing their stories and knitting our hearts with theirs. Nick is getting ready to be deployed but will be returning in the fall.

After spending these two weeks in Germany, we are more excited than ever to get out to the field. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we try to finish our support raising so we can move this summer!

A Life Well Lived

We are about to return back to Denver, after 3 weeks on the road. We have spent the majority of our time in California. We have seen many of our old friends and family -- from San Diego to San Francisco. During our trip, I (Cathy) have been reading a book entitled Breathless, by Gary R. Collins. As we are getting ready to move to Germany and enter full-time ministry, we have been discussing the idea of living a balanced life. Both of us have a tendency to get overextended and we need to learn to juggle our priorities better.

As I have been reading Breathless, I have been reflecting on what it means to live a life well lived. Isn't that what we all want -- to get to the end of our life and realized that it was well lived? The author challenges his readers to learn to turn our time-starved days into a life well lived. Well, what does that mean? So, I've been thinking about that on our trip. As a Christ follower, I have been thinking about reflecting on Jesus' life and how He modeled a balanced life. Jesus took time to relax, pray, spend time with friends, work, etc. How come I can't seem to live this life? What does this look like?

Last week, we visited a dear friend - Harle Damon. Harle is a retired army officer, who after retirement became a successful businessman and in his early thirties became a Christian. Harle values education, discipleship, the study of God's word, being a faithful husband and a good father. When Lou became a Christian, Harle reached out to him to disciple Lou in his faith. Harle is now 87 and his health is starting to fail. His life verse has become II Corinthians 4:16-17 - which he quoted to us at our visit - "Do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

We went to encourage Harle, Harle encouraged us. He reminded us that even though his outward man is starting to fail, he is being renewed because of his faith in Christ. He is still writing, reading, reflecting, studying and loving his wife. His energy fails him, but his heart and his mind are strong. Harle is not perfect, he has made mistakes -- but he has grown and is living a life well lived.

As I continue to meditate on this idea of living a life well lived, I'll finish the book and mediate on the ideas that Mr. Collins presents: developing my character, serving others, living a focused life, nurturing my inner world, sharpening my mind, managing life and leaving a legacy. I will also think about our friend Harle, who has modeled this to us so well.

Can you truly be obedient?

As the economy has continued to struggle, we have been amazed at God's faithfulness in His provision. As most of you know, we joined Cadence last June. Cadence is a Military Ministry and we are going to be operating a hospitality house in Germany this summer. In September, Cathy finished her job, we began raising support as our full time job. Within 30 days, the economy began to tank.

We were very nervous to see how our support raising would go. We are embarking on an amazing opportunity, an area of ministry that we feel God has preparing us for over the past 10 years and now we are asking people to pray about supporting us financially during a time when the economy is falling apart.

Yet, God is faithful. We have begun to reflect on our faithfulness to Him. If Lou would be graduating this May, instead of last year, would we be going to the mission field, knowing what we know now? We'd like to think we'd be obedient to God's call -- but honestly, isn't it easier when times are easier. Would we have wimped out on serving God knowing that Cathy had a good paying job and Lou was offered a high paying job after graduating from Denver Seminary. Last June, it was much easier to think about answering the call when the economy was more stable; would we make the same decision if Lou would be graduating this Spring? We'd like to think so -- but honestly, we aren't sure.

We are thankful that God didn't give us that option. God know us and we think He knew that we needed to learn more about His character. This has been quite a faith building time for us. Some people have called us "courageous", but we don't think that's a fair characterization. Courageous people will follow God no matter what; courageous people will be obedient despite the outside circumstances; we're not sure we would have make the same decision this June -- knowing what we know now. Do you think you can be obedient, no more what...think about it...be honest.

Can you believe it is February already?!

We just returned from another road trip. Our little Camry is taking a beating. We spent most of January in Virgina, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina. When we are spending time with folks, time seems to stand still -- until we return home. Somehow it's February!

We had a blast hanging out with old friends from Northrop Grumman, Concerned Women of America and Cadence. We had great time relieving memories with family as well. We stand in amazement how blessed we are! Life is busy! Yet, people graciously make time to open their homes, share their lives and get caught up on life.

Our special friends, Eric & Moira McKerrow, have a little boy that has grabbed our hearts. We truly enjoyed our visit with them. They are dealing with the challenges of having an active 9 month old, fighting sleep deprivation and learning how to be great parents! [Which so far, we think they are.] We had fun watching a Washington Capitols Hockey game as Ronan cheered on his team -- checkout his hocky stick. :-)

We really had a great visit with Chris & Lauren Macedo. They are dear friends from Colorado that have moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. We had a great time joining them for worship practice - Chris is the worship leader at their church. We were thrilled that Kiya (4) and Caden (2) didn't forget us. Yet, the highlight was looking at pictures of the Cadence hospitality house they met at in Germany. Ironically, it is the same house we are going to be taking over this summer! God has an amazing way of orchestrating our lives. We are so thankful that Chris & Lauren introduced us to Cadence!

Check out Kiya and Caden playing Candyland with Mr. Lou.

Here's Caden rocking and rolling!

When we were in South Carolina, we had an opportunity to spend a few days with my (Cathy) aunt and cousins. I hadn't seen my cousins and their family in many years and Lou had never met them. We had a wonderful time of catching up, hearing about their families and seeing their girls.

We are thrilled to be on this journey and our excited to see how 2009 will continue to unfold. If all goes as planned, we are going to be in Germany this summer. We will be spending the Spring visiting with more folks in Colorado. We will be in California and Oregon in March and returning to the East Coast in June. It's a crazy time, but a time we will never forget!