A Change in Destination

Well, its been a whirlwind. These last 4 weeks have gone by fast. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was commenting on how he never reads missionary email because they are too long. I agreed with him and we both agreed that if we could just get the letter in bullet points we would read it. Well, here are the bullet points to get you up to date with what is going on with us. For an elaboration of the bullet points please scroll down, otherwise enjoy the cliffsnotes of the last 4 weeks.

• We are still living with the Pastor and his wife in their basement.
• I have a job working security at a Community College in Auburn Washington. I work 7-3 Monday through Friday, but hopefully am moving to part-time soon.
• We are leading a bible study with the college aged members of Christ the King Bible Fellowship that is meeting once a week.
• We have decided to not move up near the University of Washington at this point and instead focus our efforts on the needs of the students currently at CKBF.
• We are also focusing our efforts on starting a Christian club at the community college that I am working at. There are 13,000 students that attend and no Christian influence on the campus.
• I am going to continue to lead a small bible study on the campus of UW once a week.
• We are looking for a place to rent near the community college to be a base of operation at the school.
• God is taking care of our needs.

To start out with we are still living the basement of the Sims'. He is the pastor of the church we are working at and is friend of my family's. So far our time here has been fantastic. Living with their family has been a great way to get to know them better and for us to have one less thing to stress about. We are continuing to look for a place to live. We looked a lots of apartments up at the U, but just recently decide that for this year we are going to live down near the church and my job. This will allow us to pour our lives into the people who are going to the bible study, the majority of which live in this area. Only 2 students actually attend UW and only one of those lives on campus. We decided that if we really wanted to impact the students who are faithfully attending then we needed to live by them, crazy idea huh.

Two days after landing in Seattle I had an interview and got a job working security at a Green River Community College in Auburn. I took the job but have already informed them that i can't work full-time. Unfortunately, for the now i have to work full time. This has limited the time that i have available to work with students. Fortunately, the hours are great and the income is enabling us to save some money and look for a good place to live. The job has also been great because it has allowed me to get connected with students. God is clearly at work. My second day at work i was able to work with the pastor that i am living with (yes, he is working security too) and we were patrolling around campus when we ran into a couple who attend our church sporadically, they also work as trainers for the basketball team at the college. Well, we ran into them and they told us that one of the freshman coming in was a pastor's kid from Alaska. Later that day we were patrolling through the Gym and ran into the pastors' kid from Alaska. I introduced myself, told him i was a Pastor's kid and asked him if he would be interested in starting a bible study on campus. His eyes lit up. Come to find out the coach of the basketball team who is also the assistant athletic director and the head of the student judiciary is also a believer and has wanted to start a college ministry to students there for a long time. The next week i went an met him and he is going to be the faculty sponsor of the Christian club on campus. Mike, the pastor's kid came to church with me on Sunday and is going to be heading up the process of starting the club. Being a recognized club on campus will provide $500 in funding and allow us to promote events on campus as well as a meeting place. Please pray that God will continue to move on campus there. Everyday we are meeting believers who are go there and are interested in being involved in out campus group. For now we believe God wants us to focus on the students currently attending the church and the students at the community college.

It has been amazing to see how the Lord continues to provide for our needs. A few weeks ago we made a late night run to my wife's favorite store, Walmart. We were waiting in line to pay and an old man came up to us. He smelled kind of funny and kind of looked homeless. He asked me if we had started a savings account for my son, i quickly corrected him and said rather rudely that my daughter did not have one. He then pulled out his wallet and handed me a $20. I told him we could take this, he politely insisted and told us that his higher power told him to do it. We continued to refuse, but he insisted. We checked out and after checking out he found us again and explained that he had early Alzheimer's disease and wanted to make sure he gave away his money to good people while he could. It was sad, but yet it was one of those things that has helped us see that God is in control and he is taking care of us.

Well, that is a brief summary of what we have been up to the last 4 weeks. Please be praying for us. We are trying to figure out how best to manage our time and who to invest in. Pray that God would use us. I get to preach 2 weeks from yesterday so that is going to be exciting. Thank you so much for your prayers and for your gifts to the ministry here. It is a beautiful thing to see God work and to be part of it. More updates to follow.