First Church Visit

The Calm Before the Storm in Maine

Yesterday (October 28) we had our first church visit as Long-term Missionary Candidates.  We visited Evergreen Covenant Church in Sanford Maine where Frank Catalano is the pastor and his wife Austin works with children, women, does Sunday school as is basically a “Jill” of all trades!  It was our first visit so our presentation went pretty long, but luckily the church was patient with us and seemed like they wanted us to keep talking (never a problem for us!).  Evergreen is a church that we have worked with already twice in Ecuador and they are very excited about long term partnerships in Ecuador.  This is exciting for us!

We talked to many people in the church, but 2 in particular we just wanted to highlight so that you can be praying with us for them.  Mary is in med school and is thinking about practicing in the future overseas.  She had a lot of questions about practicing which seemed to be encouraging to her that I will be able to practice as an NP.  We are excited to see what possible partnerships could happen with her in the future and we are thankful for God’s call on her life.

Emily is currently in seminary and she said during our presenation, a vision that she had in the past of working overseas came to her mind again.  She is still seeking what God has for her life and future ministry once she is done with seminary, but we are excited about what GOd is doing.  She said pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together!  This is awesome!

We share these stories not because we are great people, but because we are humbled that God would think to use us in His plans for people’s lives and ministries.  Although we know home assignment is about gathering support-prayer and financial, we realize that there is such a deeper part of it that is more important-allowing God to use us anyway He wants to.  That may be through words, prayer or other things, but we are humbled that we would be chosen for that.  We strive to be as Christ was, a servant (Phillipians 2:5-11) and we pray that we can be up to the challenges and experiences we will have during this next year.

Blessings to you all!

P.S. We are currently in Maine where, as you may have see on the news, there is a storm coming to.  We don’t exactly know what that will bring so please keep us in your prayers as we see what that is.

Simeon enjoying playing at the beach in Maine

Report This Post

Categories: Home Assignment | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Different country, same story… ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

We are heading out on our first trip for church visits for Home Assignment.  We leave tomorrow October 24th and we won’t be returning to Indiana until the second week in November.  We’ll be heading all the way to the east coast in car and then back again so your prayers for provision and protection are appreciated.  We’ll be visiting Evergreen Covenant Church this Sunday, October 28th.  We’ll be attending the Covenant’s East Coast Conference Pastor’s Retreat on the 28th through November 1st.  Finally, we’ll be at Emmanuel Covenant Church in Nashua, NH on Sunday, November 4th and after that we’ll start making our way back.  We’ll be making numerous stops to visit family, friends and supporters along the way.  This will be a big trip for us but are very much looking forward to connecting with close friends and churches.  Again, your prayers for safety along the way are very much felt.

Report This Post

Categories: Home Assignment, Ministry, Prayer Requests, Travel, Updates | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Blessing in a…CAR!

The givers of the car-Kim's parents, Jerry and Noritta

A family picture with the new family car

Today we were very blessed by the gift of a car to use for the year, given from Kim’s parents.  As you may well realize, we will be doing a lot of traveling during our time here in the States and without a car, that could have gotten very expensive.  We had talked about this with my parents a while back and they had talked about giving us a car to use for the year.  It’s been very surreal seeing it all happen, but specifically today, it happened.  Kim’s parents drove up to Goshen where we are staying with Joel’s family to turn over the title and switch it into our name.   What a blessing this is to us.  To see God providing for our every need is a very humbling and amazing experience.

Kim’s mom told a story today about the car.  She said that when we started talking about the car, she prayed a prayer of protection over the car – that it  would be protected over the last year for our use.  On the way to Goshen, about a mile from Joel’s parents, 2 deer came dangerously close to the car, but it was fine.  She also said a prayer of blessing and protection over this next year as we are traveling.

Before we were missionaries, we heard many stories and testimonies about ways God had showed himself in the lives of missionaries.  We believed and still believe them, but it is a totally different thing to experience it first hand.  Before being missionaries, we never prayed for a car to be provided or a place to stay.  We were able to provide those things, in a way, for ourselves.  But it is a different ballgame when we HAVE to rely on God to provide because we can’t do it ourselves.  It is humbling, sometimes a little embarrassing, but there is nothing more awesome than to see and experience God provide for our every need and to see how His people listen to Him when He asks.

