Merry Christmas!

Hope you have all had a great Christmas season! It has been a very different Christmas for us - we stayed home this year - and have had lots of time to relax and enjoy all God has done for us.

This morning, Joe fixed me breakfast and then we partook in Christmas festivities. We read the great story of Jesus' birth and then did our annual Christmas ornament tradition. We write on the ornament all that happened throughout the year - trips, blessings, big events. It is really fun the next year to look at past ornaments and reminisce.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas season....

We made Rice Krispie Treats with our niece, Ava. She helped decorate the top with chocolate. She liked eating some, too! This was back at the beginning of December - I think this is the only goodie we made!

Joe sipping his hot cocoa this morning, before reading from the Bible.

Our completed 2008 ornament - some highlights included moving to Illinois, our 1st backpacking trip, Chicago trip with Joe's family, free Cedar Point trip, and many others.Hope you all have a great Christmas! We are headed to southern Illinois tomorrow for some Christmas festivities with Joe's family and then to Indianapolis for Campus Crusade for Christ's Christmas Conference.

We are now in Illinois!

Hello all! We made it to Illinois to safely and are really enjoying our new apartment!

We moved December 1st and boy was it fun. The weather didn't turn out like we had wanted, but God protected us and kept us safe. We saw 3 different accidents seconds after they had just happened - in all we saw about 12 cars off the road. We were very excited to arrive safely and to be on solid ground. The Uhaul and our cars had think layers of ice and were super dirty. But, all in all we were really excited to be where God has called us to be!

The day we moved in, we felt so blessed. Students from Illinois State University and staff (all with Campus Crusade for Christ) helped us unload and settle in. My sister also lives in Illinois and came to help! I think we had about 15 people helping us! By the time the day was done, the kitchen was organized and put away (thanks to the students) and master bathroom and bedroom semi set-up. We were so thankful - our fellow staff with CCC even brought buckeye bars over and a goodie bag. We felt so blessed and welcomed!

Some of the students from Illinois State unpacking and putting away our kitchen stuff!

More of the students unpacking and helping out!

Our nieces came to help us, too! They even spent the first night with us, so they could help us unpack more the next day. They didn't know they were going to spend the night - so they loved wearing Aunt Andrea's T-shirts to bed.

We have been diligently working on getting our apartment in order. We have pretty much everything where we want it now and we really love it!

Our living room!


Our bedroom!

One of our bathrooms!

Other part of our living room - decorated for Christmas!

In other news, we have been really enjoying our new job. We love the people we work with and the students. We were able to attend the weekly Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at Illinois State and got to take part in staff development week. It has been such a joy being where God has called us to be! The students even welcomed us by decorating our cars with window paint!




Hope you are all doing well and taking joy in the Lord this Christmas season!

We have so much to be thankful for...

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for all of you!

We are so thankful to God for how He has provided for us this year. We will be moving to Bloomington, Illinois this Monday! Yay! We are so excited to finally work with college students! Thank you so much for your giving hearts and prayers! We are so thankful to God that He would be gracious enough to let us move in time for Christmas and the beginning of the second semester!

We were also blessed with being able to attend Fall Staff Conference with Campus Crusade for Christ last weekend. It was such a joyous time meeting other staff and rejoicing for all God has done. We also were given a clear vision as to where the ministry is heading and also saw the bigger picture of how God has been at work in college students' lives all across the world.

So, Monday is the big moving day. Will you please pray for us and all would go well? Joe will be driving the big Uhaul truck with a car trailer on the back. I trust he will do well driving, but also know it could be difficult maneuvering the big ol' thing. Many students and other staff with Campus Crusade for Christ are going to help us unload in Illinois, as well as my sister!

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving! Again, we are so thankful for you!

Apartment update ... and Go Buckeyes!

Thank you for your prayers for our housing issues, we really appreciate it! The apartment company has been much nicer, which has been a blessing. We will now be renting an apartment with the company in the same complex but an older apartment. It is really similar, except there are more units in the building and it doesn't have a view of the pond. We are still excited about it and glad how God has provided. They are giving us a month's free rent, which helps too!

