New School Year

School started Friday so we opened up Trdna Skala for 4 hours Friday night for all the students to come and hang out and find out some things planned for the fall. A half hour before we were officially open 10 students were already there! By the end of the night, we had more students than we had places for them to sit. More encouraging than the packed student center are some of the relationships that are really developing.

A group of students that we have known for a year now were outside talking and asked me if we were going to study the Bible again this year because they had really liked the study we did last school year. I also gave Bibles to Tilen and Aljaz, two of my closest friends here, and asked if we could get together after school once a week and study something together. They both thanked me very much and Aljaz even said, "I think I will read this now." I suggested he start in John but he said that when he starts a book he starts at the beginning and smiled a little. We will have a great year together.

Standing there in Trdna Skala packed with students I kept thinking of the verse where Jesus looked out at the harvest fields and told the disciples that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few and to pray for workers. Please pray for workers over here. We are waiting for Erin Thomas to finish support raising and come back and the Ricklicks will be heading up the Jr. High this year. We are so thankful for them. Pray for Slovene workers to understand Christ's heart and live in relationship with Christ with their peers. Pray for Anja, Tjasa, Nika, Tilen, and Aljaz. We are falling in love with these guys as we see Christ changing their hearts. They are such a blessing and encouragement to us.

We have a lot planned for this fall so we could use your prayers for strength and wisdom especially as we adjust to an expanding ministry and being a big happy family : ) Expanding family and ministry requires an expanding bank account. We will be presenting Trdna Skala and what's happining in the community to business leaders in the area in the next few months to begin relationships and awareness for the future. Our hope is that the community would really get behind what is happening at Trdna Skala and eventually be an indigenous ministry, owned by the community.

Here are some fun things we're enjoying about being new parents!

• Marriage proposals for our daughter even though she's only 5 1/2 weeks old!
• Little smiles that melt your heart, especially early in the morning!
• A hungry baby will latch onto anything within her mouth's range, especially noses and chins!
• A new bedtime hour...9:30pm!
• A second bedtime hour...midnight!
• A third bedtime hour....4 am!
• Our Slovene vocabulary is expanding, everything for "baby" is like learning a new language!
• A sleep deprived mother can mistake a husbands arm for the baby!
• The longest (& loudest) walk is from the rocking chair to the crib!
• And lastly...we never knew you had to dodge things while changing a baby girl's diaper!

All in all we're just loving life as 3 now! It's been an adjustment for us, that's for sure...our house isn't clean anymore and hasn't been for the last 5 1/2 weeks, we're functioning on little sleep these days and things are taking longer than ever to do! But our little girl is growing healthy and strong and that's what's most important! We are so grateful for your prayers and notes, cards and emails of encouragement! Thank you so much!