November Update

"But the purpose/goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart." I Timothy 1:5 (NAS) This is our passion that we would love people the way Christ loved them and that we would want to preach the gospel as Peter did in Acts 4. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

We are loving our time here at our Orientation at the International Learning Center. It is great to have this buffer time here in the states to adjust to not going to our churches, and to begin to understand what life will be like overseas. We have house church each Sunday and we worship with our small groups 4 other mornings as well. We are learning different ways to lead small groups and to story through the Bible. It is so good to be here with people who have the same passion of seeing people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

We ask for prayer for our Visas, we have sent everything to the Portuguese embassy, and now we wait. We have even sent our passports which we will definitely need for our flight date. (January 5)

Please pray for our time as we finish Orientation that we will soak up all that God has for us here.

Please pray for this coming Friday as our whole training group descends on Washington DC. We are going to do some cultural exploration of our people groups, and we will be seeking to have conversations that would lead to a presentation of the gospel.

We hope to see many of you in December before we go... we will be in Baltimore at Fort Howard Community on December 12th, and at New Covenant Church in Clyde, NC on January 2nd.

Pursuing our calling...
CJ and Rachel

ILC

ILC (International Learning Center)

Just a short update: We arrived at ILC on the 11th of October. We will be here until the middle of December. During our time here, we are taking classes, learning about church planting, missions, health, etc, etc, etc. It has been a great time so far learning about life overseas and how we can best fulfill the mission that God has placed before us. It's very awesome being here with so many other people that have the same heart for missions that we do. We are making so many great friendships and enjoying getting to know people. We live in small apartments that have a large main room in the middle. Our campus is set on a beautiful piece of land that is so peaceful. We're having a great time, learning and being in the middle of God's plan for us. Please be praying for us as we prepare. We want all that God has for us during this time, it's already changed our lives! Will update more later...

Praise!!

We have been given our final medical clearance! This was the last step in completing our paperwork with the board and now we are set for October training in Richmond. Praise God!!

I'm gonna do more with this blog when I have the time. I promise. :)

Just a quick update...

So...a week or so ago, we got our final 'approval' to go with our company to Portugal. We have one more requirement to pass our medical clearance and we have to have our medical clearance by late Summer at the latest. CJ and I both need to loose some weight, they have lowered their BMI/weight requirement a huge amount. We don't have a lot of weight to loose but any weight to loose causes a change in lifestyle so, we've started with a low carb diet and so far I've lost 12 lbs. (in 17 days) and CJ has lost about 9-10 lbs. We're well on our way and should be at our goals at the latest by the end of this semester.
We have a job description written for us for our job in Lisbon, Portugal and are in process of discussing departure dates, etc. The plan for now is to go to a 2 month training in Richmond, VA starting in Oct. 2010 and then to leave for Portugal after the holidays and time with family and friends the first of Jan. 2011.
We are excited about all that God has planned for us and are anticipating the change that is coming soon to our lives.
Please keep us in your prayers as we plan for this change in all areas of our lives, spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally. Also, please pray for our families as they prepare for us to leave as well.

So, we're still alive and preparing for where God is leading us...where will these feet go?