So, we have been ecstatic about the fact that we might be moving sometime in the near future. We still need about $280 monthly for our initial support goal before we can move. We can't wait to work with college students!

In other news, we have been working on painting our corn hole boards. My dad made us a set and we wanted to paint it when the weather was nice outside. We decided to go with a Ohio State Buckeye helmet design, since we really like OSU football. We were excited and pleased with how they turned out.

Apartment Issues...

Sad to say, the apartment pictures in the last post will not be exactly where we are going to live. After putting a security deposit down on the apartment and such, we were informed that they double booked us! Supposedly, 6 other people had come in prior to us and put security deposits down and they forgot to mark the changes on the housing board we saw in the rental office. The whole issue goes beyond that - but that is the brief version of what happened.

The apartment company told us that they had no other units available in all their apartment complexes and they would let us know as soon as possible when they did. So, Joe and I just prayed and sought the Lord's advice on what to do. We were so disappointed to not get the place we liked and frustrated on what to do next. We are hoping to be moving in the next one to two months and suddenly we had no housing. It was also hard because the company didn't seem like they wanted to work with us or give us any compensation for our trouble. We shared with the company that we understood everyone makes mistakes and nobody is perfect, but we were still sad and frustrated. We also felt like they weren't telling us the whole truth on the issue. So, that was yesterday.

Today, the leasing agent from the apartment company called and said they had a unit for us in an older building and would actually give us a month's free rent. They were nicer and actually said they were sorry. It would be in the same complex.

So, if you could please pray for us and that we would follow what the Lord would want us to do. We are unsure if we should still stay with the company or find somewhere else.

Our new apartment.... eventually

We traveled to Illinois this past weekend to search for an apartment!!! We are nearing our financial goal, and praying that would be moving in the next couple months. It was such an exciting time for us! After doing lots of research online we had a good idea of what we liked. We looked at 9 different places, and feel like God provided a great apartment for us! It is a newer complex, with two new buildings in process of being built. The building we will be moving into is due to be done December 1st. The awesome part is we will be on the 3rd floor with washer/dryer and lots of storage. We feel like God's hand was in the process because it is such a nice place for a cheaper price than the other apartments around the area and we secured the last 3rd floor apartment (which was cheaper)! Also, since we aren't sure as to when we will exactly be moving, we were able to put a security deposit down to have them hold our place, and we don't have to start paying rent until we actually move. They will hold the place until Jan. 1st without us having to pay rent! We thought we would share some pictures (this is what it will probably look like - remember our actual building is not completed yet)!!!

Our actual building... we think we are the top floor on the left! I love how quaint the area is - a couple ponds and a field. There is also a neighborhood a little distance away.

The living room with fireplace. The oven won't actually be in the middle of the room, they didn't install the appliances yet.

I love the kitchen!

One of the bathrooms.....


We are pretty sure this will be the actual view we have from our apartment. We love the fact that the pond is stocked with fish and they allow you to go fishing!


We are so excited and can't wait to move to the great "Land of Lincoln". We also had a great time visiting with our future Campus Crusade for Christ staff team as we went out to a local pizza joint. Another perk is that Andrea's sister lives about 50 minutes from Bloomington so we got to spend quality time with the family, too!

We went on a walk in Peoria on a bluff overlooking the Illinois River. It was beautiful, especially with the fall colors. Andrea and her sister, Jill (above) and (below) our bro-in-law Glenn and one of our niece's, Ava.

Hope everyone is having a great fall... or should I say winter.. it has been so cold! We will keep you updated on our moving plans and how God has been providing. Thanks for sharing in our excitement!

Fall Festivities!

It has been a long time since I have updated. But in recent news, we have been enjoying the joys of Fall. It has been exciting seeing the combines out in full force and the leaves starting to change colors. Today, Joe and I carved a pumpkin. We picked out the beauty at a fundraiser a ministry was doing locally. Here are some pictures from the fun!
Before carving the pumpkin....

