opportunities abound

I met with Josh Patty (the country leader for Josiah Venture in Slovenia) for breakfast today and he showed me this cool little pizza place near their old house. He took me upstairs and said, "wouldn't this place be awesome for a church?" I could totally see it. It would be a great place for church plant one day. So, feel free to pray with me that God would use the church we will be a part of to start a church plant here. Pray that He would be preparing a dynamic Slovene dude to reach his culture with a message of hope.

A first time for everything

I arrived on Wednesday to Slovenia for the first time.

My first couple hours were spent sitting outside the airport at a cafe waiting for my ride to finish up his language class so he could swing by and pick me up. It was good, it gave me some time to sit and observe. I got to meet some college age Slovenes who were also waiting. They were cool, we chatted for awhile and then they offered to buy me a beer to welcome me. Though I declined (I arrived at 11:00 am) their hospitality impressed me.

Sharon and I have been thinking and dreaming about this place for a while as we have pushed forward on doing all it takes to get here. Though this stay will only be for a few weeks and not a few years, I am still very excited to finally see my future home. And oddly enough it feels a bit like home. That fact that we have already lived in Central/Eastern Europe for a few years previously gives Slovenia an air of familiarity and love. I look around and see the great potential for God to do some amazing things in this country. I also see the hard work and prayer coupled with the heartbreak and frustration that is often the precursor to such vitality.

I can't wait.

PS - I want to thank my wife for having a big enough vision to stay at home and take care of our little girl on her own for almost 3 weeks. I love you Sharon!!!

Daddy done did my 'do

Our runner-up title was: "She puts the PUNK in Punkin"

Can you think of any other good captions?

37 years ago today

. . . my parents got married.

Actually it was their second wedding. Their first (and official) wedding took place on July 13 when they went in to the city to sign the paperwork.
Their actual wedding ceremony was on the 15th. Getting married in Africa made doing both of these on the same day rather difficult.

They both moved to Africa to be missionaries - Dad as a Bible teacher, Mom as a nurse.

When Mom first felt God calling her to be a missionary nurse in Africa she fought it for a while. To her, that was the same thing as asking her to give up every hope for ever getting married. Finally, she said yes to the Lord and resigned herself to the fact that she would never marry. She packed up all she had and moved to Ethiopia to work as a nurse. . . and then met a dashing young man with dreamy eyes in her language class.

And while Dad enjoyed hanging out with the sassy young Aussie in his language class, he had already decided that he would never marry someone who came from east of the Mississippi - it would make visiting family too difficult. So, of course they could only be friends. Ha! Famous last words.

Love has a way of sneaking up on you. . .and here is the end of their story:
(And yes, that is Dr. Brake standing on my dad's left for those of you who know Dr. Brake.)

And I came along 11 months later.
(And yes, I did have a baby mohawk too.)

Mom and Dad - thank you so much for the amazing example you have given of what it means to have a godly marriage. You have loved Lynn and me with all of your hearts and sacrificed much along the way to take care of us. We would not be who we are today without you!

Red Tape

One thing that has been taking up much our time is trying to get all our paperwork together for our visas. You would think that it would be a simple, "Here is the list of documents you need to gather and here is where you send them."

Oh if it were only that easy.

Last week we headed down to Salem to get our FBI background checks apostilled. The conversation went something like this:

We need to get these documents notarized and apostilled. Can we do this here?

Sure no problem. Oh wait, these need to be notarized.

Yes, we know this and were hoping that you would notarize them.

Whoever sent you these documents should have notarized them.

Well, the FBI sent them to us and they don't notarize documents.

Well, we can't do it - they should have done it.

But the FBI doesn't notarize documents. . .

The rest is a long story . . . and included a visit to the local police department. . .and help from a lady on her smoke break. . . but finally. . . finally . . .we got what we needed.

Slovenia-Serbia Team

The Slovenia-Serbia team left on the 2nd.

Can't wait to hear about their time over there!

Hanging out with the Morrows

A few weeks ago we went up to Tacoma with my sister to hang out with my folks. I'm sure they were happy to see us. . . but I think they were pretty excited about getting some time with their grandkiddo.


While we were there we went to a local farmer's market. So fun! Check out my Moby Wrap. These are great! A little tricky to put on but soooo comfortable!


And of course Lynn got some good auntie time too.

Notice the blankets that Eliana and Hobbes are sleeping on. Both are from Dream On Blankets. Matt's co-worker's wife, Lisa, owns this business and gave us one as a gift for Eliana. These blankets are amazing!

We also had a visit from Sarah - someone that Lynn and I consider a sister. Our mom used to run an in-home daycare for years (20+ I think). Anyhow, Sarah was her first daycare kid. We've known her since she was 6 weeks old.

Aahhh. . . good times with family!

Father's Day with the Mormances

Each year the Mormance family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandpas & grandmas, and last but not least, great-grandpa mormance) goes golfing. For any golf enthusiasts reading this - we play "best ball." Go figure, eh?
It started out a little wet . . .

Matt taking a swing in the pouring rain.

Fortunately the sun come out after a while.
We were paired up with Cousins Matt & Amy, Abigail & Jack, and Uncle Bob (who didn't make it into this photo).

We learned that Amy did awesome if someone was talking to her during her swing. Ha!

Aunt Shelley & Cousin Grant

We had a blast!