I apologize that it has been so long since we have written. Moving back overseas has been no easy feat and then being pregnant on top of that has made me run out of energy super fast. And on top of that our computer hasn't been working so that has put a kink in a lot of things. But things are starting to shape up. We got a new car, well new to us. It was such a blessing, we worked with an agency called Mats.org. They help people in full-time ministry find cars that they can afford that are reliable. We paid a couple thousand dollars less than we would've at a dealer. We got a 2008 Chevy Malibu Classic and we love it!!! After having old cars for so long it is so nice to have something reliable that can spend a couple hours on the freeway and doesn't have maintenance problems every couple of months.

We still need to find an apartment in Indy. We went once to look at places we had liked online, but when we got there, it was like no thank you!! Not a neighborhood I would feel safe walking around with a baby. So we need to head back and look again.

So that is what we have been up. We also have new cell phone numbers if you want them!!

Oh and the baby is 13 weeks today, we are getting out of the woods for a miscarriage, which is such a nice feeling. It was incredible to see our baby in the ultrasound, such a miracle that is forming in me. We both said how could anyone have a baby and not believe in God.

Pictures from the March pour Jesus

Notice the guy on slits he was my favorite!! It was so encouraging to see so many churches and ethnicities come together for one purpose. Our students were so encouraged and kept saying things like "I never thought I would be singing 'Blessed be His name' downtown," or "This is so crazy, look at everyone watching us." This really meant much more to the French to be able to do this in their town than we can even imagine! We had a fun time, but did get a little hot towards the end. I don't know how the older people from our churches were doing it in suits and dresses with hose! And maybe in one picture you can see the Police. No we weren't breaking the law, it was completely legal. Every manif gets a police escort to hold off traffic.

Chain Saw

So yesterday it rained all day here. Which isn't odd in and of itself. But while it was raining all day, they were cutting our grass and trimming our bushes. I always thought it wasn't wise to cut grass in the rain. But my favorite part was when the thunderstorm started about 5pm. It is thundering and lightening and downpouring like crazy. Then what do I hear, but a chain saw start as they continue to work on the bushes. These are some dedicated lawnservice personnel!!! No thunderstorm will stop them from hacking at our bushes!!!

Running...

So a couple weeks we went on a little vacation to Scotland. It has always been one of Keith's dreams to visit this country up north ever since he was little. So in order to make it happen we just asked for money for our Christmas gifts to put towards this trip. Thanks to some friends of friends that allowed us to stay with them a couple nights and low cost airfare carrier RyanAir we were able to make it happen. We really had such an amazing time together. We have gotten to travel a lot for our job, but every time obviously we are with our team and students. And while we love them all dearly, it was quite nice to get away just the two of us. The scenery was quite fantastic as well!

But we have a little funny story to share, that was not quite so funny at the time. So in order to use Ryanair we had to fly through Dublin, this wasn't really a connecting flight, but more of two flights. We had about a 5 hour layover in the airport. Everything with Ryanair is a la carte, so we get the bare bones. You can pay extra to be one of the first ones on the plane, since there is no assigned seats. Well we never do that, so we are in the regular line of people to board the plane first. We step up ready to board and the guy says that we can't. He says since we are not EU citizens we need this visa stamp on our boarding pass. We had printed our boarding passes off online, again it was the cheaper option. So we are like okay, where do we need to go. He says back through customs, through passport control, to the check-in desk to have them stamp this and then through security and back. We are like are you kidding, the plane leaves in 30 minutes. He says we need to do this or we cannot board the plane. Ryanair is not known for their customer service so we didn't think they would allow us reschedule our flight or be accomdating in any way.