Joe starting to carve. We decided to cut the bottom out. I had seen an article in a magazine about it. It surprisingly works really well and lots of the guts came out with it. It also made it really easy for the candle later.

Scooping out the guts... There wasn't much! Joe carving and making the final touches.

Us with the finished product. We were really excited for how it turned out! It looked really neat when we lit it up, too!

Traveling...

September has been quite a busy month for us. We have been traveling quite a bit to meet with people to share about our ministry. Joe told me we have put around 1600 miles on car just this month. One of the fun things we got to do when traveling to Toledo was to visit the "Extreme Home Makeover" house. The TV show came to Toledo to build a deserving family a new home. We thought it would be neat to check it out.. since it always seems crazy they can demolish and rebuild a home in 7 days time. We thought it was a neat experience to witness. The new house... this was two days before completion. It was crazy to see how much equipment and semi trucks were around the site. Some neighbors literally had the grill of a semi right outside their front door!

It was a neat idea... they took around a painting and had people in the crowd add on one paint stroke to finish it off. It was a little rainy...hence the umbrella.

In the brief 20 minutes we were there we got to see a designer for the show - Rib Hillis.

Air Force Museum

Joe and I recently went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton. We figured while we are living close to Dayton, we should take advantage of the neat stuff in the area. We really enjoyed looking at all the planes and learning some fun facts. Checking out the plane that dropped the atomic bomb "fat boy".

Joe checking out a plane in the newer section of planes (above). Joe and I went into the huge cargo plane behind us that is used for transport and war (below).

Our favorite part of the museum was in a hanger that was on the active part of the base. The hanger included old Air Force Ones from past presidents and also a research and development section.

Truman's Air Force One plane, "The Independent".

We really enjoyed touring the old Air Force One's but the only thing was the aisles in the planes were super narrow due to the plexi glass. Is was semi claustrophobic. We even got to tour the Air Force One that presidents Kennedy to Clinton had and transported Kennedy's body from Texas to D.C. In the research and development hanger. It was quite neat as the plane pictured in the background is the only one in the world. There were also other different looking planes that they used to test certain engines or wing patterns, etc. This is one of the most different ideas we saw in the R&D section. This plane takes off and lands vertically. There is a cable it catches to make it possible.

We really enjoyed ourselves at the museum and the best part is.. it was free!

First backpacking trip!

Joe and I went on our first ever backpacking trip on Monday! We hadn't planned on going, but as something we had Monday night got canceled, Joe looked at me and said "wanna go backpacking tonight". Of course I was really excited (we really have been wanting to go for quite sometime) and rushed around trying to get everything ready.

We headed to Germantown and started on the trail about 3:30pm. We were planning to hike around 6 miles, but weren't sure if we would have enough time due to the late start.

Joe and I on the trail!

So, Joe and I ended up hiking around 4 miles on Monday evening. The weather was beautiful and we saw lots of toads, birds, and a snake! We were quite tired by the time we got to camp. Our feet were hurting and we were ready to sit down!

After setting up camp - our tent and packs. It was a nice little spot - there was a little pond just past our tent. (Below) Joe hanging up our food and other smelly items, so animals wouldn't get them!
Joe and I after waking up. We were pretty excited it was morning. We didn't sleep very good. My goodness, the crickets and toads were triple loud. But, some other animal (never heard it before in our lives) kept waking us up it was so loud. We think it might have been a coyote or something. Also, some other people got to camp late and decided to cook at midnight, which we also heard. So, we were kinda excited to finally get up after not sleeping to0 swell. The backpacking trail we were on was pretty new, so they had a journal to write your thoughts about the trail, campsites, and your experience. The journal was located in the crummy outhouse (although, I was appreciative) - needless to say, I brought the journal back to the tent.

Joe packing up our sleeping bags in the tent and (below) us with the campsite sign at Oak Ridge. Thus begins the second day of hiking. We decided to hike around 6 miles!

Joe blazing the trail! We had another great day with beautiful weather!

We made it back to where we started! We had such a great time experiencing God in nature and having fun as a couple! We are excited for many more backpacking adventures in the future! We had so much fun! :)