posted by Ted on Jul 17
click here for the entire thing
The two most common comments we receive on our newsletters are “I love the pictures” and “I always mean to read them, but never get around to it.” That said, this month there are a lot less words and a whole lot more pictures. I hope you’ll let us know what you think.
posted by Ted on Jun 4
Can you believe this is 510lbs of luggage? How about that this doesn’t include our carryons in the trunk of the other car? 
Our first stop was Boston’s Logan International Airport. You can see the sign above the kid’s heads, but it’s a bit hard to read. Frankfurt, Germany, 3671 Miles.
Faith was very excited to change some left over birthday money into Euros.
Shortly before we boarded the plane, Faith asked me, “Daddy, is this real? Because this happens to me all the time, and then I wake up and it wasn’t real.”
This is as real as it gets. Somewhat the worse for wear after 15 hours of travel, we arrived in Basel, Switzerland, our luggage trailing endlessly off into the horizon…
We looked a lot better the next day after a little bit of rest.
Day two in Germany, after some settling, setting up a bank account, and registering with the town, we took the kids to see the storks in Holzen, a near by village.
One of the most incredible blessings God has provided for us as we arrived here, has been the tremendous support we have received from the Greater Europe Mission staff people. In this picture, you can see Brandy with Sara Meyer, wife of my supervisor, Jim, admiring the storks. Because we’re such a large family, the Meyers have been driving us everywhere in two cars, which since we’re running many errands trying to work out school for the kids, navigating the German buerocracy, and get heating oil for our house (which is preventing us from having hot water) the Meyers have been a tremendous help. Not to mention they’ve been acting as interpreters for us. But they aren’t the only ones! Our neighbors down the street, the Bonhams, put us up in their home for several nights, and they and the Meyers have been taking turns feeding us since we got here.
Saturday morning, GemStone Media had our first team building event, as the whole crew traveled to nearby Switzerland to view some Roman ruins. It was a nice time, allowing the kids to get a sense of Europe’s rich cultural history, and giving us a chance to connect with our new colleagues.
For Isaac and Faith, it was another great excuse to have an ice cream.
In so many ways this is such a surreal experience. We wake up each morning and look out at the farmer’s fields on the other side of the hill, and the mists make everything hazy and dream like. I keep having to remind myself this isn’t a dream. Part of our training was to prepare us for culture shock. We’re in the tourist phase now, where everything is charming and wonderful. But lingering our there in the distance are the language barrier, all the little cultural snags we’re just beginning to learn, like always saying hello and good bye, and not calling people you see in the distance. Little things we don’t think about, but which can be very rude here.
Because I’ve been here on several short trips the last five years, I keep having the same problem Faith had in the airport. I keep forgetting we’re not leaving in a few days. This is home now. It’s an awesome feeling. After five years of working, it’s finally real. I can pinch myself and not wake up. :) Our God is so incredibly good.
Over the next several months, we have to balance the demands of language school, setting up our household, helping the kids get acclimated, and building working relationships with our team. Unfortunately, it’s way too easy to make language our bottom priority, but we need to stay focused. I hope you’ll pray along with us, that God will keep us focused.
Bless you all, and thanks for all the ways you have prayed us here!
posted by Ted on May 26
Some time back, the Women’s Fellowship here gave Brandy a membership to Mystic Seaport about 50 minutes down the road from where we’re living here. We enjoyed our trip to Mystic very much, and had been intending to go back for some time. On our final family outing in Connecticut, returning to Mystic seemed a fitting way to say goodbye to this place where so much has happened to us.
Because it was Memorial Day, Mystic was reenacting a Memorial Day ceremony from shortly after the civil war, complete with a church service, parade and floating flowers out of the harbor. It was more solemn than I expected, but it was great reminder of what Memorial Day is all about.
She’s so pretty.
Yep. Her too.
Yeah… And her.
What scheme is Isaac plotting here? I see rope… This could be dangerous.
Isaac wrestled a whale while Faith had a snack and Britt nearly became one.