Well we take off running through airport. We are those crazy people yelling "excuse me" and running. Thankfully we are in an english speaking country because having to explain this to people quickly in French would have been difficult. So we run through customs, explain this quickly to passport control so that they don't need to stamp our passport again. But while on the way, Keith is carrying one bag and I am rolling another. My foot gets caught in the wheel of our bag and I fall. Hard. I fall so hard I roll. Thankfully, I fell on my knees and not on my head. Everyone stops to look. I am slightly embarrassed, but also concerned that we have lost time. Keith after inspecting and seeing that I am okay, takes the wheeling bag and off we go again. We get the stamp on our boarding pass and then head to security, which now there is a long line for. They are nice and let us through ahead of people. But when they scan our boarding passes, their computers say we have already been through. So we have to go back to the check-in desk and get another peice of paper. I'm thinking if we have already been through security we are probably secure then. But we do this, you don't argue with airport security personnel. Then we zoom through security and then we are off in our last sprint. My knees are hurting pretty bad at this point, but you don't slow down when we are this close to your goal. Well we make it there, just in time. We are the last people on the plane, huffing and puffing. Since we didn't have assigned seats we couldn't sit next to each other, but to be honest we were so grateful we were on the plane!

That night when I looked at my knees they were all black and blue and it has take then about 2 weeks to look better. It doesn't really promote healing when you have to continue to run on them. But we had a lovely little trip, even though it was a rough beginning.

Hanging out by the Loch Ness.

Is that the monster?...Judge for yourselves.
Touching the water, that was as close as I would get, I mean you never know. Also it was really cold!Hanging out in the airport during our 5 hour layover, before the running started. It was also our first Starbucks overseas!

One day matters in eternity

So today we go on campus like normal and to be honest I'm feeling a little out of it. We had women's and men's retreats this past weekend, so we had some time off to recoup from that, but I'm still pretty tired. (What can I say, I just can't sleep well without Keith). But anyway, we get there, and another girl on our team, Halle, said she is feeling a little bit the same and is having a hard time not just looking forward to the next thing. She was like, but I need to remember that one day matters in eternity. I thought that was a really cool perspective and something I really needed to hear.

So, Melinda, another teammate and I head off to the science campus. To be honest, I really didn't want to go there. Last time I was there, no one wanted to talk. They were cordial about it, but I was thinking no one here cares. So I realized I needed to go there again. Well this time I see 2 girls and a guy sitting on the ground, just smoking and hanging out. I felt like we should talk to them, but to honest, again, I didn't want to. I thought they looked "too cool" and wouldn't care or be interested.

But I was convicted so I went. I had our picture survey, Soularim, with us so we used that.

Well...I'll save you the suspense, we had an incredible conversation with them. Turns out they do care! The two girls admitted that their science has taught them that nothing happens after they die and they find that sad. They both also said that they are afriad to see what will happen after death. We talked to them for over an hour and talked about ultimate truth vs. relativity (can anyone be good enough, where is the line), heaven and hell and religion vs. God. It was such a nice converstation and relaxing. It seemed so normal to talk about these things. Even though we go on the campus all during the week, I still get nervous and wonder if I am crazy for wanting to talk about this with people. But it was a good reminder of how normal talking about our faith should be. People think about what will happen when they die and what the purpose of life is. They may not accept Jesus, but how can they even make that decision if they have never heard?

God is at move here too

So coming back from East Asia was a little hard. We saw so many cool things happen there and in such a short time, it made us kind of dread heading back to campus here where not as many students are interested. We were praying about and praying like always that God would lead us to interested students. It has been so incredible, because the first day back on campus, Halle (the other awesome 2nd year stinter with us, who will be returning to minister long term in France) and Keith met a girl on the medical campus who is actually thinking a lot about God and wants to learn more about Him. After she finishes her exams on May 27th, she wants to really concentrate on knowing the God of the Bible more. Maeva is her name.

The next day on the humanities campus, Halle and I met a girl who grew up Catholic, but now has a lot of questions and we spend 1 hour and a half talking to her about them.

Then today, Kathyrn and I met a girl again on the humanties campus who was interested in God. She said she cannot believe in Him, because she has an ongoing sickness and she often wonders why me? She was really open and refreshing and wanted to share opinions with us. We offtered to buy her a book, Case for Faith, in French and meet again to continue to talk and give her the book. She was really interested in that. Pray that she will continue to take steps closer to the Lord, Justine is her name.

So basically, God showed me this week that He is moving here and He has placed eternity in the hearts of all people. It has been super encouraging and again challenged my views of God when I put Him in a box.

Video of orphans singing!

I was able to upload the video that I talked about. The children do concerts to raise money for their orphanage and when we were leaving for the day they were getting dressed up for one of their concerts and they were all so precious in their suits and dresses. You just want to take them all home with you!