We thank God and praise Him today for providing for our car needs.  We praise Him that He provided not just 1, but 3 car seats for Simeon for our time in the States and also for providing over 2 plastic tubs FULL of clothes for Simeon to use during this year.  We don’t say these things lightly, and we hope all those reading realize HOW incredible these blessings are for us!

Report This Post

Categories: Home Assignment, Prayer Requests, Travel, Updates | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

What we’ve been up too…

Some of you may have wondered what we have been up to for the last week or so since returning back to the States from Ecuador.  Well, it’s safe to say…ALOT!

We told you about our recent interview a week ago Friday which were very affirming and encouraging for us.

We were able to relax last weekend and watched a lot of football which was great for us!  We attended our home church, Northwest Covenant.  Unfortunately, Joel got sick the night before, so he was unable to go.  But for Kim, it was nice to be in our home church and see many familiar faces as well as meeting new people too!

On Monday, we started day 1 of three with Midwest Ministries which is a requirement for our long-term missionary candidacy.  We took many personality tests and other evaluatory kinds of assessments to make sure we were in a healthy place mentally and also to assess what areas we should work on in the future.  Although these were long days (9-4, M, W, Thur), we were refreshed to be told we’re normal with a few things to work on!  These days were hard for Simeon.  It was the first time he had been away from both of us for a long period of time.  I’m sure it added to things that he was in a new culture with new language, basically new everything.  He did remember our friends, The Hoskins, but it was still quite a change for him.  This made leaving even more difficult.

We had another set of individual interviews last Tuesday.  These were with Covenant World Mission.  The long papers both Joel and I had written were reviewed and discussed and different questions were asked for almost 2 hours!!!!  Kim went first, followed by Joel.  Kim is in the process of seeking the license of Consecrated Missionary, while Joel is seeking Ordination.  The interviews went well, nerve-racking, but well and we were both approved to move on to the next round of interviews at the National level.  These will be in March.

We are now in Goshen, Indiana with Joel’s family.  We are packing and getting ready to head out on our first church visit in Maine and New Hampshire.  We leave Wednesday for this trip.

Please pray for us, for continual acquisition and transitional issues back to the States and for times of rest.

Report This Post

Categories: Home Assignment, Updates | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

1 Down…

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.

Report This Post

Categories: Home Assignment, Updates | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

A sad goodbye

It’s a hard day for us as we are leaving our home and country of service in Ecuador.  This sadness is lessened when we think about all of the family and friends we’ll be seeing very shortly but we are quite sad nonetheless.  We had a very special “despidida” (good-bye party) at the IPEE offices today before going to the airport, which was a great way to end our first term as missionaries.  We are arriving in Chicago tonight around midnight after making a stop in Panama City.  We are in the Quito airport right now and our 7 bags and Hireq all got checked through successfully so we are very happy about that.  Your prayers for safe travel today are very much appreciated.

We’d also like to ask for prayers for all of our activities for this week.  We have a very busy week!  Tomorrow, Joel’s parents, Ruth and Earl, we’ll be driving from IN to Mt. Prospect, to pick us up from Jeff and Kristi Lundblad’s house, which is where we are staying this week.  They are coming to pick up Hireq and our extra bags as well as give us a car to borrow for our time in Chicago.  They’ll be driving us down to Merriville, IN where we’ll have lunch with them and Kim’s parents.

On Thursday, we’ll be going to the Covenant Headquarters in Chicago for a meeting but also to say hello to the staff there.  On Friday, we’ll have a big day as we will be interviewing together with the World Mission Committee of the Covenant Executive Board for our application to transition from Short-term Missionary status to Long-term Missionary Candidate status.  Your prayers for this important interview are greatly, greatly appreciated.  Finally, on Sunday, we’ll be visiting our home church, Northwest Covenant in Mt. Prosepect and this is something we are greatly looking forward to.

We have a big week ahead of us the next week also but we’ll try to update you this weekend on how things went and what all we have planned for the next week.  Thank you all so much for your support and prayers!

Report This Post

Categories: Family Fun, Home Assignment, Ministry, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Reflections, Travel, Updates | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

September/October Newsletter Released

We just put together our latest newsletter.  Please click the following to download it:

Newsletter_September_2012

FYI: The newsletter is fairly large and may take a few minutes to download, so it’s not your computer but rather the download that is taking a little while.  Sorry!

