Here is a short clip of the 12 Days of Christmas at VCS that our senior boys came up with. Enjoy the humor of VCS.

Definitely Ugly--But a Win

Matt and I are coaching the high school boys basketball team together. Last night was our first game, against our arch rivals, International Christian School of Budapest. It was a home game for us, so thankfully we didn't have to travel. This team is a very physical team, which makes for a rough game. The first five minutes looked great and we easily took a strong lead (they were playing man defense). Then they got smart, and switched to a 2-3 zone on us. For some reason our boys cannot break down a zone, therefore, we don't score. Obvisouly the other coach realizes this, and he sat in a zone the rest of the game. We'll just say we only scored 3 points in the entire third quarter, and in the beginning of the fourth quarter, one of our starters and few posts, fouled out. So the fourth quarter starts and we are down by 8, which isn't much, but keep in mind we are NOT scoring against the zone. We as coaches, finally get fed up with it, and make them full court, man-to-man press. They get a few steals, and we're now down to the last 2 minutes, and behind by 5 points. We tell the boys to just start taking outside shots even though we only have one decent outside shooter, because we had to start getting some kind of shot off. Then DK rips a 3, and we are down by two. Then one of our starters gets hurt and has to come off the court. With less than a minute left, we get the ball on offense and start moving it around, I keep thinking time has to be up, it has to be up, are we ever going to get a shot off?!? Then DK shoots another three.....and its good! We're up by one, with one second left! We obviously ended up winning, but we're still shocked that we did. Ready for the final score? A whopping 26-25. At least our defense was good! However, we definitely need to work on breaking down a zone! A win is a win, and we'll take it, no matter how ugly, especially against our rivals!

Thankfulness from the eyes of a 7th Grade Korean Student

"I am thankful that God has created me. When I would not be born, I would never have this happy, sad, lonely, angry, and surprised moments. If I would bot be born, I would feel lonely, and want to have fun too. I will try to do good things, take this chance and feel more, do more even if I am feeling happy, lonely...I will take this chance!"

The chance she is talking about is taking a couple of days off school and take a chance to be thankful, even if she isn't an American.

Thanksgiving!

Contrary to popular belief, we actuall did have Thanksgiving day off here because we are still an "American" school. It was a much needed, and very nice break. We had Thursday and Friday off. On Thursday we spent the day at a good friend's house with lots of other good friends and way to much food! It was a yummy feast! We were also able to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and the Packers/Lions game. It was a good day.

As Matt and I were talking about what we are thankful for we talked about how a lot of times most of the things on our thankful list are "things." Of course we always put family and friends on there, followed by a huge list of earthly possessions. Beings we are away from family, and don't have much as far as "things" we found our thankful list to be kind of short. As we continued to talk about it, we realized our list should be short, because we don't need all of these earthly things, and how much more we need God than our family and friends.

Our conversation reminded us of one of our favorite songs. The lyrics are simple yet something we all need to be reminded of everyday, that all we need is God.

All We Need is You by Charlie Hall

Rich or poor God I want You more
Than anything that glitters in this world
Be my all, all consuming fire.

We have all we need in You
And all we need is You
All we need is You

You can have all my hands can hold
My heart, mind, strength and soul
Be my all, all consuming fire.

Home Alone

I thought since I was home alone tonight it would be a good night to blog. Matt is at the last play rehearsal before the play opens tomorrow night. Matt was put in charge of the lighting for the play, so he has to be there for everything. The play has really been consuming his time the last few weeks, so I have been busy finding other things to fill my time with.

This weekend most of the Christmas Markets of Vienna open up, so while Matt is at the Saturday showing, I am going to go check out a few of the markets. I absolutely love them! They are full of little booths a few with hot drink, warm food and lots of yummy snacks, however most of them are shopping booths. People from all over Austria bring their homemade goods to sell. They have a ton of amazing Christmas ornaments as well as other fun gifts for Christmas. But I love the atmosphere the most, it is so festive!

