Catching Up

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