Both our kiddos started school the week of August 18th!  Arthur began first grade with familiar faces—his kindergarten teacher (Mrs. Comer) “looped” and is now teaching first grade with the same class of kids.  We are thrilled, because she loves the Lord and our experience with her last year was great.  Arthur enjoys school and we’re happy about how well he’s adjusted into a schedule that is pretty full between school, homework and eye therapy exercises.

Our little Kat also began pre-school for the very first time!  We’ve seen some maturing over the last month or so, which we have been hoping would happen before we had to send her out into the world.  She was very excited about starting.  Overall it has been a very positive experience for the whole family.  She is actually attending the same Christian pre-school Arthur went to during our STINT year, so it is fun to see some familiar faces and have her in a program we already love.

Please pray for all of us as we adjust to a life stage and schedule that is very new, especially for Katherine and me (Karen).  I have been presented with enough tempting “opportunities” to fill literally every child-free minute with Cru work, church-related activities and volunteering at schools.  I am excited to step into a role as a Missional Coach (we talked about this months ago in a newsletter but it was called “Transition Coaching” at that point).  I’m really excited to come alongside people and help them process “living on God’s mission” wherever they are.  Would you please join me in praying for wisdom in using my time and energy?  Certain priorities and roles are obvious, so I want to trust that “the rest of it” will become clear over time 🙂

For us, this has been the Summer of Doctors!  Karen started a heavy regimen of chiropractor visits to correct multiple spinal issues, including a complete lack of curve in her neck vertebrae.  Karen has had terrible trouble with exhaustion, allergies and low immune system ever since college.  In the past 2 months, however, we’ve seen incredible progress in her quality of health, which has been a huge blessing to us as a family!  It’s also greatly helped us to minister to people around us and to take care of the kids’ medical needs.

Arthur began eye therapy, a true God-story even in the discovery of this alternative to surgery.  We discovered that double-vision causes him to subconsciously disable his left eye, resulting in his having only 1% of normal depth perception.  It was heartbreaking for us as we put on glasses that simulated the world through his eyes.  Still, we’ve already seen improvement to the point where, about 4 weeks in, Arthur wore 3D glasses and shouted “there are things popping out of the screen!”  He is starting to use both eyes at once which will mean wonders for his coordination, writing and a slew of other areas! Please pray!

     Of course no battery of doctor visits would be complete without a family dental trip.  Poor Katherine had 5 cavities!  It blew our minds, considering how small she is and how consistent we’ve been with brushing (she even  likes to floss… who does that?), but they said it can happen sometimes no matter what you do.  Well, God answered prayers and turned 5 cavities into 2 on our follow-up with the pediatric specialist, but she will still need to have oral sedation while they grind away half of 2 teeth and cover them with metal caps :(. Please pray!

As you can see, these appointments fail to dampen the family’s spirit of fun and warmth.  The kids bicker in spurts, but most of the time they are a delight to each other and to us!

Thanks for praying!

We have both been praying that God would use our move to Orlando to allow us to minister to family and friends as a place of rest and rejuvenation when they visit.  That was really put to the test this month, which has been a marathon of visitors.  It started with Karen’s mom, Grammy, who stayed for 2.5 weeks!  We had missed her so much since we last saw her in early October, and we were all blessed by how well such a long visit went, looking forward to seeing each other again (much sooner this time we hope).

Next, our good friends CG and Liz from PA came for a quick visit.  We had fun and they grilled us with really good questions about parenting in preparation for their new baby!  We’re pretty sure we didn’t steer them irreparably wrong 🙂

Finally, we had an extended visit with beloved friends, Sean and Maria, who served with us in the NJ college ministry.  They are in the midst of some major life decisions, and we were so glad to be able to minister to them and pray with them as they navigated their many possible futures.

Arthur and Katherine have such big hearts to pray for and minister to people around them, after they’ve finished bouncing off the walls trying to impress the new people that is :).  We have loved having so many people here to love.

Karen has begun to see a chiropractor, who almost immediately helped relieve lingering symptoms from the concussion sustained in April.  We are excited to see energy and overall physical health increasing.  Our kids are also thrilled to see God answering their prayers for Mommy to get better.  We love their hearts and instinct to pray.  A few weeks ago, Arthur prayed for me to “grow and keep growing into a warrior of God.”  He prayed that I would “have good days, not mind the bad da

ys, and forget the bad days in the past.”  Praise God for these wonderful little people that we get to share life with!