I am also planning on getting out my Christmas decorations this weekend, so that should be really fun!

Well, it is off to watch a chicflick for me.

Senior Pancake Breakfast

Steph and DK making pancake and waffle batter.

All week we have been getting everything ready and organizing stuff for our pancake breakfast. The pancake breakfast was started years ago as a fundraiser the senior class does to help pay for their senior trip. It is a lot of work, but definitely worth it! We were at the school until 6 Friday night working on stuff. Then we got up early and was at the school at 7:45 am (super sad we didn't get to sleep in at all) so Stephanie could start mixing the batters for the pancakes and the waffles. At 8:30 our parent help and all of the senior class showed up to help cook, and get everything set up. It started at 9:30, and from then until 11:30, we served people pancakes and waffles, sausage, fruit, juice and coffee. We had over 100 people there, so it was a great turnout. Stephanie had to keep running downstairs to make more pancake and waffle batter. She made her pancake and waffle recipe 17 times over!

How well do you know your seniors placemat?

Throughout the morning we had different forms of entertainment. We had interactive placemats, cartoon corners, live music, videos made by the senior class, and of course, the auction.

The Serving Line

At 10:30 we had an auction, which is the biggest part of this fundraiser. Each senior had to be involved in a service we auctioned off. The services ranged from golf lessons, soccer camp, guitar lessons, babysitting, computer help, and slave labor. Stephanie decided to join in on the "fun" and she auctioned off one dessert a month from November until June. Her service was bought for 65 euros. Everything auctioned off and made a good price, so we definitely had success!

David Introducing DK's service at the auction.

Thankfully everyone chipped in to help clean everything up, and we were done and ready to leave the school at one! We came home and totally crashed on the couch, to nap and watch some tv.

End of Soccer Season

In the last week of the soccer season, we had an extremely busy week.
Monday in Budapest against ICSB. This game should have been an easy win for us, however it was not. We travelled 3 hours in the vans and got there to find out that we had to be off the field by 5 and the game was supposed to start at 4. So we played 25 minute halves just like 11 and 12 year olds. It was very frustrating, but we could do nothing about it I guess. We were winning 1-0 at half-time. After the half we got an early goal to make it 2-0. However, ICSB got some motivation at that point and put in a goal which game them even more motivation. With about 10 minutes to go they tied it up. Our guys responded really well and dominated the rest of the guy but were unable to put in another goal.

The game ended even more prematurely than we expected when some old Hungarian guys walked onto the field in the middle of the game and told us to get off so they could warm up for their game that was to start in 15 minutes (the practice field wasn't good enough I guess). What a wild time in Hungary.

On Tuesday, we were scheduled to play in Vienna at 4 (it gets dark now about 5:15). Well the team we were supposed to play did not go to the right field so they were 1 hour late. Well the field we rent doesn't really have lights. Well it does, but only 2 lights and only on 1 side of the field. But we played anyways. Thomas and I were on the side opposite the 2 lights so we saw very little of the game (the parts that were near us). Even despite the dark, our guys played one of their best games to that point and we won 5-0.

On Friday, we travelled back to Budapest to play their American International School. This is a school of about 800 students compared to ours which is just over 200. Quite a difference. However, we put our best game together and dominated the enitre game and won 2-0. It should have been much more but the keeper made some really good saves and we had trouble putting away our easy chances.

All in all it was a very good season. We had our ups and downs on the field, but Thomas and I feel the guys grew a lot in their lives. They were exposed to some hard times on and off the field, but showed their true colors by putting together 2 great games at the end of the season.

Fall Break

This past Tuesday marked the end of the first quarter at VCS. We cannot believe first quarter is already over. Time has really flown. Wednesday was a teacher work day for us all to get our grading done and our grades turned into the office. Then Thursday and Friday we had no school!!

