"PRAY"

That is the theme of the conference we are attending right now. Yesterday the message that was given was on Daniel 9, and the affects of prayer in your life. How to pray for countries and laying your worries at the Lords feet. What an encouraging word we heard.

We shared with the 5&6 grade SS class, Megan was in class with us and was able to share with the kids some of the information that she knows. I think she had a great time being with her friends that were in the class that she hasn't seen for awhile.

We had a great lunch with great friends! They spoiled us with a delicious dinner and a fantastic dessert! The fellowship was the best though I think!

We headed back to church in the evening for dinner and more fellowship and encouragement from the Word. What a blessing that was! Phil 4 was the scriptures we studied last night.

This morning we all got up nice and early to head out of the house at 7:15! You would think that after CIT we would be used to that but we didn't have to leave that early then! :) We got to school placed all the kids in their classes for the morning and then shared with the 2 and 3 grade Bible class. Cabot was our resident helper there...I guess really anywhere we go one of the kids will be with us in a class wouldn't they?

We had a great brunch this morning/afternoon with the pastoral staff, some of the mission commission team and all of the missionaries that are attending the conference. What a great time of more fellowship and time of sharing. We spent time praying for one another and just learning a more about each other! We were blessed by the people that we met and shared with.

We are currently having a break at my parents house since they live close to CBC and the kids were already here. We head back to the church at 5:00 for dinner with a small group and more fellowship. Then we will be having more meetings tonight. We have been so encouraged by what has been shared and the people who we have met. We are looking forward to what the rest of the conference holds for us!

what can you be praying for this week?
our truck is a little "sick" and we only have one vehicle, please pray that we can baby it until we are able to get it fixed.
stamina for the conference, we would love to make the most of our time.
Pray that we would be able to share the ministry needs clearly.
lives that will be touched during the missions conference.

missions...

Now that we are home and getting back into our routine we are starting to get ready for missions conferences at Calvary Bible Church in Derry, that conference will start on Sunday October 26 and end on Thursday the 30. This is the church that our children attended school at up until last year. Phil attended school there from K-8th grade. We will participate in the Worship service and also visit classes during the week and do a chapel service. We are very excited about being there to share what we have been called to do.

On October 31 our missions conference will start at our church. We will be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Both of these conferences are local so we don't have to worry about packing everyone up again anytime in the near future. We will be able to sleep in our own beds at night. However we will share dinner with different families at different times. We are looking forward to being able to share more about what we have just learned at CIT, and put to use some of the things that we have just been learning about! What an exciting time for us to share.

we arrived!

This will not be long! I promise...

We finally we pulled into our driveway around 10:00 tonight! It was a long trip home, great visits with family. Time to spend relaxing and catching up with family, that is always good!

We took a tour of Bible Baptist College with Abby while we were there today. It is a beautiful campus. We also walked around Liberty University last week, no official tour there though!

Thank you for all the prayers for our trip home, it was uneventful! I do believe that I will be able to jump into the truck in the morning and it will start right up!

We had a great time and can't wait to share our pictures and all that we have learned!

moving on...

Our time at CIT is done, but the memories and friendships that we made will last a lifetime! We headed out of Union Mills yesterday morning at 5 AM. There were lots of people there for a teary good-bye! I still can't believe that we are not there anymore. What a great time we had while we were there and great friendships that were made!

We drove for a few hours on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was so beautiful and would you believe that my camera was DEAD! so...we stopped and bought a disposable one! Just so we could have pictures of the trip!

Then we stopped at Liberty University to visit a good friend who is attending there this year. She is a freshman and seems to be loving it. Abby fell in love with the campus. I guess it is that time that we really need to start looking at schools too!
We left there and headed up to Warrenton VA and spent the night with Phil's cousins. While we were driving we decided that it would be best to stay here for an extra day because of how tired we were from the drive that should have taken 7 hours that ended up being 14 hours. Not really sure how it happened but it did! :-) I guess stopping for an hour in Lynchburg was part of it! but it was so worth it!

We are heading to PA in the morning and spending the night there. Phil has family there as well, his family is placed nicely along our trip home. Great to catch up with them as we are traveling. We are anticipating being home sometime on Tuesday but we are holding that loosely. It will depend on the drive up there!
Thanks for praying for us during our time at CIT. We truly enjoyed our time there and also learned so much that will be indispensable when we are on the field and also in our everyday lives where ever we are in the states or overseas.
I don't have any pictures to post today I will get some of the drive home when we get there!

more fun...our farewell...and tears

Chris and Hannah
Paige and Hannah
Nathan
Phil Jen and Claire

Are you wondering why we already had our farewell dinner? This is Lindsay and Eva our mayors

they decided that we would have a cookout for our get together this week. After doing that we had a time of sharing for the families that will be leaving the end of this week (and a single) Chris, Paige and Hannah. What a testimony those two have! God is so powerful and so evident in their lives. We have all learned so much from them! They are heading to Thailand in November! How excited we are for them. Nathan, the youngest in the group is heading to Uganda for medical work! He is so excited to be going and bringing health care to them there! And of course our family well, part of us!
Why the cook out? well, It was the only time we could really get something in due to the paper that we need to have completed by Thursday!! so...here are the pictures from the games to the cookout and sharing/singing after! We are the only ones that are leaving at this point in our training. Everyone else that is here will be here through November. There are 2 more classes that will be going after we leave. So, a small part of the group is leaving and the majority of the people are staying.
What a great time we had fellowship is always great and encouraging isn't it? As Phil and I were reflecting later that night I told him I knew we would make friends, I didn't expect to make such great friendships that will take us all over the world! Imagine what our passports could look like? It is going to be hard to leave, 4 weeks doesn't seem like a realistic time to make those friendships but we did. We are just a great big family here!I thank God everyday for the new friendships that He has given to us! We love you all!!

Fire, Fun and Fellowship

Here at CIT we have "Mayors" for the week. That is the adorable couple pictured above. They have 2 children and their youngest was 2 weeks when they arrived here! you can say that I am getting a nice fix! OK...so the mayors responsible for setting up any activity for us, they are in charge of the keys (and there are a lot of them) They are basically on call when all the CIT staff is gone for the night or weekend. We will not had the privilege of being mayors while we are here, our time is too short. They planned a camp fire Sunday night they provided the fixin's for the smore's and they were yummy!!!! (I know the pictures are late, I have been busy!)
Here are some of the pictures from the evening. Notice the we have our Boston Pride while we are still in the south! Enjoy...



Phil took the kids to a bluegrass and clogging event last week. I was at a birthday party for one of the ladies here. I did attend last nights festivities though. It is in a town about half an hour away as most things are here :) They hold it in an old train station. The kids loved it, got some great energy out! and slept great that night! I guess last night was a lot different that the week before. Oh well, what can I say. We will just have to go again next week before we pack up and start heading north! well...here are a few pictures of the events from last week, the pictures were given to us yesterday which is why they are all being put up here tonight! I know you will forgive me for being late and you will still enjoy them right??



Aside from all the wonderful fun we are having with our new friends here we really are doing our school work! Our time is too quickly coming to an end, it is going to be hard to say good bye to so many that we have become so close with! We are spending a wonderful day tomorrow at the town fair here where we are with a family that lives below us! And then the mayors this week have planned a cookout and volley ball tournament! should be a good, fun day!!
thank you all for your prayer through these past few weeks, we are certainly being sustained by them. The crazy school schedule and making sure that we are having great family time as well can be overwhelming at times. Keep it up, we are coming to the end of this time and will begin yet another adventure all too soon! thanks for your love and support!