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We had our first of 3 interviews today with Covenant World Mission.  Specifically today, we had our dual interview (meaning we interviewed together) with Covenant World Mission Committee of the Executive Board.  That’s quite the mouthful!  It was a large group that we interviewed with, a lot of individuals we did not know or hadn’t met before.  However, we are overjoyed at how well the interview went.  We knew right away that everyone had read our papers we had written and knew about us and who we were from the beginning.  We started just by sharing our journeys to faith and our call to missions.  We had multiple questions, one about how we set up a safety net for ourselves against being too busy, one about Kim’s credentialing plans to be able to practice (which after we explained it, we got a lot of “AMEN’s”), schooling ideas for Simeon, how well we feel supported, and others.  All in all, it went really really well we felt.  Three main things we took away from the interview: we felt very encouraged, supported, loved and affirmed in our individual and call together as missionaries.  After we were done, the committee laid hands on us and prayed for us.  We had multiple people come up to us afterwards with words of affirmation and encouragement. We felt that the committee really saw who we were.  This is always a concern when you are interviewing with people you don’t know.  The affirming comments we received at the end of the interview showed us they had a good idea about what our hearts are, which is encouraging and, in all reality, a big relief for us.  It really showed that they took time in reading and understanding our papers and asking questions that targeted who we are.  AND, We make a good team.  In answering our questions, it was easier to tag-team questions and between the 2 of us, we answered many of them better than what we would have individually. It was great to have our Regional Coordinators, Dave and Wendy Mark with us as support too!  We had a nice lunch to celebrate the good interview. We did want to say that there were a couple of questions we didn’t understand, but we felt the Holy Spirit with us in answering the questions because we gave solid answers.  Not because of us, but because of your prayers and the Holy Spirit’s work in them. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your prayers.  We can’t express our appreciation for surrounding us and lifting us up in prayer.  We literally felt them.

Please continue to pray for us.  We have individual interviews on Tuesday afternoon, Kim for Consecrated Missionary License and Joel for Ordination.  This is a stressful time for us as we will be interviewed for almost 2 hours by ourselves about the theological papers we wrote.