Slovenia performing arts camp

One of our teammates Katarina Bordner is a very gifted woman in so many ways. But music is her great passion. She's had a dream for years now to host a camp that would reach out to students through performing arts. Well this year the Lord lined up all the pieces and I wish you could have been there to see it happen!

29 students spent a week at the coast of Slovenia learning dance moves, receiving vocal coaching and rehearsing drama productions. A team of very qualified Americans including a choreographer who works for Disneyland among others; joined together with talented believing Slovenes and produced an outreach performance that was so vital and alive!

One of the things that was repeated was the unity that was produced among the group was so deep and personal. This group bonded together in a unique way. We're asking the Lord in what way we can use this as we have used English camps in order to reach this generation for Christ through this new medium.

There have been just a few times in our 8 years here that I have thought to myself, Wow! We've been waiting for this to happen! This was one of those times! We're so grateful for Katka and the way she uses her gifts for God's glory, for the team of Americans and Slovenes who worked together at great cost, and for this new door that has opened!

Dan and Barb Evans

Can I just ask you to pray right now for our dear friend Barb Evans and her husband Dan? They are friends of ours from our Malachi days and they are facing a difficulty that I can hardly imagine.

Just a few weeks ago they learned that Barb has a tumor in her brain. She went through surgery a couple days ago and her prognosis is not good. In surgery they learned that her cancer is terminal. She's hardly been awake since then for her husband Dan to even talk her through what they are facing. They have two young children and have spent their lives loving military people and pointing them to Jesus.

If you want to go to their posts on twitter you can find it at http://www.twitter.com/danbarbevans
You'll be able to pray for them better and hear from Dan firsthand his agony of the heart and full trust in the Father for them all. Josh and I are praying for healing for Barb and for peace, peace, wonderful peace as they live through these days resting sweetly in Jesus' control.

Family Vacation

This year a bunch of our vacation time has been used up on getting into the house. But we thought we'd better get the kids out on some other type of adventure before our "lazy" days of summer are gone! So we headed into the mountains to go hiking. Here in Slovenia they have these great huts where you can hike to, eat and sleep there and then hike on to another place if you like. So we found one we thought would suit our kids' ages and hiked there.This is the Ajdovska deklica in the mountain face. A natural formation of the rocks! Amazing! Translated she's the Buckwheat girl! I loved as we hiked on hearing Josh's response to their questions.
Dad, do you think God did that on purpose?
Absolutely!
Why?
'Cause everything he does is on purpose!
We like to take vacations where Scout can come with us. He jumped in a lake to make friends with the ducks there. We laughed so hard as he stood in the water and pointed! He also got to herd some sheep for the ladies running the koča we stayed in.

Luke is quite the little hiker! His grandfathers would have loved to see him in action! We blamed the easy route on Luke but I he set the pace a bit fast for me. I don't know what I'll do next year! They'll all know it was me slowing us down!

KRIŽ

KRIZ is our school of theology for young leaders. There is no Bible school in Slovenia for students to attend. So three summers ago we began this program to help our young leaders be grounded in God's word and have a good overview of the Bible.
KRIŽ means "cross" in Slovene. And the letters stand for K- Kristus (Christ) R- Resnica (truth) I- Integriteta (integrity) Ž -Življene (life). Every year we have some amazing teachers come and our students get to live life with them for 2 weeks in the summer in an amazing location called Sveti Jost. They sit around tables and read scripture, learn bible study methods, ask honest questions, wrestle with the text and meet individually as well as corporately. Then during the school year once a month are follow up courses that follow the same pattern. It's designed to be a 2 year course and so this year we celebrated our first graduation! Neja, Katka, Mateja, Mišo and Gašper made so many sacrifices over these three summers and two years in order to complete this program. Such a great example of the verse, "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches. But let him who boasts boast about this. That he knows and understands me."
It was so moving to be a witness that evening. Josh reminded them of what a great work the Lord had done in the five of them. And the call on their lives for this country. Slovenia needs these young leaders who are looking to the Lord. Then we laid our hands on these students and prayed for them and praised the Lord for the work he's done and will continue to do through them.
Our pastor Zvonko made the trip up the mountain to share in the event and speak to this special group. I wish you could have been there to see him! So much passion and joy over these students and God's goodness to this country! His words were certainly the out pouring of the Holy Spirit's leading!
Please pray for these students and the other like them who continue in the program. Pray for the word of the Lord to dwell richly in them because we know that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks!

Kendra's cute new hair cut

Took Kendra to get a hair cut yesterday. Well, I took Blake too. His hair was almost as long as hers! But her new style is just so cute I thought you'd like to see a pic!

Luke's 3rd Birthday

Luke's 3rd birthday was actually over a month ago. But we didn't have internet when we moved. It took awhile to get things up and running. Plus all the business of camp and well... I'm just now getting around to blogging about it all.I decided not to have his party at our new house. What with the stairs with no railing and the open light sockets.... just sounded like more excitement than one wants at a three year olds birthday party. So we headed over to Super Nova and made use of the free kids play place. Fun times were had by all. Especially in the ball pit!
Then Josh ran around and got ice cream cone orders and we sang Happy Birthday in both languages!
Next were presents and Josh's mom and dad hit it out of the park with this little bike thing. You make it go by twisting on the steering wheel. Everyone had a turn! Even the big kids. Luke and his faithful friend Abby took turns driving around the mall.
My parents had sent money but with all the chaos I hadn't gone out and bought Luke a gift from them. So we decided to take him to the toy store and let him choose something. He ended up with this very fun "electric" guitar with microphone and light up glasses. Check out Hondo and Trisha Wynn's blog to see his performance for them the next morning!