Preparing For Our New Adventure!

Happy New Year! We hope you are all excited and eager to see what God has planned for you in this new year. Our year will be full of excitement and new adventures! We would like to give you an update as to what God has in store for us this year...

First, I need to catch you up to date. About 5 years ago Carrie began to feel God calling her to missions work. After much prayer and seeking God for the details, 3 years later Clem felt the same calling. We knew at that point that God was asking us to submit fully to Him and His plan for our lives, and that he was asking us to commit to full time missions work. We began by contacting the International Mission Board in September 2007. After 15 months of preparations with the IMB, we're just about ready to head out...

As missionaries, we will be serving in an administrative support role to missionaries serving in Europe as church planters, teachers, doctors, media specialists, IT specialists, etc. Clem will serve as an office manager in a field office in Prague, Czech Republic. A few of his responsibilities will include obtaining Visas, property/housing, transportation, and obtaining travel on and off the field. He will be handling the necessary details that will enable the missionaries on the field to focus on their duties and to perform the tasks that God has gifted them to do. In addition to Clem's office duties, he is eager to reach out into the community and find opportunities for evangelism. You can be in prayer with him about what these opportunities might be, and that he recognize these opportunities when God presents them. Clem has a dream of evangelizing through his new found interest of playing his guitar. Based off of our recent family caroling over Christmas, you might add to your prayer list that he either be given that gift, or that he realizes he needs to find a new gig! :)

Carrie will be mom first. We still have Hunter and Allie as top priorities in our home. That will not change. But she will be using her role as mother and wife as a witnessing tool to our soon to be Czech neighbors and friends. She will be inviting our neighbors and friends into our home, forming relationships with them, and together, all of us as a family, will show them by example what a Christ-centered marriage and family looks like. She will also be working to form relationships with the other mother's in the neighborhood, at the park, on the kids' sports teams, or through inviting their children to come over and play in our home with our children. Our hope is that all of these relationships that we're hoping to build with the Czech people will lead to their interest in hearing about Jesus' gift of salvation to them.

Hunter says he's excited to learn the Czech language, however, he's a little concerned it will be hard to learn. His descriptive word of choice is "cool". He thinks it will be cool to live in another country, it will be cool to be a missionary kid, and it will be cool to get to tell other people about Jesus. His exact words were "I'm happy that God has chosen us to go tell people around the world about Jesus". That doesn't take away the fact that he's a little scared about the move, but he says that knowing God wants us there makes it easier and not as scary. He's also decided that it will be cool to come back to the U.S. in a few years and speak in Czech so that nobody knows what he's saying. He says it can be our own special family "code".

Allie thinks it will be fun to have new Czech friends. She's excited to have friends from different countries, and be able to speak different languages with them. She's convinced that she'll learn the language faster than mom and dad...and so are we!! She has decided that it will be really cool getting to tell other kids at school, or at the park about Jesus. She admits she's a little scared for the move ahead, but knows she'll be happy once she makes new friends. Her exact words were "I feel really, really happy about going where God wants us to go".

We are SO blessed to have a 9 year old and a 6 year old who are willing to trust the calling that we have received from God and embrace this new adventure as well as they have. My prayer has been, and will continue to be that God uses this experience in their lives to draw them closer to Him and to show them that He is very much real, and that He is very much alive and moving in the world around them.

What happens now? Well, we're glad you asked! Currently, the last "detail" to take care of before heading out is the sale of our house. Once that occurs we will be heading out as quickly as possible. We're hoping this will occur quickly, but are trying to wait patiently on God's timing. Over the years we have learned the hard way that God's timing is always better than our own...and this "event" is no different. We're hoping to arrive in Virginia for 8 weeks of training and orientation the middle of April, and then arrive in Prague the end of June. We'll be able to give you a better time frame once the house sells.

What can you do? PRAY with us! I would like to end each posting with our current prayer requests.

* Please pray for the sale of our home and that all details pertaining to the sale be smooth and "glitch" free :) !

* Pray for our patience while waiting, that we will look at this time as an opportunity to continue to prepare our family for the changes ahead.

* Pray for our children and their adjustment to the changes that are coming in our lives. Pray that they gain an understanding of the joy that comes when one is willing to be obedient to God's will in their lives.

* And finally, please pray for spiritual strength for each of us against Satan's attacks. He doesn't want us serving God in this capacity and will do whatever he deems necessary to either keep us off the field, or to discourage us once we arrive.

We are so excited about God's plan for our family! We can't wait to arrive and begin serving Him among the Czech people. And we can't wait to send you our pictures and stories from our new home.

We will send more updates as we draw closer to our time of departure!

With Love,

Clem, Carrie, Hunter & Allie