Although we did not have enough money to travel anywhere, we had saved enough to do a few fun things over break. Wednesday after a day at work, we went out to eat with some friends at a new restaurant here in Vienna, which was like a Chipotle. It was super exciting for us to have some tex-mex here in Vienna as there are only a few Mexican restaurants here, and they are pricey and not very good. But this burrito joint was very yummy and very reasonbly priced! After that a smaller group of us went to go see a movie at the English cinema. This was a "splurge" for us as we normally don't have money to waste on a movie.

On Thursday I (Steph) went to Sopron, Hungary which is only 45 minutes away from Vienna, if we don't get lost. We did miss our exit so it took us a bit longer to get there, but it was fun. In Sopron there is a really cool and cheap pottery shop. The other girls I went with really got some good deals. We then went to Tesco which is kind of like a Wal-Mart, in which I got a bag of marshmallows and 2 things of body wash for super cheap! I know, really exciting purchases! In the meantime, Matt got to have a day of playing PlayStation, which was fun for him. Thursday night we had some friends over, and I fixed chicken and dumplings.

Friday was a national holiday here in Vienna, so the national museums were open with free admission. We couldn't miss out on a free activity, so we went to a few museums. The first museum we went to was the Military History Museum, which was really awesome. It went through the military history of Austria, which included stories, uniforms, weapons, and all kinds of cool stuff. The highlight of this museum was definitely the car Franz Ferdinand was assasinated in. Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austrian throne, and his assasination was a main trigger to the start of World War I. We then went to the Parliament building in which we had to wait in a long line for, but it was really cool and worth it.

Saturday Matt had soccer practice and I hung out at home. Then we went to a friends house to play Balderdash, which was a lot of fun. Today (Sunday) we have had a really lazy day at home, but was still able to accomplish some stuff. We got all of our articles typed for our next newsletter coming out in November, which was a huge accomplishment. We also had a lot of time to discuss the big decision we are in the process of making (making another commitment to VCS or returning to the States). We are still undecided, but feel like we had good discussion about it and that God is leading us in the right direction.

Blog Cuteness...

We decided our blog header and layout were quite boring, and that they needed some help! So we are having a super cute header and layout designed for us! We came across this designer's blog through a friend of ours, so you should check it out! She has several examples of really cute blogs she has already done, and the best part is, her prices are amazing! So to make your blog cute....go to http://www.fabulouskblogdesigns.blogspot.com/

You will never guess....

Saturday morning we were awakened to.......SNOW....in OCTOBER!!!! It was a light snow that didn't amount to anything and eventually turned into rain, but the point is, it snowed! Yes, this means it was in the lower 30's Saturday morning as well. It has gotten rather chilly here. The high temperature this next week is in the 40's, which I (Stephanie) am thrilled about (the snow too) but Matt is NOT excited about. I love cold weather and especially snow, but Matt hates the cold weather and snow, and would much rather live on a tropical island.

Fall Festival

This past Friday night was Fall Festival, put on by our Parent Teacher Conference. This is a night much like any fall festival in the States. There are a lot of free games provided by the PTF, high school classes are able to do a game for a fundraiser, and the basement is taken over by the science department in which each science class chooses an activity to demonstrate what they have been learning in class. All in all, it is some crazy fun chaos! At the end of the evening, there was a program in which the 4th and 5th grade, middle school and high school choir performed. It also provides an opportunity for us to meet parents of the amazing students we teach!
These pictures are of the "Chocolate Mess" game in which Matt and I were in charge of for part of the game time. Two students would dip a marshmallow in chocolate syrup and then with their eyes closed, feed it to the other person. Needless to say, this got messy!

Our senior class chose to do a maze with a jungle theme. We were pretty curious to see how it all worked out, but they had a plan, and it ended up being a huge hit! They made the maze out of butcher paper, used desks for obstacles, had lots of fun lighting (black light and strobe light...), as well as interactive parts where in the first part you met maze fairies and in the other room, maze pirates!

