But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
~
2 Corinthians 4:7
FROM THE BLOG //
After celebrating Jude's birthday, we had a pretty low-key April and Easter. Zach has been faithfully preaching through Ephesians, and there have been good opportunities to follow up with people afterward.
The boy that made us parents turned 13 on Friday! This boy is growing up! He has always been an analyst, but now he is thinking big thoughts about future plans and budgets. He has always been conscious of the feelings of others, but he is now taking more initiative to step up and handle things for others.
Last month we got to take a break in Australia! Our first stop was to the town of Madang where we spent several days with the Twomblys and the Ruscios. I have basically zero pictures, but we LOVED our time with them. In Australia, we stayed on the Gold Coast, a bit north, in a sweet Paradise Point neighborhood with lots of parks and restaurants along the water. We went to Costco and ate good food and played in the ocean and felt so refreshed and thankful for our time! Here are some pictures. My mom and Zach's mom flew over and stayed with us for the first half of our trip. SO great to see them and we miss them already!
The established church here in our village is Lutheran. Or, at least, it’s called Lutheran. In reality, it is a mix of Lutheran religious practices, animistic beliefs, and a false gospel of being good enough to be accepted by God. One of the practices here is that they baptize their babies and believe that this baptism saves the baby. After being baptized as a baby, the child should grow up and do good things and will go to heaven.
This boy turned 11 on Sunday! He chose cookies and ice cream as his dessert because he knew everyone would enjoy it. Sundays are a busy day, but we celebrated midday with food and dessert and presents, followed by some fun family games. It is a joy to watch Oliver grow in wisdom and stature. This year he finished his first trek through the Bible, memorized Psalm 139; he listens to and think through the great claims of the good news of Jesus Christ, and is making efforts to be generous with others (especially his brother). On the stature front, Oliver is probably the strongest member of our family - certainly for his size. He is regularly swinging from his ninja course - a series of ladders, ropes, and handles hanging from our rafters. He can do a 6 minute plank and 35 pushups (far surpassing his parents' abilities in those categories). And we love how he uses his strength to care for and protect his little sisters.
We were thankful to host one of our pastors and his wives, Scott and Sarah Demarest, for five days this month. We got to do our Christmas activities and advent readings with them each day and had such a sweet time with them. (Since they TOOK most of the pictures, they are absent from many...). Gingerbread cookies instead of sugar cookies this year, which was the right choice. Why haven't I been doing this all along?!
THE MISSION //
THE TEAM //
THE LOCATION //
