The last 7 months have been full of transitions for us. We’ve lived in several places (California, Indiana, and Illinois). We’ve experienced 3 seasons from spring to fall. We’ve adjusted to serving in full time ministry from the states instead of the Dominican. Life looks a bit different right now than I would have anticipated a year ago, and I believe God has been saying all along, “You’re right where you’re supposed to be”. To be honest there are days that this is hard for me to accept. We still don’t know when we will be able to return to the DR, we are hopeful it will be in January, but only God knows.

The last weekend in September we spent in Indianapolis with the rest of the US Solid Rock staff. The Hoover family drove from Pennsylvania and Tyler drove from Illinois. This was our first time together since March. It was great to spend 4 days together catching up and enjoying each other’s company. It felt like we had never been apart, but yet so many months had passed. Ben Wangler led us in a couple sessions about what it means to be a disciple. We had some good conversations around this topic. Thankfully the weather was nice and we were able to spend a majority of the time outside.

• 

• 

• 

Upon returning back to Fort Wayne, we unpacked from the long weekend to only start packing to move out of the house we were living in in Grabill, Indiana. I shared with you last month that the house we had been living in was only available until October 1st. Family friends of ours reached out just about the time we were about to commit to an AirBnB we had found online, to offer for us to live with them through the end of the year. God’s hand was in this all along. They live within the school district that Braegan attends, and their house is actually only 3 minutes from her school. We got everything moved over on Tuesday, September 29th and cleaned the house we had been living in for the new missionaries that were moving into our other house.

This past weekend Jeff’s parents came to Fort Wayne to spend time with us. We showed them around to a few places in town, went to Braegan’s last soccer game, and spent time catching up.

Now individual updates on each of us:

Jeff has been playing pickleball 2-3 times per week. He was playing outdoors in the mornings, but as the weather is getting cooler he has joined a gym with indoor courts. I even played with him for the first time this past week. We have spent our free time together when Braegan is in school delivering for Uber Eats.

I have been busy working through updates with our sponsor schools, and I continue to keep track of all of the SRI donor accounts. There are still weekly garage sales I’ve been able to go to along with random stops to the local thrift shops, definitely a weakness for me. I also sell stuff online as the kids grow out of their clothes or we come across something we no longer need. Jeff and I signed up to be in a small group through our church which starts tomorrow night. We are looking forward to meeting some new families. We’ve never been stateside long enough to commit to a group, so we were thankful when the opportunity was presented for us to join.

Braegan wrapped up soccer this week. Her team was undefeated. She learned a lot about the sport and teamwork. She is learning how to read and write complete sentences. Braegan also loves playing with Brantley.

Brantley keeps us busy. For those of you who know Braegan, Brantley has her energy and then some. We can already tell we are going to have our hands full! He’s a mover, and he loves to be outside. He really likes fire trucks and ambulances. He gasps whenever he hears the sirens then watches for the lights.

This morning we had our bimonthly SRI zoom meeting. Each time we meet we take turns leading a devotional time at the beginning. The topic for today was “committing yourself to bringing a spiritually surrendered heart to work each day”. We discussed scripture to support this and what it looks like for each of us while we are stateside and when we are in the DR. We talked about humility, gentleness, and surrendering our own agendas. These transitions throughout the past several months have been a great lesson in surrendering our own agendas.

Ways you can be praying for our us:

-against anxiety and for peace

-continued health and rest

-the SRI board meeting is Saturday, October 17: for wisdom and discernment