Senior Class Fall "Bonfire"

This past weekend was also our class party for the fall season. We had a "bonfire" at one of the other teacher's house who has a really nice yard. Sadly, all we had was a tiny fire pit that created a small fire, but hey, it worked! The weather was even the perfect-nice and chilly! It was a lot of fun to "roast" hot dogs, and introduce some of the students to the wonderful world of SMORES! Yum! I definitely think the smores were a huge hit! We had a lot of fun hanging out and had the opportunity to get to know more of the seniors better. Again, we were reminded of our purpose in being here, and were tremendously encouraged by the hearts of these students.

HS Boys Bible Study

At the start of the year, two of the senior boys, David and Oscar, both felt God leading them to start a Bible study to reach out to the high school students. They started off with just the two of them, then it grew to 4, and now they have had up to 17 students attend. They meet every Friday night, have a time of food and fellowship, then David or Oscar will share from God's word.

This past Friday night, Oscar's parents were out of town, and they told Oscar in order for them to have the study at their house, they would need a chaperone. Well, Oscar and David decided to ask Matt and I, so we went. It was an amazing thing for us to witness. Of course it was fun to sit around and hang out with students, students from all different "clicks" from the schol. But it was so powerful to watch David lead a study and discussion about the body of Christ. To listen to them pray for their fellow students, and life struggles. To hear them talk about the need to witness to those in their school, to reach out and pursue one new person each week to bring to the study. To hear them talk about how hard it will be, how they may be made fun of, but how they need to continue to press on and take on the leadership role God has called them to.

What a tremendous blessing for us to be there and to watch this happen. It is just what we needed to witness. The reminder we needed of why we followed God's call away from our home, our family and friends, to serve in Vienna, Austria at Vienna Christian School. This is why we are here, to help students in anyway possible to reach this point of maturity and leadership in their faith, even if we're just the chaperones.

Please join us in praying for this Bible study and all the students involved, as more students step up and want to share and help lead in the study. We truly believe great things will happen through this study and the leadership of these young men.

Spiritual Emphasis Week

This past week has been Spiritual Emphasis Week for the middle and high schools. This is a week where we focus on the spiritual side of life. We bring in speakers and have chapel everyday of the week. This year we had three speakers come, all from the great state of Texas: Duke Underwood from Lubbock, TX was the main speaker, a partner, Joel from Sulfer Springs, TX, and Duke's big sister, Mary Anne Kent from Austin, TX. It was really interesting to see how the three worked together, and they each brought a different dyanamic, a different perspective on life, and a different but just as powerful testimony. I think they did an amazing job, and I know many of the students were touched, challenged, and encouraged by their words.

At the end of the week, we have activities where the students can hang out with the SEW speakers in a fun atmosphere. This year they planned a Fear Factor event for the middle schoolers. We attended, but neither of us participated as they had absolutely DISGUSTING things for the kids to do.....eating marshmallows dipped in mustard....m & m's with ketchup.... carrying sardines from one side of the room to the other... drinking coke with a dirty sock around the can...and searching for clothespins in a bucket of slime with their feet. All stuff I find utterly repulsive, but of course, middle schoolers loved.

HS Boys Soccer

The high school boys soccer team in which Matt helps coach, is in the middle of their season. Unfortunately, they have had several games cancelled, which is really disappointing. However, to try and make up for their lack of games, they decided to have a staff versus student game. There was a lot of smack talk going around about the game and who would win. It was a really good game, but the students came out on top, winning by two goals. It was a really fun game for those playing, and just as fun for those of us who were watching! I don't think the staff will ever be okay with losing, so I am sure there will be plenty of rematches in the future!
On Saturday the boys played a local club team from here in Vienna. It was a bit chilly and windy, and some key players were out sick or with injuries, but we still managed to pull off a win. The final score was 4-2.

