concert..

Andrea and I went to a concert a few weeks back called WinterJam. It was a concert that included several Christian rock bands including Newsboys, 10th Avenue North, and Third Day. We went with Andrea's sister and husband, Jill and Glenn and their two girls Ellie and Ava. The concert was here in town in Normal at the university.

Us at the concert

Andrea and Jill at the concert

Glenn and Jill

Andrea and our nieces Ava and Ellie

Spring Break 2010

We have been so busy lately it just seems like we don't have time to do anything extra such as updating our blog. Hopefully it will become better updated in the future.

We went to Berlin, Germany for a weeklong trip for our ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ. We took 7 students with us to connect with other CCC staff in Berlin and to help reach out to the students on some campuses in the city. We had such a great time learning the culture and history of the city and being able to be a vessel for God while we were there. Here are some pictures from the week:

Us at a coffee shop-chocolate dessert drink and crepes!

In front of Humboldt University-once where Einstein taught..back in the day.

Joe enjoying a German feast...pork knuckle, saurkraut, potatoes, and mashed peas!

Laying on beds in an atomic bomb shelter in the city.

Trying on a HUGE backpack.

Waiting at a train station.

Waiting at a train station..some of the ladies with us.

The Brandenburg Gate

The Berlin Wall

One of the many bears around the city.

Bricks lying where the Berlin Wall once stood.

Our first night in Berlin...currywurst and fries!

Projects, Projects, Projects...

Well, God finally blessed us with the house on O'Reilly Ct. We moved in on January 30th with the help of family, friends, and students. It's been nearly 2 weeks now since we've been in the house and it's beginning to feel like home. Since moving in though, there have been lots of projects to do.

The first project entailed painting a pink bedroom which ended up being our office. The gray walls and ceiling are much better than the pink. Joe has also begun to replace the doorknobs and deadbolts to the exterior doors-4 doors to be exact. That project, which we thought would be short (about 30 minutes per door per the instructions) has taken much longer-and is still not complete.

We bought some new furniture for the basement including a sectional and ottoman. We also bought a kitchen table, but have yet to buy chairs for that table.

Joe has become very well acquainted with The Home Depot which is right around the corner, thankfully! He has bought paint, tools, storage bins, shelves, etc. He has also been enjoying blowing the snow off the driveway and sidewalk with the snowblower from Andrea's parents.

We definitely feel blessed to be in this home, but seem to be very tired every night. Andrea is having some female students over tonight for a slumber party. It's such a joy to be able to use this house for ministry and for God's Kingdom!

Crazy..wow..what?!?!

Yep..the title sums up our life as of recent. The Christmas season is always busy with us trying to visit family in Ohio and our annual conference with Campus Crusade for Christ in Indianapolis, IN. But, within the past month we have added to the craziness in our life.

We are becoming homeowners for the first time in our life! We found a wonderful house in Normal, IL as we began casually searching for houses in the area. We fell in love with it, the location, the possibilities for our family and ministry, and following the Lord's direction. We quickly went through the process of purchasing the home and will close on the house on January 28th! Here is the house:

We are very excited for the future possibilities of working with the college students! We plan on moving January 30th! Pray for good weather!

Also on the agenda was Joe having surgery on January 8th on his wisdom teeth. Thankfully everything went smoothly and he hasn't had any problems thus far-not even swelling!

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Make a bee-line for tree-line...

More Colorado... more hiking... more adventure. We had a day off while at national staff conference and took advantage of the day by going on a long hike. We went with some of our good friends and headed out at 4:30am for Rocky Mountain National Park. For some reason, I never get car sick anywhere, but when heading to the Park. Two years ago, I felt super nauseous... and this time.. not too good.. As we drove around this snaking road up and around and really high, I decided I should probably get out briefly to help with the car sickness - just to walk around. Instead I got out, took ten steps, and ended up throwing-up. Not what I was planning... before a 11 mile hike.

Eventually, we made it to the trail head for Mt. Ida. It was pretty neat as we knew we would hike some of the Continental Divide. It started as a beautiful day and super cold.. so cold we wished we would of had gloves. We hiked and hiked and hiked.. and almost all had some form of altitude sickness.. and got pretty wore out from the elevation change. For much of the time, we were above tree-line...which basically means, no trees.. but on this trail it also meant, no nothing... for most of the time (not even rocks). The reason I tell you this now, is there is quite a story later where I will mention the tree-line.

The nothing-ness above tree-line...

So, pretty tired.. we kept trekking for the summit. As we were getting higher and higher, we noticed more and more clouds and were getting more and more hungry... and less and less energy... and feeling the effects of altitude sickness. We saw several people going back down and advising us they were turning around because they didn't like the look of the clouds. They didn't want to get caught above tree-line in a storm. We weren't at the summit yet, but knew we needed some added energy and decided to eat. We made a group decision that indeed the clouds didn't look good and even though we were like a 1/4 mile from the summit that we should take others' advice and head back down the mountain. Oh, and the reason we left so early in the morning is because you want to summit and get back below tree-line before 2ish, because storms can blow in quickly and you don't want to get stuck above tree-line, because as I mentioned before... there is nothing.. no trees.. and in our case no rocks... no nothing. So, you are basically the tallest thing for miles and thus lightning can strike you way more easily.

So, back down we headed... and lo and behold in blew the storm.. way earlier than most storms typically blow-in above tree-line. It began with rain, which I could handle. Then it began hailing... and hailing.. and hard hailing.. and then I heard it.. the loudest crack of thunder in my life and down I fell. No.. I didn't get struck by lighting.. but knew lighting and thunder tangoed and knew that I was the tallest thing for miles.. and so my body reacted to that truth by falling instantaneously after the thunder. I have a good bruise to prove it.