It was a very nice day.
posted by Brandy on May 25
God is so good! I know in scripture the number 40 is significant. In Genesis it rained 40 days and nights in preparation for the world to have a new beginning. Moses was on Mt. Sinai for 40 days. When he came down he had the directions for making the tabernacle and the arc, in preparation for God to dwell among His chosen people. The Israelites were in the desert for 40 years before entering their promised land. Christ was in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by satan before He began His public ministry. We left Colorado 40 weeks ago.
I have to believe that God had this move to Connecticut planned all along. Each of us has learned some extremely important lessons and some fun ones along the way. We were told over and over today that Britt was a very specific answer to prayer. The teen leaders had been praying for a “spark plug” to come and light a fire in the teen club. For all of you that know Britt and know her well, that describes her to a T. I was brave enough to take up playing the djembe. It’s great fun! Faith has learned how to make new friends and learned that “when you’re stuck and can’t really get out, God tries to help you.” Isaac has found a love for soccer and his exceptional trumpet talent while here. He also learned that he loves small communities, which is a huge benefit because our community in Kandern will definitely be small. We’ve all learned very exciting things, but what I can’t wait to find out is what was all this in preparation for? Each time in scripture the 40 days/weeks/years were in preparation for something. So what awesome ministry opportunities does God have in store for us? I can’t wait to find out and share with each of you.
But the first exciting thing we would like to share with you after our 40 weeks is this morning Pastor Paul challenged the congregation of Calvary Chapel to meet our last $95/mo need. We were hugely blessed by not only the $95/mo but $135/mo in new pledges! Our God is good. We are currently at 102%! It’s still 102% of our reduced budget which is very tight, but regardless it’s another amazing blessing from the Lord. We want to thank each of you for your prayers and support of us during these last couple of years while we worked on support-raising. God was preparing us for His work. We can’t wait.
posted by Ted on May 22
Brandy rescued a baby bunny from highway 14
Isaac had his band concert
Note: he’s a fifth grader playing in the Middle School advanced band his first year playing!
And I got new glasses. I put on the shirt prior to getting my vision checked, however.
posted by Brandy on Mar 10
Isaac could whistle before he was 18 months old. He used to sing himself to sleep in his car seat before heturned one. He recently showed me he can play Mary Had a Little Lamb on his head. So why does it surprise me that he’s now learning the trumpet, electric guitar and the snare drum at the same time?
I’m not really sure, but it astounds me how musical he is and how quickly he picks them up. I played piano in elementary school and it took a lot of practice for me to get mediocre. Isaac excels at his musical instruments fairly quickly. And if that isn’t enough he’s joined the local soccer team, and very much looking forward to honing his skills for the 2018 World Cup. God has certainly gifted him. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for my budding musician/athlete.
posted by Ted on Jan 1
Yeah. I have trouble believing it too. How can he be eleven already?
Based on the evidence though, it looks like he had a pretty good day…
Here’s another great smile:
As I struggle with the reality that my kids keep growing up, God’s putting the finishing touches on the first day of 2008.
God bless. We hope He has a joyous year in store for you.
posted by Ted on Aug 24
Brittany’s first kiss. No prince appeared. 
Our friend Mario we rescued from traffic.
Time with good friends in Grand Rapids
posted by Ted on Apr 8
Our experience in Mission Training International’s (MTI) SPLICE program was intense. I’ve written about it some on our blog, but I wanted to share with you a little bit of the kids’ experience, and so I asked each of them to try to summarize their experience:
Brittany: “I am a third culture kid (or TCK) because of my living in three different cultures (the culture I was born into, the one I’m moving to, and the blend of the two, which is it’s own culture). I will never ”fit in” in one culture, but I was elated to discover that Jesus is a TCK too! Because Jesus had to live in Egypt, so He really does understand what my life is like.”
Isaac: “MTI was a very very fun place and the best part was that you got to go to class with your slippers on, and it is a great place to learn to grow into your [new] culture.”
