Thriving in Desert Land

This year I was given an awesome opportunity to go to Rehoboth Christian Schools in New Mexico for our mission trip! We brought 14 teenagers and 7 adults and boy, it was a trip! First off, Lavonne broke her wrist. She was supposed to be our one able armed cook since Janice had earlier this year broke her wrists, but on the first work day we had, she slipped on some water in the kitchen and broke her wrist basically making her the one very unable armed cook! It was scary, crazy, and silly all at once, we were in shock, laughed, and prayed for her to heal over and over, but God was not surprised. Do keep praying for her though, it's a BIG job to get ready for camp as she is the co-director of TFC camp, and without being able to type things out on her computer as well, it sure makes things more difficult.

Back to our trip, we did a lot of work for Rehoboth and learned quite a lot about the culture and follow Jesus in a world that is unknown to us. One of the core things we worked on this year was helping students to have a "heart for the world". We wanted the teens to know that this world as a whole needs to know Jesus more and more, and that stretches from home to the ends of the world. That sometimes people do things very differently from you, and that doesn't make it wrong, you may see life differently, but they have different values and goals than you. We dove into their culture and wanted to learn all kinds of things about the Navajo people so that we might gain a bit of heart for those people.

So while we roofed two buildings, painted tens of windows and doors, cleaned up brush on campus and in the cemetery and demoed a computer lab so that it could become a special education room, we asked the kids to work on learning the language, we talked with a pastor about the challenges and joys of preaching and teaching the Navajo people, and we spent a Saturday at a farmers market trying to appreciate their arts and crafts and make a few deals!

Some of the students found it difficult to dive in and others thrived at it, but as the week went on we all learned that the Holy Spirit can give us a "heart for the world", when we simply stop and listen and give it a shot.

On top of mission trip stuff now being done, we have a whole plethora of jobs and things to do as we plan for TFC Camp yet again! I'll likely be helping to setup all kinds of things from games and media things for the 2 weeks of camp we have at the end of the month, but on top of that I'm praying that the students who are coming from the Northern Valley area will have hearts prepared for all the awesome things God will be showing them.

This year we are talking about sailors and pirates, but mostly the island of Crete and how Paul was coaching Titus to deal with pirate like people and call them to a higher way of life. Pray for our camp team as they plan how to portray the difference between seeing the world centered around ourselves, to seeing the world centered around God.

If you can, please consider giving a donation to camp for food and scholarships! We have two students who are in need of a scholarship this year and a lot of food we need to purchase yet to fill hungry bellies at camp!

We are still in need of hamburger, sausage, eggs, bacon and cookies, and possibly some more! If you want to make a food donation just let me know and if you’d like to make a monetary gift for camp food you can online at https://tfcconnection.org/donate

If you want to gift a scholarship, please let me know! Some teens come from families who just can’t quite make it work, and I’d like to use this as a chance for them to learn that the family of God loves them and will help them in their time of need!

Thank you all for the way you support us and make our ministry work!! We couldn’t do it without you all!

The last month was a rush as we moved in right at the end of May and have been getting used to living in the new house!

We have also watched as the boys have LOVED getting to play with their cousins next door almost any time they want, and have had plenty of other projects to do in the house to continue to make it feel more like home!

On top of all that, we got to enjoy Ty becoming a 1 year old! He is walking and nearly running all over the house, and we love getting to enjoy him doing just that!

Remember that you can help by donating here! We love how God provides so we can serve this community!!