Hey Everyone,
Since I last wrote to you, we have hosted a Men's Grill and Chill, a Ladies' Night, and Breakfast on the Go. The Men's Grill and Chill mainly consisted of children : / While the hope was that I got a little break, I ended up staying for the whole event to be crowd control. The kids were great, though, and we utilized them with set-up and even clean-up and they had so much fun. They even volunteered for next time. The few men that came that night, provided some excellent meat that made the whole night worth it. Also there was a group of young men that came late and sat right down to talk with Steve. They had attended our very first event as well and did the same thing. They stayed quite a bit later than our projected ending time. Things like that are always exciting to see.
The Ladies' Night had a small attendance, but it was a lot of fun. We closed the rental office and made it all cute, made chocolate fondue and coffee, and had a lady come in to do facials and a lady to sell candles. It was all new faces, which is a little disappointing, but at the same time exciting to know that more and more people are hearing about us.
The breakfast on the go was yesterday morning. Steve had to go to work and I didn't end up getting any help so we were not able to man both sides of the street. I picked the side that had the office and set up my donuts and Starbucks coffee. It was a hit. I was super popular with the school kids! I was encouraged to notice that I recognized an awful lot of people and even remembered a number of names. I also met a lot of new people and peaked some interests.
Steve and I settling in more and more. We are discovering a list of supplies that we need to have at all times. Recently the regional director for the company that owns our apartment, has offered to pay for some of the things on our list! Praise God! The problem is that we have no space for those things. Our complex has no clubhouse and absolutely not storage space. We are having space issues that just are not being remedied, so the latest talk is that we may be moving into a two-bedroom to save us and the staff the frustrations we have been experiencing.
There is a small handful of people that Steve and I have connected with a number of times. I have three different women into our home on a couple of different occassions. One woman was here yesterday using our computer and she stayed for two hours! We did not go deep, but we were real with each other and I am developing a respect for her. My hope is that she is doing the same toward me. Please pray for Tonya and her heart and my words when we spend time together.
Whenever Steve and I are out together, it seems he always runs into some other man that he met at one of our events. They end up talking and I end up leaving them alone to talk for an hour! It is interesting to see that sometimes the men are more willing to talk openly than the women. For a month or so, Steve has been developing a friendship with a neighbor named Phillip. They have had some good and long conversations, but yesterday as we were handing out October calendars, we noticed that he and his family had moved. That was our first neighbor to move away and far from our last, but still it was sad.
I know that I failed to post last month's calendar. I was having difficulties retrieving it from a pdf folder. I will try again to retrieve the October calendar so that you all know what's going on!
Thank you for your prayers and please begin praying for these neighbors as we tell you about them. And let this be an encouragement to you to begin praying for your own neighbors.
In Him,
Steve and Rebekah
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Ice Cream Handout
Hey Everyone,
I have two orders of business today.
1. We had the funnest event so far yesterday! Steve and I obtained the possession of the apartment golf cart that maintanance uses, we packed the back with a cooler full of ice cream and cones, and headed off around the property! We caught so many people. We even got people out of the pool to come get an ice cream cone! All ages and all people groups enjoy a good ice cream cone. We got kids, older men, older women, college kids, highschool kids, Hispanics, blacks, and whites. We had numerous opportunities to tell people that yes we live here, too, and why do we do this? Because we want to. That threw a lot of people off. I got to use my Spanish a bit with two ladies. One was visiting her sister, and between my attempts to reach them in their language, and the guesture of free ice cream, she was very impressed. She told me I am welcome in her home in Mexico anytime! I only knew her for 5 minutes.
I think we really got the word out about ourselves yesterday, which was very encouraging. The ice cream went over so well, we decided to do it again soon with the left over ice cream : )
2. On a more personal side, Steve and I have made some important decisions lately that effect us greatly, so I wanted to share them with you.
We have been searching for months now for health insurance coverage for me with my epilepsy. We've looked everywhere and tried everything, but nothing came up. We did discover ACCESS, which we had heard positive things about, but didn't have much faith in, so we didn't want to go that direction.
Also, I had been struggling to get hours at my job a few months ago and then found a perfect new job, so I quit the old one. After two weeks at my new job, I and a few others were let go until they could afford us again. Now I am without a job and Steve and I decided that jumping right into a new job might not actually be the right decision. So we thought and prayed about it for about two weeks. The other night, we came back to discuss where we felt we were being led. Seperately, we both feel that I am not supposed to get another job. We feel strongly that my place is now at home, where I can focus attention on CARES and on our neighbors and on women in our church, and possibly on volunteering in linguistic areas, which is what I have been waiting to have the opportunity to do.
Not having a job also means we have eliminated an opportunity to get one that provides insurance for me. So we are still without insurance. That is the other decision we made. While we understand the world will find us irresponsible, we have recognized that God has allowed this disorder in my life and He will take care of me. We have decided to get ACCESS, but after that, we put our full trust in God and His provision.
He has been so faithful and His presence has been so sweet in our lives over the last few months. He is teaching us so much and drawing us closer to Him and to each other. The day after we made these decisions, we both felt so much peace about it. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders and that I had nothing left to do or figure out - just to fall into His hands and trust Him.
Praise God for His love and faithfulness!
- Steve and Rebekah
I have two orders of business today.
1. We had the funnest event so far yesterday! Steve and I obtained the possession of the apartment golf cart that maintanance uses, we packed the back with a cooler full of ice cream and cones, and headed off around the property! We caught so many people. We even got people out of the pool to come get an ice cream cone! All ages and all people groups enjoy a good ice cream cone. We got kids, older men, older women, college kids, highschool kids, Hispanics, blacks, and whites. We had numerous opportunities to tell people that yes we live here, too, and why do we do this? Because we want to. That threw a lot of people off. I got to use my Spanish a bit with two ladies. One was visiting her sister, and between my attempts to reach them in their language, and the guesture of free ice cream, she was very impressed. She told me I am welcome in her home in Mexico anytime! I only knew her for 5 minutes.
I think we really got the word out about ourselves yesterday, which was very encouraging. The ice cream went over so well, we decided to do it again soon with the left over ice cream : )
2. On a more personal side, Steve and I have made some important decisions lately that effect us greatly, so I wanted to share them with you.
We have been searching for months now for health insurance coverage for me with my epilepsy. We've looked everywhere and tried everything, but nothing came up. We did discover ACCESS, which we had heard positive things about, but didn't have much faith in, so we didn't want to go that direction.
Also, I had been struggling to get hours at my job a few months ago and then found a perfect new job, so I quit the old one. After two weeks at my new job, I and a few others were let go until they could afford us again. Now I am without a job and Steve and I decided that jumping right into a new job might not actually be the right decision. So we thought and prayed about it for about two weeks. The other night, we came back to discuss where we felt we were being led. Seperately, we both feel that I am not supposed to get another job. We feel strongly that my place is now at home, where I can focus attention on CARES and on our neighbors and on women in our church, and possibly on volunteering in linguistic areas, which is what I have been waiting to have the opportunity to do.
Not having a job also means we have eliminated an opportunity to get one that provides insurance for me. So we are still without insurance. That is the other decision we made. While we understand the world will find us irresponsible, we have recognized that God has allowed this disorder in my life and He will take care of me. We have decided to get ACCESS, but after that, we put our full trust in God and His provision.
He has been so faithful and His presence has been so sweet in our lives over the last few months. He is teaching us so much and drawing us closer to Him and to each other. The day after we made these decisions, we both felt so much peace about it. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders and that I had nothing left to do or figure out - just to fall into His hands and trust Him.
Praise God for His love and faithfulness!
- Steve and Rebekah
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