Moving On

Well, today Kelly and I moved out of our beloved apartment. I'm actually sitting here on the floor in the living room by myself right now waiting for maintenance to come and do a walk-thru. They're 20 minutes late hah. Anyway, this is the first big, somewhat sad, but exciting step to going to Portugal. I have the joy of living with my family in my parents' house for the next couple of months! :) Pray for Kelly and I as we begin to adjust to leaving our friends and family for awhile. And you can pray for me that I find all sorts of ways to make myself useful over this time! God has provided for us even in this move in many ways and I give Him the glory!

Building Excitement

So much has happened in this last week it's hard to remember it all! First of all, thanks to so many of YOU, my support level is, as of today, at 92%!!!!!! It is such a joy to experience God working like this. It took a step of faith to believe that He would provide for me- but a LEAP of faith to put that into action in the way that I never had a moment of anxiousness over it. God has provided in my life yet again. As for further excitement, I got to meet more new people over this past weekend, the most exciting being the Voelkers. It was so awesome to finally meet the people that I have been corresponding with and ones who I knew were praying for me. I also had the opportunity to "re-meet" Craig Beatty, a fellow GLCA teacher, on Sunday and also to begin corresponding with my future roommate, Leslie Kidd, who will also be teaching at GLCA this year! It's certainly been an exciting week and to top it all off, thanks to the help of my brother Gordon and Timothy Millek, I have finally completed my video presentation. You can find it by clicking on the link on the top right.
Thank you to all those who continually lift me up in prayer. I know that God is hearing them and you can praise Him for the work He's been doing in my heart, the provision He's sent my way and the joy He's enabled me to experience!

Observations

God has been providing for me in so many ways. Recently, He gave me the opportunity to observe the 1st and 2nd grades at Baptist Regional School for a couple of weeks. The teachers were so gracious in accepting me into their classrooms, talking with me, giving me pointers and letting me see their curriculum and lesson plans. It was an invaluable experience as far as gathering information and ideas- I took pages of notes! But more valuable even than the practical side of it was the absolute excitement and anticipation at being back in the classroom. When the opportunity arose to go to Portugal I thought, they need teachers- I could do that. From that point, I was so excited just to go to a different country and to be able to serve God in such a direct manner full time. But it wasn't until these last couple weeks that I have gotten SO excited to teach again! This is just further confirmation to me that I am where God wants me to be. This is such a great feeling. Circumstances could go downhill- He could even remove me from this situation and it wouldn't take away the fact that I have seen Him working in my life- MY life. That is so unbelievable to me. I know I don't deserve it and I thank God for Jesus Christ who has made this life possible for me. I'm forever grateful!

Meeting New People

Well, it's June now and my preparations for heading to Lisbon at the end of the summer are in full swing. God has provided for me in so many ways- financially, health-wise and time-wise to be able to accomplish everything I have desired to do as far as preparing to go to Portugal. I've been able to meet two sets of missionaries from Portugal- Doug and Sharon Fry and Jon and Marilyn Rust. The little bit of time I got to spend with each of these couples was so valuable to me. In case you don't know me very well, in my human nature I find it difficult to enjoy speaking with people who were previously strangers to me. The Spirit has grown me in that area so much especially in these last three years. Anytime I talk to someone who I didn't know, you can know that is the Spirit doing it because, honestly, it's hard for me. That is why I have been filled with such joy having met all these new people and absolutely loving it! There is truly a family bond between Christians that is wonderfully comforting. Both of those couples got me even more excited to get to Lisbon! As a matter of fact, I can't wait to go to ABWE in July for our pre-AMP week to meet even MORE new people.
God is truly great and to see His working in my life is an unbelievable honor.