We are heading back to the States but our support needs continue.  Please read all about it in our newsletter.

Bendiciones,

Joel, Kim and Simeon

Report This Post

Categories: 501c3, Devotions, Home Assignment, Licensing in Ecuador, Ministry, Prayer Requests, Reflections, Simeon, Travel, Updates | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Remember that ‘Vision Team’ that came down…?

It seems like a long time ago now since our friends and fellow visionaries left Ecuador.  Especially in blog life since we are usually pretty timely in getting our posts up regarding what is going on in our lives.  Some of it may be that so much happened during our time and then so much is happening for us right now in transitioning back to the U.S. that we really haven’t had good time to process our experience together enough to do justice to what happened during our time.

Group picture in Ibarra. From left to right-Marcela tapia, Jeff and Kristi Lundblad, Zach and Janae Stevens, Tim and Angie Eberhard, Joel, Kim and Simeon and Paul Thomspon

Most of you know that we have had a dream of starting a center for at-risk children and a medical clinic for over ten years now.  Many things have developed in contributing to the growth of this dream over our last two years in Ecuador.  However, in mid-September, we literally had dreams coming true when we had a Vision Team from the States come to visit.  As you probably remember, IPEE (the Covenant Church of Ecuador) made a decision about the location for the center and medical clinic to be in a ministry of two districts of churches and specifically in the area of Otavalo.

The Vision Team that came was made up of people that are interested in supporting our future ministry in Ecuador by serving on the Board of Directors of the U.S. based non-profit organization.  This Vision Team did not include all of those on the Board of Directors, but the majority were able to come.  We had a great time from the beginning where the team got to know Ecuador, its customs and nuances and just experience the beauty of the country.  Towards the end of the week, we made a trip to the North of Ecuador and the team was able to see and get to know ministries and pastors in the two Covenant conferences that are close to Otavalo.  As well we visited two orphanages in the Quito area.  After all of these visits, we were able to debrief a little bit and really started dreaming and brainstorming about possibilities God may be giving us for the future.  This was a very exciting time.  Hopefully, now that we have had their visit we can begin to work with IPEE and FACE (the social outreach branch of IPEE) to figure out the exact details of how things will look.  Please pray for the Board of Directors and the future of this ministry.

Enjoy some pictures from our trip…

Joel laughing with kids in 4 lote

 

The Lundblad's

 

 

 

Pastor paul, Simeon and Joel looking at some land close to Karabuela

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angie and Janae when we visited an orphanage in Quito

 

 

Janae, Kim and Kristi at a church visit in Ibarra

 

 

 

 

Kristi visiting an orphanage in Quito

 

 

 

 

 

Angie and Jane in 4 Lote

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had to put an IV in Zach close in Karabuela...but more on this in another post...

 

 

 

 

Tim and Zach discussing things

Report This Post

Categories: 501c3, Updates | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Off to Santo Domingo

Tomorrow we leave on what is our last trip to Santo Domingo.  This will be  a tough trip as it will be our first round of saying goodbyes and it will be some of our toughest.  The Rocha family have become very close friends of ours and we will miss them greatly while we are in the States.  Please pray for all of us as this will be a tough trip for us but a good one because it will give us the opportunity to say goodbye and have closure to our time hear all the while knowing that we are planning on coming back and it is only a matter of time before we see them again.

La Familia Rocha

Report This Post

Categories: Ministry, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Reflections, Santo Domingo, Simeon, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Camp Praise

We just want to thank you for your prayers for the campgrounds!  We have been able to purchase a truck for the camp’s ministry use.  This has been a long time prayer request and concern for the camp.  Basically since the time that we began serving the camp in January 2011 this has been a need.  Since this time, the camp administrator, Ruben, has been using his personal vehicle for conducting the ministry of the camp.  Well, there is a lot to be done for the camp and over this time period his personal vehicle broken around 5 times.  This has been a great concern for us because Ruben shouldn’t have to use his personal vehicle for the ministry of the campgrounds.

Praise the Lord that we have finally achieved the goal of acquiring a pick-up truck for the campgrounds.  Take a look.  Thank you so much for your prayers for the campgrounds!

Report This Post

Categories: Ministry, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Reflections, Santo Domingo, Updates | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment