I can’t believe that it is already March 2017! This is the busiest season of our family’s life ever, I think! It seems like time is just flying by and we are trying to soak up every moment and event. There is a lot happening around here and we want to catch you up on all things… family, transitions, preparations, kiddos, etc. So here we go…
Elly has just taken a big step in growing up. She got her ears pierced this past week along with her bff! It was her best friend’s 6th birthday so they decided to go together and get their ears done. It was a memoriable experience for these little girls to have got to do this together! I think it hurt Grey and Daddy way more than it did Elly. Our little baby girl is growing up!
We are learning a little bit of Afrikaans (one of the major languages spoke in South Africa) as a family in preparations for our big move. Lara has come up with this creative board that hangs in our kitchen that tells the days of the week, date, and weather. We have fun talking about these items and trying to pronounce these foreign sounding words each morning over breakfast. I wish I could record it because it is hilarious! Lara and I try to make everything sound like Spanish and Grey is our leader in language learning. He does really well and seems to have a natural ability to learn languages. He can say all of the days of the week, months and count to 10 on his own already!
Mac is enjoying all things middle school and is always busy! This guy just finished up his first rugby season in which he did really well. He is not the most athletic guy on the field but he is a hard and disciplined worker which granted him the title of “team captain”. Mac is also doing judo and is in a robotic/science club after school. He is way smarter than mom and dad, and knows it! When he has a question with his homework the conversation usually ends with, “Google it”.
Lara and I are staying busy with all of the millions of details around moving to another country, raising support, and transitioning all areas of our family’s life. We never knew there would be so many todo’s. You just buy a plane ticket and go, right??? Everyone just recieved passports in the mail last week, which is really cool. We can travel the world as a family now! We are currently at 60% of our monthly financial support needs and 25% of our financial set up goal. This is wonderful and we are constantly looking for, asking, and seeking God for more generous people to help meet these needs and goals. And we believe He will! There is still a lot to do like apply for South African visas, finding renters to move in and take care of our beautiful home, figure out what we are taking with us and what we are selling, while continuing to pray for God’s vision for the work in South Africa! We actually made a list of many of the details we have been praying about in the form of a prayer card with the kids. We love passing these out and inviting others to come alongside us in praying for these.
Current Prayer Priorities:
Strength and joy – This will be what sustains us as well as enables us to enjoy this crazy and busy season of life as we prepare to move.
Sensitivity to the Holy Spirt – We want to hear, see, experience, and be lead by the spirit of the Lord.
Wisdom and understanding – to see what He sees to know what we need to give our time and attention to each day.
Financial supporters – We are asking the Father to raise up in the heart of more people irrationally generosity. People we know to ask and people that we may not even know their name yet. We still need about $4000 a monthly commitments. If you would like info on how to partner with us, check this out… Partnering with the Rousehouse
d because we loved the idea of our family living missionally beside these people we had been serving and fallen in love with. We loved the idea of our family being intentional about building relationships in a community of people that maybe didn’t look or act exactly like we did. We believe there is a great big God who is constantly at work in this great big world and by living our lives this way our family will be able to experience Him more and hopefully, just maybe, He would use us to bring others closer to Him. What a privilege!
Lara and I had the opportunity to travel to Cape Town, South Africa to visit a missional community that I serve with at UWM called East Mountain. As we spent time with this group of people we saw something that sparked a passion inside of us. The excitement began to grow as we saw how they serve and support the local church and how they live in healthy community with one another. It was also very exciting to see how they are partnering with ministries in South Africa similarly to how we have partnered with Piney Grove. As East Mountain is serving alongside these national workers God is using them to grow His church, strengthen indigenousness leaders, and do good works while living in healthy community with each other. Lara and I have patiently been waiting for God to provide an opportunity for our family to serve overseas for a few years and through this trip He did just that. Our time in South Africa was awesome, simply because we heard the Father’s voice calling us to something amazing.
Mountain is a community of people who love Jesus and are passionate about teaching, developing and empowering leaders. They accomplish this through one-on-one discipleship, training workshops, theological education, and spiritual formation as well as forming authentic relationships with leaders already engaged in excellent Kingdom work in churches, non-profit organizations, and schools. While we are there we will spend a third of our time doing a specific role/job, and third of our time will be spent serving as a family in one of these local partnerships, and a third of our time being developed ourselves as leaders and Christ followers.
The Rousehouse 