Another blessing!

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Joel & Kim

We just wanted to share another big way that they Lord has been working in our lives and our transition to life in the States for this time.  While we will be in the States for Home Assignment, we’ll be living in the Goshen area of Indiana (just east of South Bend).  We had no idea where we would find a place to stay.  But, just like the car, God has surprised us and provided for our every need.  During a service at their church, Joel’s parents shared the news of us returning to the States and the fact that we would be living in the Goshen area.  After the service, a parishioner in the church who is a farmer came up to Joel’s father to explain that he had a rental house that he would like us to live in if we would like.  Well, this is what has worked out.  On Sunday, we moved into our temporary home for our time here in the States.  You can see pictures below as we are getting the Christmas lights setup after moving in.  This has been an amazing, wonderful blessing for us that we had no idea would come about.  We feel quite comfy in our new little home.

Our new temporary home.

 

 

Simeon helping with some work around the house.

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Top 10 Things the Delps are thankful for…

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Joel & Kim

 

Number 10:  A multitude of different food choices that we have missed-including favorites like Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, Suishi Station, Einstein Bagels and Wendy’s

Number 9:  Cell phones that don’t require more ‘saldo’ (phone credit) in the middle of conversations

Number 8:  Flat Roads to drive on

Number 7:  Not needing to flush toilet paper

Number 6:  Kim’s new job

Number 5:  All of God’s blessings, especially good health for our family

Number 4:  A great national church we were able to work with in Ecuador and the lifelong friends we have made there

Number 3:  Our son who continues to teach us every day and show us what life is all about

Number 2:  Time spent with family and friends we haven’t seen in a while

NUMBER 1:  YOU!  Our faithful prayer and financial supporters!

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Where in the WORLD are those Delp’s?????

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Joel & Kim

If you follow this blog often, you may have noticed we haven’t been blogging as much as normal and that’s pretty rare.  We really have been all over the place and this is one of the first chances we have gotten to sit down, breathe, and blog.  Apologies for the absence, but hopefully we are around now for a little while and will have some time to keep up with it.  We’ll try and update you on our latest adventures here.  It’s been a little crazy as you can probably imagine just moving back to the U.S. from South America.

I believe that last time we left off, we were awaiting Hurricane Sandy while in Maine.  We made it through with really no damage, the lights only flickered and we had some heavy rain and winds for an evening.  The next day we actually went to the beach and hung out a bit.  Here’s some pics from that.

Maine Coastline after Sandy

 

 

Simeon and Joel enjoying the beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then traveled to Massachusetts and stayed with a friend of ours from seminary-Whitney Hall and her parents.  It was great to get to know them all better and to see some of Massachusetts.  We visited the church that Whitney is pastoring and did a presentation about our ministry in Ecuador.  Her church, Emmanuel Covenant is in Nashua, NH.  It was wonderful to be able to worship with fellow Covenanters on the East Coast as this area is new to us.

We then traveled to Connecticut and stayed with Joel’s aunt and uncle-Chuck and Shirley.  We were pleasantly surprised when we got there to see ALL of Chuck and Shirley’s children, spouses and grandchildren, the majority, Kim had never seen before except in pictures and Christmas cards.  We got our first welcome home card and were excited to answer many questions from the kids and adults too!  This was a very encouraging time for us and so nice to see and meet family and of course share in a great Mennonite meal and play DUTCH BLITZ!

We then ventured to Pennsylvania to visit friends of Kim’s from college, Stacy and Franco. It was nice to re-connect a bit and to meet their kids. This was a great time of encouragement as well and we were blessed by the time.

Joel, Simeon, Micah, Anna and Franco

After this, we went and visited long-time friends Scott and Sara Hallam in Ohio.  It was great to re-connect after almost 2 years, see how their kids have grown and meet their newest edition Miles.  This was very relaxing and uplifting for us.  During this time also we got to spend time with different friends and family in the Cleveland area including college friend-Brooke Osborne and her fam and Joel’s cousin Starla, her hubby Yan and son Kieran.  Here’s a picture of the Osborne’s, minus Cameron.

Visiting the Osborne’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After this we headed to see friends in Coshocton, Ohio.  It was great to see them and a little surreal since the last time we saw them was in Ecuador!  It was nice to meet their kids and just be able to fellowship and of course, EAT!

Coshocton friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are blessed!  Blessed by loving friends and family and people we don’t even know that offer to let us stay with them and eat their food and take their time.  We appreciate this people and are so thankful for you all and the way you have blessed us over the last 3 weeks!  THANK YOU!

You may wonder what we are up to now?  Well…

We are happy to say that Kim got a job in the Goshen area, actually at Goshen Hospital here in Indiana.  She will be working as a hospitalist, admitting, rounding and discharging patient’s from the hospital here.  We were also offered a place to stay in Middlebury which is about 15 minutes from the hospital and 7 minutes from Joel’s parents.  It’s a 2 bedroom farmhouse and we are very thankful for it.

We are currently waiting for all of Kim’s credentialing before she can start her job.  It may be as long as a month and a half!  YIKES!  We will be here in Goshen, visiting with family and friends in the area.

Soon, we will start the home assignment process of support raising.  If you would like us to visit your church, mission committee or other engagements, we would love to do that.  You can just contact us and we would love to come and visit!

God is good and faithful and we are so thankful for all He is doing!

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First Church Visit

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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

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Different country, same story… ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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.

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A Blessing in a…CAR!

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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!

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What we’ve been up too…

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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.

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1 Down…

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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.

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A sad goodbye

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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!

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September/October Newsletter Released

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Joel & Kim

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

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