Friday, December 9, 2016

Merry Christmas!

A while back I said that we are going to "semi-retire." Well as I have always said there is no such thing as retirement in the Bible and that has proven to be true in our lives.  When I said that we were going to semi-retire I meant that we were not going to be actively seeking a place of ministry away from our new home in Port Angeles.  We found a wonderful little church, Strait View Baptist Church, here in Port Angeles and are  involved in ministry.  I am teaching the adult Sunday school class and Dayle is active in the women's Bible study and we have volunteered to clean the church on a weekly basis.  I have had the opportunity to fill the pulpit once already.  The church is a GARBC church and I graduated from the GARBC flagship Bible college.  So I am quite familiar with their doctrine. Pastor Tim Kluver, is a missionary pastor with CBM (Continental Baptist Missions) and he and I are of one mind doctrinally.  Pastor Tim has had some medical issues this past year and we feel it is such a privilege to be able to come along side of he and his family and give them love, support and to be a back-up for him as needed.  We have already developed a close bond with the Kluver family as well as the entire church family.

Both Dayle and I are teaching Bible classes at Aletheia, which is a one day a week home school co-op led by our Daughter-in-law Shelli and another mom.  I am teaching the junior and senior high grades and Dayle is teaching the younger grades.  Dayle will begin discipling two young moms next week. She also disciples a mom from our previous church in Orovada, NV via phone calls.  In addition, she has an interview with our local Crisis Pregnancy Center to hopefully volunteer on a weekly basis. We also hope to begin a young married Bible study next month.

It is such a joy to be able to serve our great God and Savior in these ways!

All of our kids are doing quite well.  We drove down to Sacramento over Thanksgiving and spent almost a week with Stephen and Neeley and the kids.  We also stopped in Grants Pass and spent a couple of evenings with Mel, Annie and the boys.

Please pray for our son, Jason.  As you know he is a Chief Petty Officer in the Coast Guard and he is due for transfer in June 2017.  He is retiring early 2018 and a transfer far away will create a huge burden on the family especially since they plan to stay in Port Angeles.  We are praying that he will be allowed to stay in the Port Angeles area.

Let us know if you might have any prayer requests.........With much love in Christ, Shelley and Dayle

Sunday, August 21, 2016

All Settled In and Getting Very Busy

Our dear family and friends,

We have officially been Washington residents for four months now.  So much has happened.  We had a shed build on the property to house all the rest of our stuff and all of our bicycles.  We also had a huge carport built that covers our trailer.


The first week here I contacted the City recreation director to get on a softball team.  He gave me all the team captain's phone numbers and the first captain that I called was the captain of the Coast Guard team and he was happy to have me.  Both my grandson Asher and myself joined the team.  We had a great time and our team took second place for the whole season.

I began teaching Autumn how to play the guitar and with the help of You Tube she is becoming quite the guitar player.

I also was able to find and train a mountain bicycle riding partner--Aiden, my 13 year old grandson.  He is a natural bike rider.  We are already up to riding the entire Olympic Discovery Adventure Trail.  The ODAT is 25.5 miles of a single track mountain trail which is quite challenging and affords many breath taking views of the Strait of Juan De Fuca and Canada.

Perhaps the most exciting thing was that we found a church that we really love and feel at home in.  Strait View Baptist Church is a fairly new church plant (4 years old) and is going through some growing pains.  We love the pastor and his family as well as all the people there.  As time goes on we hope to be able to teach, disciple, and maybe even pulpit fill once in a while.

We have been asked to teach in the Home School CoOp called "Aletheia."  I will be teaching the Bible class for the junior and senior high students and Dayle will be teaching Bible to the younger students.  This will start the end of September.  I am really excited to be teaching once again.  I truly miss the regular preaching and teaching and this will help with that.

Four weeks ago we drove down to Grants Pass to spend a couple of days with Mel, Annie and the boys and to retrieve the rest of our storage unit.  We took Aiden with us so he could spend some time with his cousins.  We all had a great time and we even took a rafting trip down the Rogue River.  Upon returning to Port Angeles we unloaded the truck and went through the remainder of our stuff.  A few weeks ago we had a yard sale and got rid of the rest of it. So now all we have left in our shed is memorabilia including pictures and a few things that are of a family historical nature.

All in all we are really enjoying living here on the property with Jason, Shelli and the kids.  We have missed so much of their lives and now we are with them every day. What a blessing!

On August 29th we will be driving south to Grants Pass to take Annie and Mel out to dinner to celebrate Annie's 36th birthday and then on Sacramento to spend some time with Stephen,  Neeley and the kids.  Stephen and Neeley will be going away for a few days and then Neeley will be having surgery and will need her mommy to take care of her and the kids for 5 weeks.  I will be driving back towards the end of September, Dayle will stay a couple of weeks longer until Neeley is back to normal.

So now you know what has been going on in our lives as we have settled down a bit. We still look forward to attending the NICE conferences and we remain available for short term pulpit supply.

Please pray that the Lord will continue to use us here in Port Angeles. We don't to ever want to retire from the Lord's work.

Love to all......Shelley and Dayle

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Settling Down and semi-Retiring!