Faith: “I like MTI because we went hiking & there was a very nice man who was my teacher, he was very funny.”
posted by Ted on Oct 10
It’s been a while since I’ve provided a decent update on our lives. It’s been something of a whirlwind time for us. Much has happened and is happening, and there are many issues for which we need your prayers. This is a particularly long post, and so I’m going to bury it under a “more” tag. If you’re interested in getting a good update on the family, reading about our police stand-off and how you can be praying for us, you’ll want to click the link.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted by Brandy on Jul 12
This summer our kids have been just as busy, if not more so, as the school year. I always tend to think of summer as a time to relax, enjoy a good book and just veg awhile. Not this summer. Colorado’s beautiful mountains hosted some awesome camps for Isaac and Brittany. Faith and Isaac are sharpening their swimming skills at our local Aquatics Fitness Center. All three of our children are learning Okinawan karate. The World Cup generated a family favorite past time that got Isaac itching for a chance to become the next Michael Ballack (Germany’s captain and one of their stars). Isaac, Faith and I did VBS at our church for a week. And Britt is raising funds to go on a Mexico mission trip to build a house for a very needy family. This summer has been crazy, good crazy, but crazy nonetheless. We hope and pray your summer is a good crazy too.
posted by Ted on Apr 4
A number of years ago, some close friends of ours gave us an animatronic ninja chipmunk that sang that song while spinning it’s nunchuks. The kids loved it, and we were amused the first 25 or so times they turned it on. Since then, those same friends have talked us into getting our kids involved in Karate. I was able to track down a fellow Theology student from Barclay who taught Karate here in town and placed the kids in his dojo. So far, Isaac — with his exceptional natural coordination — has done extremely well. He has just graduated to orange belt, and is apparently trying to teach all his school friends Karate along with his own “custom moves.”
posted by Brandy on Jan 26
Isaac is quite the athletic little man. He impressed his PE teacher the other day because hes been teaching himself how to stand on his head, and he has awesome strength and agility, too. When our very best friends came over a couple weeks ago, (to celebrate Teds 30th) Isaac was throwing beautiful spirals uphill to Jeff, who is a towering 64. It was quite a feat on Isaacs part. (Isaac was throwing better then Jeff, too :))
Isaac has been plowing along on his piano. Hes composed a couple of different little snippets of music. One hes said is the beginning of a fairy tale. Another sounds like the middle of horror movie, if you ask me. But hes doing really well, so well that were going to try something new. Ill be teaching him piano after my class ends in March, and well use the money to further his physical talent with Karate.
posted by Brandy on Jan 14
EDITOR: A little story Isaac wrote recently:
THE THREE HERO’S MAKING FRIENDS
We were fighting in the war. Zak (Lazer in hero terms) was fighting the boss, then he got shot,Isaac (Bowboy in hero terms) started to fight the boss, he got shot to!.Then boss against boss. Strider (the leader of the gang, he kept is real name for fighting crime) got shot, we became mummies.Then Strider reached his sword and sliced the string, next Lazer, and last Bowboy. Finishing with that, they became heroes fighting crime, and most of all bosses.(When they came out of their mummies they were friends.)
by Isaac
posted by Brandy on Oct 25
When Faith was around one year old she was standing at the top of the stairs looking down. We have a built in wooden guard, but it was not latched. For those of you who know Faith well, know that it was a little more dangerous then just the possibility of a one year-old falling down the stairs. Her Aunt Lynae coined it perfectly by stating, after watching Faith jump off of Grandma and Papa’s one stair dining room, with a huge smile on her face, at the age of about 6 months, I think you have a thrill-seeker on your hands.
Well, Isaac, about 5 at the time, saw Faith standing there with adventure in her eyes. Just as she was about to throw herself down the 12 fairly steep stairs, Isaac went running up to catch her and was very successful. From that day forward Faith has decided that her Bubby is her hero. He is invincible and always there to save her. He can take any kind of beating she can dish out, and boy does she try, and no amount of bickering will ever dampen his resolve. They really are quite a pair, but even though they like to be normal brother and sister and fight about every imaginable thing, we frequently hear them playing some form of hero/little girl in distress scenario, and it’s almost always Faith initiating it.
Isaac is her personal hero. It’s awesome to hear them giggling together about some silly bad guy that Isaac has rescued Faith from once again.
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