Chapel

Last week in our middle school chapel we had a prayer time at the end of chapel where the kids drew their prayer requests on huge pieces of butcher paper. There were some really neat drawings, and some that brought tears to my eyes. These students have real problems and real life issues going on in their lives right now, and it really breaks my heart. I wanted to share a some of the pictures I took of what the students drew. I pray they touch your heart as they did mine, and you will join us in prayer for these requests.

Medieval Festival

Last Saturday we travelled with some other folks from VCS to Eggenburg, Austria, about an hour drive from Vienna. Eggenburg is a really cool little town that has part of a medieval city wall still in place. The whole town is transformed for this festival. They had all kinds of entertainment (jousting, sword fighting, tight rope walking, hangings, racks, music...) and lots of yummy medieval food and drink. It only costs 3 euros to get in, but if you dressed up in a medieval costume, it only cost 1 euro. So most everyone there (except us Americans of course) were decked out in midieval attire. It really added to the atmosphere. It was a pretty cool thing to see. Anyways, there's a few pictures below.

Life is Chaos

So far this year Matt has really been enjoying coaching the high school boys. It has definitely been different, especially in time commitments. With high school, he practices more and later, and he has more games. They had their first game this past Monday against a Christian school from Budapest, Hungary. They won, 4-0! The Pacheco boys had all four goals, Oscar had 1 and his younger brother Christian had the other 3! It was a good game, although you could really tell it was their first! On top of that, Matt has begun to play on an Athletes in Action soccer team once a week. So soccer is pretty well consuming his life these days.

While Matt is off to all of his soccer stuff, I have found myself taking a different road in life. Many of you who know me well (aka-pre-wreck), know that music is a big part of who I am. I have really struggled with getting back into music since the accident. Basketball came back to me easily, music on the otherhand, was strangely gone from my mind. Last year I began to teach piano lessons, which was a great way for me to ease myself back into music and relearn everything lost with the accident. This year, I am again giving piano lessons, one saxaphone lesson (I am super excited about this) and will be helping a lot with and playing in the jazz band. Unfortunately I sold my saxaphone after the accident because I couldn't remember how to play it. Now, as I will be playing sax in the jazz band, I need one!! Anyone know of a good one for sale?!?

On a side note, elementary chapel has been a blast for me. It truly is the highlight of my week--doing what God has called me to do and what he has gifted me to do. I love it!! So far we have talked about creation, Adam and Eve sinning, and Cain and Abel. The students are great listeners and very responsive, which makes what I do even more of a blessing!

Church

Last year Matt and I really struggled in finding a church that fed us spiritually. Although there are 5 or 6 protestant churches here, none of them were meeting our spiritual needs, and many of them took over an hour to get to from our apartment.

This summer was so refreshing to us, to be able to visit so many churches and be fed by their worship and teaching. We were dreading coming back to Vienna and the lack of spiritual food we found here.

However, God is faithful and answers prayers, and always provides for our needs. We have found a church home for the year, and we are so excited about it!

We are meeting with other teachers as part of a home church. We all take turns doing different things for the service-worship, message, prayer time, communion. We end the service by continuing our fellowship over brunch.

The first Sunday we attended we knew this is where we could be fed spiritually and decided to make it our church home. This past Sunday Matt provided the message. Good friends of ours provided an amazing worship experience as he played the guitar and his wife beautifully played the viola. I was so moved by our worship experience, the words we sang, the feeling in the apartment, God touching my heart, and the beauty of the music, I couldn't help but have tears in my eyes throughout the experience.

We have already been encouraged in our faith at this church, and are looking forward to how God will use it in the future.

Riding Our Bikes

Matt and I brought our bikes back with us this summer when we returned to Vienna. All last year we were kicking ourselves for not shipping them originally, so we were very excited to bring them back with us. We have been riding them a lot-back and forth to school-evening joy rides-to church and back-running errands... It has been really nice to have them and to get the extra exercise. We realized quickly we couldn't ride them a lot of times due to our inability to carry things. So, we got racks to go over our back wheels so we can carry stuff around with us! Needless to say, having these bikes has been a tremendous blessing to us!

