Because when Mommy sent it out, she forgot the “s” !

Thank all so much for your prayers for my Nana! She is headed home this afternoon for some serious recovery time. She already feels much better and I got to go with her on a walk around her hospital wing yesterday! If you live in our area, you can sign up to take Nana and Babo a meal while they are resting.

Happy Autumn! I don’t know how you all feel about Autumn, but in our house? It’s the most wonderful time of the year. We hung window-clings of turkeys and leaves together, there are pretty candles all over the house, and Mommy baked cookies and then cinnamon rolls and we had them every morning this week for breakfast! I like this Fall thing a whole lot.

We have been praying as a family about our role in Oaxaca and what that will look like. While we still don’t know for sure, and will probably not even have a clear picture after we arrive in Mexico, we are beginning to see a more specific ministry and call for the rural areas outside of the city. Our hope is to reach out to the smaller churches in farming and agricultural towns in order to see how we can support them and their communities. There is a large population of migrant workers from Oaxaca travelling to Northern Mexico and we would like to help Oaxacans create sustainable lives for themselves without needing to leave their family farms and homes. If you’re curious about what a ministry like this might look like, check out what Roy & Aleta Danforth are doing in the Central African Republic. This aligns so well with our passions and talents! We are so excited about God really moving in our lives to reveal this need to us.

We have also been playing with the idea of helping facilitate group trips for people interested in seeing the ministries happening in Oaxaca. That ministry is clear and laid out, but we are still unsure of what our role would be within that.

It’s so easy to get discouraged because our call doesn’t look like other calls that are specific and succinct, but we know that our path will be one where we are learning and changing constantly in order to best come alongside people rather than swoop in to “save them.”

Daddy on his new paddleboard and me in a kayak ALL BY MYSELF!!!

August kicked off with us looking at funny squiggles on a screen that Mommy and Daddy say are the new baby. I am beginning to understand what that means and I am both excited and not excited at all. I like touching the baby and occasionally giving it kisses while it is in Mommy’s tummy, but I am unsure about sharing Mommy and Daddy one the baby is here.

I apparently had a birthday. I do not particularly care about birthdays and if you ask me how old I am, I will tell you no. However, we did get to go to the Point Defiance Zoo for the first time. I like the zoo a lot. I am allowed to run and there are so many water exhibits and sea creatures! I really like Walruses. Also for my birthday we went to see Doctor Chesley, whom I like. But I do not like visiting him because other people come in and stab me. I really like being able to talk to Mommy and Daddy in a way they understand though, so maybe getting older is alright.

If you missed my birthday, you can make it up to me by giving to our missions fund 😉

Daddy is still working at the sign shop, but I am glad he is back with me on Tuesdays and Thursday! We have so much fun!!! We have several new batches of soap curing and we now have a grove of tropical fruit trees started on our kitchen table (jackfruit, papaya, mango, lemon, and avocado have all joined our pineapple plant). Mommy is busy at work with Fall kickoffs and at home preparing for Baby and chasing me! This Autumn we are focusing on making sure we are spiritually fed as we chase down as many leads as possible for partnership.

We have not heard back from either of the churches we met with in June, but are still hopeful for partnerships to occur. While we did not see much of a financial increase in August, we were able to touch base with several churches and have a very busy September ahead of us!

Evergreen hosted us late in August and we spoke briefly to the congregation before a luncheon with some various people within the church. Everyone was overwhelmingly kind and I made a new friend named Owen. We hope to see some financial support trickle in over the next several weeks, but are confident that we have gained wonderful prayer partners. We will visit a class at Evergreen September 21st and are very excited to be back there.

God answered our prayers in a strange way last week when what we thought was going to be a meeting with a team of youth who visited Mexico earlier this Summer turned out to be a gathering of a missions board from the church who are very interested in partnering with us! We look forward to meeting with the youth team at a later date, but felt encouraged and uplifted by the conversation with the missions board. We won’t know until later this Autumn if the church is able and willing to support us financially, but our discussion surrounding partnership made us hopeful – which has been something we have sorely needed!

The pastor of that church invited us to a sort of regional pastors meeting September 18th which Daddy is planning to attend in order to hopefully connect with some of the Southwest Washington churches. Sunday, September 28th, we visit Highland Covenant Church’s congregation to seek partnership with individuals. We will go to the Pastor/Staff-Spouse Retreat October 6th-8th and hope to be able to set up a table and have a few minutes to talk about our call.

It’s a busy September. And we are eager to set up more dates in October!

Thank you all so much for your continued support during this process! We have been blessed immensely by individuals taking up our cause. We are so grateful for each of you and hope to have more updates for you soon. Please continue to let us know how we can pray for you as you pray for us!

Please pray for…