Since the last time that I wrote a whole lot has happened. Currently we are in Missouri at the Missionary Training Center visiting my parents. It has been such a wonderful time down here to just see where we are planning on being this time next year and to be able to talk with the students that are currently here and let my parents bond with their new granddaughter. The last few weeks really have been overwhelming. We have seen God answer so many prayers and open so many doors for us. A few weeks ago we had been praying that God would make it clear to us wether or not we should go to the MTC next fall or if we needed to wait longer. We decided to tell our pastor what we were thinking and he said that he would talk to the churches missions committee about it and get back to us. In my head I was thinking,"Ok God this is it... we'll se what they have to say and if they feel like it isn't wise than that means we're here longer." I was finally ok with the fact that God may have us stay out of the training just a little longer but Pastor Tim came up to us the following Sunday and said that they were all very excited with where we were headed. It was such an answer to prayer. We finally felt settled with the decision to move on with the training. This meant though that we have a busy year ahead of us. We knew that we would need to get more involved with our church and start to build stronger relationships with our church body. We are now trying to figure out some ways that we can be more involved. Preston was approached to help usher at the church and I will be talking in March to the Awanas kids about how it was growing up in Thailand. The ladies at the church also just threw me and Ruby a wonderful baby shower so that was a good time to get to know some of the women in the church a little better. It feels so nice to have a body of believers involved in your life even though you may not know them that well. I didn't know many of the women at the shower but they all still came just to show support and be a part of our lives. We are both really looking forward to getting to know the people in our church better.

On to other things... We have been so blessed this month. We were visited by my sister and brother for a week. Both of them live out of state and I haven't seen my sister in a year so it was wonderful to see them both. They hadn't meet Ruby yet so they got to spend the week bonding with her and it was a very precious time. The day that they left we made our trip down here to Missouri to surprise my parents. They had no idea that we were planning on coming so it was really fun to surprise them. They are currently in the process of building a house down here. They are on staff here at the MTC and are planning on sticking around for a while. God has blessed them with a nice piece of property and now they are in the process of trying to raise funds to finish the building process. One of the other reasons we came down was so that Preston could help my dad clear up some of the land. My dad has been doing most of the work alone so any extra help he can get he appreciates. They would really appreciate your prayers as they are trying to raise the funds for the construction and just prayer for the energy to work on it.

Preston and I are doing great. We have enjoyed being a family. Although it comes with many new challenges it has been a huge learning experience. Ruby is doing good and is a very healthy baby. We went into the doctors last week. Within the last 4 weeks she had gain over 3 pounds. She's a very heavy eater. It was nice to hear that she was doing good. It's a huge blessing to have a healthy baby and i never really realized how big of a blessing it was. She's growing up so fast so we're trying to soak up as much time with her as we can. 

Again thanks for taking the time to read this. We would love to have a strong team of people behind us to join in the work that the Lord is doing around the world. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, we are so excited to be a part of the team and we invite you to join us in the process. Please keep us in your prayer and feel free to write us whenever you want.

Till next time,

Stephanie

daddy's little girl

Hey Everybody!

So this is the first time that I've every blogged so I'm new at this. We thought that it would be a good idea to start letting people know where we are in life and what our future plans are. For those of you who don't know much about Preston and I, we are currently living in Lansing and have been here for a little over a year. We met at New Tribes Bible Institute in August of 2008. We started to date that October and 2 weeks after we graduated we got married. The following August we did and internship at the bible school as staff. Preston worked on the Physical Plant department which did maintenance   around the school and I worked with the Child Care department. It was a wonderful ministry experience. Preston and I learned a lot about working in a ministry setting. By serving with other missionaries and seeing how we can impact the unreached, it solidified what we felt like God was leading us to do. We knew that God wanted us to go into full time ministry. After our internship we moved to Lansing and started to get involved with a church in St. John's. In October of 2011 we became members of the church. It was amazing to become a part of a church body as a married couple, especially part of a church that is so missions minded. That started the next phase of our future plans.

A couple of weeks after we became members we had some other big news that entered our life. We found out that I was pregnant. We were so excited. It was an unexpected surprise, but God works in mysterious ways. 9 months later we got a wonderful surprise. On July 8, 2012 we had a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Ruby Deemae. She was born at 11:32 a.m. and was 7 pound 9 ounces and 20.5 inches long. She is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. Of course I am kind of bias. It has been  blessing to have a baby. We have learned so much and it's only been a month. God is amazing in what He chooses to use as a growing experience (those of you who are parents know what I'm talking about.) We knew that having a baby would change our lives and maybe our plans but we weren't sure how. God is faithful and we knew that He would direct our path.

Looking to the future, we are planning on going to the New Tribes Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Roach, MO in the fall of 2013. These plans are tentative right now because we aren't sure what God has in store for us, but we are extremely excited to finish up the training and go into full time missions. This year we are hoping to establish better relationships in the area and get more involved in our church. It is extremely important for us to establish strong relationships with people and build up a family of people who will support us in prayer as we are taking on a huge task of spreading the gospel to the unreached around the world. We would love for you to join us in this great task and help us in prayer as we look to the future. We are stepping out in faith into a world of unknowns and as scary as it is we are extremely excited. We have seen how God is faithful in our lives if we walk according to His will and we cannot wait to see what He has in store for us.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I will do my best to continue to update the blog so you know what is going on in our lives. We would love your support and feel free to write us anytime.

In Christ,
Stephanie (for both of us)