First Week of School

We realize it has been a while since our last post, but life here has definitely been crazy. We survived our first full week of school! As you may know we have a block schedule, which means we teach 4 (1 and 1/2 hour long) every day. Matt and I's schedules are very similar this year, we both teach 3 classes in a row on blue days (Monday-Wednesday-every other Friday). This means we get to teach for 4 and 1/2 hours in a row. Needless today, each blue day we came home with very sore throats and little voice left. We are definitely not used to talking that much or for that long! Gold days (Tuesday-Thursday-every other Friday) are our light days, we each only have 2 classes. So we will be kept busy with all of our teaching!

Matt is helping coach the high school boys soccer team, which is a change for him (he coached middle school boys soccer last year). Although I think he really enjoys working with a more advanced skill and with kids he does not teach, he does miss the extra time outside of school with the middle school boys. There just wasn't enough middle school students to have a team of their own.

So while Matt goes to soccer practice, I work at the school, go home and relax, and try to have dinner ready when he gets home. Needless to say, we've been having nice dinners every night with my free time.

I (Stephanie) have had my first introductory chapel with elementary. I was just introduced, able to talk briefly, and close the chapel with prayer. My first big chapel is coming up on Thursday afternoon, so I have a lot of work to do for it.

So that's our first week in a nutshell!

New Roles at VCS

Well as the new school year is about to begin, we wanted to tell you about a couple of new things we are adding to our ministry at VCS.

I (Matt) am still teaching the Middle School Social Studies classes, which consists of one class for each grade. However, I need to teach 5 classes to be considered full time, so I have added 7th grade Bible and Study Skills/Life Skills (a semester each). I am excited to be able to teach the Bible class, but to be honest, I am not sure how excited I am about the study skills and life skills. I am looking at changing the class so it fits me more-like adding computer skills and stuff.

Its not official yet but due to low enrollment in the Middle School, it is looking like we are not going to have enough students for athletic teams. If this is the case, then I will be freed up to be an assistant coach for the High School boys soccer team.

Stephanie is also experiencing change this year. After teaching 7th and 8th grade Bible last year in half of a block (45 minutes) she realized that was not enough time for her to cover both the Old and New Testaments. She asked administration if Bible could be a whole block, in which they said yes! So this year she will be teaching the 6th grade How to Study the Bible, 1 of the 7th grade classes the New Testament, and both 8th grade classes the Old Testament--a whole block each!

Although it was discussed last year, with the change of administration a decision could not be reached until this year, but they decided to ask Stephanie to be the Elementary Chaplain. This will put her in charge of doing or coming up with the lesson each week for elementary chapel. But because of her experience in children's ministry and knowledge of resources, she is also helping find more contemporary music for the worship leader. She is also hoping to get the elementary teachers on board and have them teach the same thing in class everyday that will be taught in chapel every week. The repetition will ensure the children are learning and understanding what is being taught, and it provides consistency in what they are learning as well. The decision being made this close to the start of the school stressed her out a bit, as she had no time to gather resources, curriculum, or prepare. However, she has covered well and after spending one evening on the phone with a fellow children's minister, she acquired a great Bible based curriculum that can be used in both the classroom and for chapel--for free! For those of you who know Stephanie well, you know her passion is in children's ministry, so she is extremely excited to say the least about God giving her this opportunity to live out the passion he has put in her heart.

As for coaching, as I said earlier, with the change in Middle School enrollment, we are not sure what athletic teams we will have, if any. So Stephanie will be playing it by ear and helping out where needed.

Last but not least, I think we have mentioned this before, but we will also be the Senior Class Sponsors. This is a job in itself, with taking care of the senior store (candy/snacks/drinks-before and after school and at break), hot lunches (twice a month-to raise money for senior trip), homeroom everyday, senior events throughout the year, and senior trip (a week long trip at the end of May). Although it is a lot of work, we are really excited to have this chance to invest in the seniors lives before they leave the VCS community. This class is a great group of kids, but many of these kids are yet to come into an intimate relationship with Christ. So we are excited for this challenge and would appreciate all prayers for us, and the seniors in this class as they live out their last year at VCS.

