“Friday Updates” is a lovely little concept invented by my friend Matt Snyder. Every week he does a quick little blog ‘updating’ his readers on what life looked like that week. “Quick little blogs” are not an easy thing for me; as a writer I toil over my blogs, editing and re-editing what I want to say, and adding just the right pictures. All that means I have a list a mile long of “great blogs” I want to write and share, but haven’t found the time to!
SO- all that rambling to say, while I still have some great blogs I want to share with you (coming soon! Keep an eye out!) I think I’m going to try this “Friday Update” thing for a while, just so you’re all in the loop of the every-changing life of a missionary. Let me know what you think!
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The Highs and Lows
Organization. Many of you who know me are LAUGHING right now, because you know I’ve never been very good at that word! I’m much too scatter-brained, always running a thousand places at once. Well, moving 4 times in the past 2 years has certainly made me work towards it more, and as Rusty and I have started our NEW life together, I am DETERMINED to be organized! This week I worked on organizing our office space (which has been the ‘junk room’ for the past 4 months!) Almost all the boxes have been sorted and the contents put into their place. We are hoping it will just be a few more weeks until we have desks and a REAL office space! The couch, coffeetable, and TV tray are not my ideal workspace 🙁
Exhortation. That’s a fancy word for encouragement, which I got today
through a facebook message. It really made my morning, and made me
think about how much MORE we, as Christians, should encourage each
other DAILY! Even if it’s just a little facebook message. Try it – the more personal and sincere the better. I’m
sure your friends, family, and co-workers would be blessed by it!
through a facebook message. It really made my morning, and made me
think about how much MORE we, as Christians, should encourage each
other DAILY! Even if it’s just a little facebook message. Try it – the more personal and sincere the better. I’m
sure your friends, family, and co-workers would be blessed by it!
Speaking to students. Sunday night I had a speaking engagement at a local college ministry here in Port Huron. It was a great opportunity to share my story with the students and answer their questions about mission work! We really enjoyed our time there, and were blessed by their enthusiasm. They also bought $270 of merchandise that supports orphans in Swaziland! THANK YOU to all of you who gave!
444. That’s the number of letters I’m currently working on (unless I
miscounted…which is very possible with so many of them!) Our
support-raising has been very tough lately, another fun part of our
lovely economy <insert sarcasm here>. So we are working to send
out prayer cards and a personal note to all our newsletter recipients,
and hoping for more support. VERY time consuming to say the least! The
UP-side? I get to write all the people I love and appreciate who
support us in prayer or financially. It’s nice to be able to say
‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘we miss you’ in a handwritten note! If you
get our newsletters- keep an eye on a mailbox near YOU! 😉 If you don’t
and would like to support us, please click here Support Me! Any amount helps!
miscounted…which is very possible with so many of them!) Our
support-raising has been very tough lately, another fun part of our
lovely economy <insert sarcasm here>. So we are working to send
out prayer cards and a personal note to all our newsletter recipients,
and hoping for more support. VERY time consuming to say the least! The
UP-side? I get to write all the people I love and appreciate who
support us in prayer or financially. It’s nice to be able to say
‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘we miss you’ in a handwritten note! If you
get our newsletters- keep an eye on a mailbox near YOU! 😉 If you don’t
and would like to support us, please click here Support Me! Any amount helps!
Family dinner. As often as possible, we try to get the ‘family’ (ie- our co-workers, who are also our dear friends here) together for ‘Family Dinner’. We shoot for once a week, but it’s tough to do with so many people in and out of town (people here are traveling overseas all the time!) This week we got together at Michael and Kathy’s house for pizza, wings, and yummy brownies…it was good to be with the ones we love! (Kim, Jake, and Caroline- you were missed!)
Homesickness. Yup, it finally hit and it is NOT FUN! Though we have dear friends who love us here, I am missing my friends and family back home a lot lately. God bless my husband for his patience with my tears! More to come about that later…for now, prayers appreciated!
Dead computer. Well, this is definitely a LOW. For those of you who don’t know, Rusty was held at gunpoint last summer and his computer (with all his awesome video-editing software) was STOLEN. Thanks to generous friends, he’s been using ‘hand-me-downs’ since then. The most recent died yesterday; NOT a good thing for someone whose daily work requires a computer! We are currently exploring options- trying to decide if ‘cheap and used’ is the way to go, or if we should invest in something that will LAST and allow him to get back into video. Please pray God will provide!
Pillow-fights. Who says you’re too old? Rusty and I acted like kids and got into a pillow-fight last night. I laughed until my sides hurt! In those moments I was not worried about dead-computers or support raising or feeling homesick, I was just thankful that God created laughter! I would recommend it highly as ‘therapy’ for any of you feeling stressed…little kids definitely have the ‘fun’ category figured out! 🙂
Okay- that’s all I can think of for now…let me know if you would like to see these updates each week! For more pictures of our life lately, check out Rusty’s photo page.
Love you all and of course, HAPPY FRIDAY!
I LOVE it! Good job, Ericka : )
I love the weekly updates! I also have a Dell laptop that has a completely cleaned hard drive. It was my old work computer, but every 2 years ADA gets new computers. It doesn’t have anything in terms of software, but let me know if ya’ll might be interested in it. Also.. not sure if you’ve checked with your local Best Buy, but ours down here do a TON of charitable giving.
YEAH!!! I’d vote for a daily update but will settle for 1 a week! I miss you sooooo much but I’m sorry you’re homesick! Try to keep busy..it sounds like you have plenty to do. Even if all of your old family and friends can’t be there with you right now you have new family and friends who are there and most important you have a God who’s always right there with you no matter where you are! He’ll never leave you so cling to Him and Rusty and trust that you’re in His will! 🙂 I Love You BUNCHES! Mom