I was scared.... yup.. really scared. Praise the Lord that I have the greatest husband ever, who immediately started claiming Bible verses and praying. We were literally face-down on the side of the mountain giving adoration to the Lord, praying that He would protect us, protect our friends (who are pregnant), and spare our lives. Joe told me later that he was the most scared he ever was in his life.. but knew I needed him and so didn't act scared. We finally arose after what seemed like the longest 15 minutes in my life. Then we ran... ran.. ran so fast... even though 20 minutes prior we all thought we were so tired that we couldn't walk another step. God gave us His strength and adrenaline. We ran almost all the way down.. it took us 2 hours to get down the mountain when it had taken us 5 hours to get up! We were freezing from the hail and pooped.. but so thankful for the Lord's protection!

And yet again.... more traveling

Monday we packed up the rental car and headed out to Colorado for National Staff Conference with Campus Crusade for Christ. 6,000 staff members descend on Colorado State University to hear from leadership, national speakers, to be refreshed, and to gain more perspective on ministry.

On the way out to Colorado, we stopped for a night in the middle of Nebraska. Neither of us had ever been to Nebraska before... but we sure did like their speed limit - 75 mph! Upon entering the town of Ogallala, we decided to stop at their local restaurant. It was called "The Golden Spur". Quite an interesting place and a memorable experience. So, we then proceeded to camp out at this state park in this middle of nowhere town. It was super buggy and the lightening lit up the sky all night. Thank the Lord that it never stormed but was just lightning in the distance. The camp sight was awesome, as it was located on a dam of a 22 mile river.

On top of the dam... to the left of Andrea's head is where we camped!

So, we continued driving on Tuesday and finally made it to our destination of Fort Collins. We have been having a great time here so far! We have heard from nationally known speaker, Tim Keller, and have really enjoyed hearing the national leadership team. It has been refreshing and encouraging... and so fun to see friends! We feel God has really been meeting us and challenging our hearts. Today we had a super encouraging time listening to this guy speak through the 7 days of creation alongside pictures (it doesn't sound neat... but let me tell you it was awesome!). If you want to see a version of the video click here http://vimeo.com/3764850 .

We also had a chance to go hiking, which is one of our favorite things to do together! It was also super fun, because we went with some of our really good friends! Crazy thing... the hike took a while longer than expected and was a little more strenuous than expected. The website lied on some of the details of the hike .... but it was still fun.... We wanted to do an easier hike to prepare for a longer 9 miler we will be doing later in the week.

We thought it was interesting... at the top of the mountain was a pond. The view was great! This is a creature we almost stepped on... could of caused some havoc.. as we were pretty sure it was a rattlesnake (our friends got really close up pictures). It was right on the trail and luckily our friend spotted it. My friend had to explain to me several times where the snake actually was because it was so camouflaged. It is in-between the two roots in the middle of the picture... all curled up!

Hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are!

What a summer it has been...

So, again... I am super bad on updating our blog... apologies. We have had limited Internet access for the past couple months and little time...but that has all equaled out to one amazing summer!

In the last post I wrote about our many travels... but the main place we have been this summer is in Virginia Beach for a summer missions trip (summer project) with Campus Crusade. We were there for 6 weeks and just got home a couple days ago.

Here are a bunch of pictures.. I will just put some pictures to explain our time there.

5 students from central Illinois also came to Virginia Beach to be spiritually developed and grow in reaching others for Christ. It was super fun to get to know them better and to see their faith grow in the brief 5 weeks we were with them. There were a total of 74 students and 28 staff from all over U.S. The staff left, but the students now take over project and will be there for another 4 weeks.

Joe met with 4 guys weekly and also led them in Bible study. (L to R) Greg from Ohio State, Ryan from MSU, Joe, Adam from U of M, and Billy from Albion. Andrea also met with 4 gals weekly and led them in Bible study. (L to R) Andrea, Amanda from MSU, Leah from Illinois State, Kaitlyn from U of M, and Lindsey from U of Illinois. We really had a great time getting to know these guys and gals and seeing God transform their lives this summer!

We really enjoyed getting to know other staff with CCC. We had an awesome dinner co-op (above) where we cooked one night a week for 9 of us, and then we were cooked for 3 other times throughout the week! We really enjoyed getting to know everyone more and getting good home cooked meals! (Below) Some friends we really enjoyed working and getting to know better this summer.

These two pictures are some of our favorites from the summer. (Above) Joe with Josh... who accepted Christ with Joe on the boardwalk. Joe was able to continue to pursue him throughout the summer and give him a Bible and talk more about what it means to walk with Christ. (Below) Andrea with Lindsey - the other 2 girls accepted Christ right on the beach after talking about spiritual matters!

We had a large battle on the beach representing good vs. evil. We dressed up in red and blue body paint and cardboard armor. We marched on the boardwalk inviting bystanders to come watch the battle.

There is a spiritual battle waging war for our souls. Jesus has prevailed and provided a way for us to get to God. Over 300 people watched the battle with the Gospel being shared. Students and staff then talked with people more about the battle and their spirituality. Hopefully soon the video from the battle will be available on YouTube if you want to see more! (Above) Another fun outreach we had included large ice cream sundaes in one super long gutter.
(Above) We really liked going kayaking for the first time.... It was super fun! We had fun at the 4th of July bash... Joe liked trying to hit the pinata (below).We went out for a nice dinner with the staff team. It was so great, as we ate really near the water. That same night, we went on a dolphin cruise. We saw many dolphins and enjoyed the beautiful sunset. There is so much more to share... but those our some brief highlights! We will again be traveling, as we will be going to Colorado for national staff conference with CCC later this week!