Back in Vienna!

Greetings from Vienna! We are so excited to be back home! It is especially nice to be back in our own place and sleeping on our own bed! There's not much to be said, but we wanted to let you all know we have made it back safe and sound. We will spend the next few days catching up with our friends here, meeting the new staff, and getting our school year started. Hopefully in the meantime, we will conquer jet lag. On Monday we start our orientation, which lasts until school starts on August 23. Please be in prayer for the start of another school year, and for the lives God will touch this year. We are excited to see how God works this year.

The Boys Return Home

DK, Oscar, and Salil have arrived back in Vienna. They left our company on Tuesday. We are sad to see them go, but we know we will be with them again in a few weeks and continue the mentoring process.

DK did a great job playing golf here in the states, and expressed his strong desire to come back next year and go to school. He played in 3 tournaments. The first was a qualifier for the US Amateur, unfortunatley it did not go so well for him and he did not qualify. However he recovered well a few weeks later and finished tied for 10th in the Missouri Junior Amateur. Then we drive to Dallas where he played really well on the first day, not so good on the second day, and then had a tournement best round on the third day to help him place 3rd overall in the tournament, only 2 shots behind the leader. After the first day the Dallas Morning News even wrote a featured story in their golf section about him. Check it out...http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/golf/stories/071907dnspodallasjuniors.30ef757.html

As we were driving to the airport, he was asked what is favorite thing about this summer was, he answered..."All the driving, because we were able to communicate and talk a lot."

Oscar had a great time at soccer camp and was invited to possibly play at Washington University. Stephanie and are are looking forward to starting the College search with Oscar and getting him into a school that is a great fit for him. If you have some college soccer contacts, please let us know and we will see if it is right for Oscar. His favorite thing about the summer was the time he spent at Shiloh Christian Children's Ranch with Stephanie's family.

Salil also had a great time at soccer camp and is looking at school's not as competitive as Washington Unversity. Thomas, is going to be working more with Salil during his senior year. We only spent 10 days with Salil, so we don't have as much to share about him and his summer but his favorite thing about his time with us was the chance to see a few universities (see below).

There are plenty of pictures to come....stay tuned!

Prayers for Matt and His Family

Last night, July 11, we heard from Matt's mom that his grandmother, Esther Clapham, passed away, which was very unexpected. She was in the hospital for hip replacement surgery, and was okay. She went to take a nap yesterday evening and never woke up. It was just a month ago when his grandfather, Donald Clapham passed away. So this is a lot on the family in a short time. Especially for Matt's mom who has spent the last year living with her parents and caring for them. Please be in prayer for Matt's mom Cathy as she handles the loss of both of her parents in such a short time.

We had just arrived in Dexter, Missouri to visit my Grandma Tuley and family for the weekend on Wednesday afternoon. So when we received the news last night at 11:00 we made plans for Matt to travel to be with his family. So this morning we rented him a car, he drove back to Saint Louis to the airport, where he flew to Oklahoma City, rented a car and picked up his brother and sister's family and is driving to Larned, Kansas this evening. This is a lot of extra expenses we did not have budgetd, but we have faith that God will provide. The funeral will be Saturday so please be in prayer for the Clapham family.

On Saturday we were scheduled to leave for Dallas to speak at a church Sunday morning. Now I will be driving myself and the boys down to Dallas, which is an 8 hour drive from Dexter. I will also be giving the presentation on my own on Sunday morning. I am okay with all of this, but please be in prayer for me, that we'll have safe travels and that God will speak through me on Sunday morning at church.

Thanks for your prayers and support, its what gets us through.

First Days in the States

Here are a few pictures from our first days in the States for Dk and Oscar. The first is them eating a "Vienna" hot dog in the Chicago airport. The next two are from their dinner at Cracker Barrel.

The Last 2 Weeks

We have been quite busy since arriving in Missouri, but what a blessing our time here has already been. I will give you a recap of whats been going on since arriving stateside.

June 13th: Getting Home
We found it quite interesting in Chicago that the customs officer was way nicer to the boys than to Matt and I. Our officer asked us so many questions in a not so nice tone of voice, while the boys custom officer was cracking jokes, laughing and smiling-even speaking Spanish with Oscar.
However our flights home were nice and smooth. We really liked flying straight into Chicago and then only having a one hour flight from there to Saint Louis.
Matt's mom was able to fly in about 20 minutes before us, which worked out perfect. As we were walking towards the baggage claim, Matt said, there's your parents, so I turned to look, and lo and behold, there was mom running and waving her hands and dad crutching as fast as he could towards us. Then my brother, his wife, Grace and Samuel who I had not met yet, surprised us by being there to greet us as well. It was a great time of reunion.
We ate at Cracker Barrell for dinner before heading home. The boys couldn't get over all of the options they had to choose from. Then when they chose their main dish, they couldn't believe they had to choose the three sides. It was entertaining.

June 16th: Stephanie's Birthday
Before the big party, we had a little party of our own to celebrate Amy and I's birthdays. I was so blessed with gifts and cards, and mom even made my favorite: great grandma's cheesecake. Yum!! Even the boys got me something which was super sweet, and what they wrote in their card had me rolling in laughter.
Although we were expecting more people to show up for the party, we still had a lot of my (Steph's) family come. It was really nice to be able to see and visit with them. We gave a short presentation of our year in Austria and then allowed them to ask us and the boys questions. It was a good time had by all.

June 17th: First Christian Church of Shelbina
We were able to set up a booth in the church foyer which allowed us to talk and share about our ministry with many people. It was nice to see people we had not seen in a long time and catch up with them and share about our life in Vienna.

June 23rd: Christian Day with the Saint Louis Cardinals
My mom was able to get us all free tickets to go to see the Cardinals play. Before the game they had fun stuff to do at a block around the corner with free Chic-fil-A and Coldstone Creamery ice cream. The game was HOT and DK brought pants to wear-he was quite toasty. Towards the end of the game a thunderstorm rolled in which cooled things off nicely. After the game some of the Cardinal players like Wainwright the pitcher, Pujols and others gave a brief testimony. Mercy Me was also there in concert.

June 24th: Northside Christian Church in Warrensburg, MO
What a blessing this church family has been to us. We worked there on the weekends in 2003, helping out with their children's ministry and ever since, this family has been a blessing to us. We were able to see old friends, and "our kids" all grown up. One of our grown up kids came and gave us big hugs. We were also able to see our adopted grandparents, Cliff and Dot who we stayed with every weekend during our time serving at Northside. We surprised them in coming which was a lot of fun. We were able to attend the anniversary picnic the church had that afternoon/evening which was a great time. There we were able to give a presentation about VCS and share some of our first year experiences. We were tremendously blessed by the worship and time spent in fellowship with them. Overall, we are so thankful to be serving Northside in Vienna. We are so thankful and blessed to be a part of a family of Christ like Northside.
This is also the day we sent the boys to churchcamp with my sisters who are the same age as them. The churchamp is just across the lake from my parents house so Matt is still able to take DK into town to golf in preparation for his tournaments. So far I think the boys are having a great time here, living on the farm and all that it entails. Hopefully during their time at camp they will be able to make new friends and meet God in a new and challenging way.

Until next time...

Welcome!

We have been debating for quite some time now about changing our blog. We like the one we had, but it is hard to add pictures to our posts with it. Since we want you to be able to see lots of pictures, we decided we should switch to a blog that is better for picture posting! So welcome to our new blog where we hope you will enjoy more and better pictures in the future!