The past five years have been a wonderful blessing to travel the west and serve at so many different places and meet so many wonderful people.  We have absolutely loved living in a 5th wheel trailer and being so mobile going wherever we were needed.  However, after much prayer and heart searching we have decided to semi-retire.  So as of May 1st, we are "semi" retired. 

The Bible does not speak of retirement but we are going to slow down a bit and be more stationary. 
We will still be available to the NICE mission for any pulpit supply or even a short term pastoral interim. And we will serve in our local church.  My desire is to be able to regularly teach, lead music, and pulpit fill when asked.

We have decided to make Port Angeles, Washington our home and live in our 5th wheel trailer on our son's property.  Jason and Shelli are going through some trials and they really would like for us to stay.  So, we are going to stay with them and minister to them.  Our first grandson, Asher, turns 18 today and now we realize that we have missed much of his life as well as all of the grand children.

We have ordered a shed to store what is left of our stuff that we want to keep.  We have also ordered a huge carport to totally cover our trailer to keep the rain off of it.  I have also joined the city softball league and I am on the US Coast Guard team.

We will probably head south for the winter and make some short trips to visit our kids and families in Grants Pass, Oregon and Sacramento, California.

So to all of our faithful financial supporters we ask that you now give to other ministries.  Thank you for all your prayer support and financial support over the past five years.

Please continue to pray for Jason and Shelli and they are going through these trials.  Also pray that we will have opportunities to serve here in Port Angeles.
Our New Place of Residence!


Monday, April 11, 2016

Mom's Funeral, and Now Heading North

We left Orovada permanently on March 15th and arrived at my sister's house in Pinon Hills, CA that evening.  We parked the trailer on her property and then in the morning moved into my brother's house in West Hills, to help care for my mom.  Her condition was still terminal and was getting weaker everyday.  Then on Saturday, March 16th, at 10 a.m. she quietly entered eternity with my brother and my niece, Melissa at her side.  (We had just left his house to attend my other niece's horse show but we didn't make it to the show.)  We were told that her breathing became very labored, then she opened her eyes wide, looked at Melissa, smiled, and closed her eyes. 

After she died we cleaned her up a bit, sat with her until the mortuary picked her up a few hours later.  What a joy it is to know my mom, like the thief on the cross,  is now with the Lord.  I admit that I never thought my mother would ever accept the truth that Jesus is the Messiah.  She was so set against Jesus Christ and anything Christian her whole life.  It just goes to show that no one is beyond the reach of God!

The following Thursday we had the funeral at the Mt. Sinai Jewish Cemetery in Simi Valley.  This was a totally Christian service speaking of the hope of Jesus Christ, and we even sang Amazing Grace.  It felt really strange for me as I conducted the funeral, preached Jesus Christ, and led the singing in this Jewish chapel.  After the service our yamaka wearing funeral director told me that it was a wonderful service.  Then he told me that his wife was was a Christian and that he fully understands where we were coming from. My brother, conducted the graveside portion of the service and did an excellent job.  We had about 50 people at the funeral and most were friends of Bob from his church and from the homeless shelter where Bob and mom prepared meals.

We had hoped to go to Lake Havasu for a few days before we headed north to Grants Pass to attend the celebration of our Son-in-law, Mel, passing his Professional Engineer exams and certification.  However, both Dayle and I got really sick with some flu virus and were incapacitated for two weeks.  We are still coughing and our energy is slowly returning.  Needless to say we didn't make it to Lake Havasu.  We were able to make the drive up to Grants Pass and attend the party.  This past Saturday we had a yard sale at Mel and Annie's house and sold EVERYTHING that was left in our storage unit.  The only things left are all my tools which Jason wants, and family memorabilia. It's amazing how God has given us such a peace about letting go of all our earthly accumulation of material stuff.

 As of this writing we are still in Grants Pass and we plan on leaving tomorrow (April 12th) and head north.  We will stop in Portland, Oregon to spend a night next to Duane and Cora Tucker's house, then off to Port Angeles where we will be until the Lord sends us somewhere else.

We are so very much looking forward to spending time with Jason, Shelli, and the grand kids.  This past year and a half has been very stressful and lots of work in the various ministries in which we have served and we need a break and rest. Our daughter-in-law Shelli has always told us that our grandchildren are a ministry too and she is right.

Pray:
Safe travels
Ministry opportunities in Port Angeles
That God would open up opportunities to share Christ along the way


 

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Update on Shelley's Mother

Hi everyone,
I have an update for you regarding my mother.  The doctors said that they consider her a hospice patient and she can have another stroke at any time.  They told us that she will never walk again, will never use her right arm again, and cannot swallow.  Mom suffered a severe stroke and there is major brain damage.  She also has a large blood clot in her heart.  She is still somewhat cognizant of what is going on and is able to communicate (barely) and she wanted to go with a feeding tube.  A nasal feeding tube was inserted this evening and we will see if she regains any strength and abilities.  Once the feeding begins she will be place in a nursing facility.  She will require around the clock care from now on.   So we have to figure out which one with the help of a case manager tomorrow.  We will be staying here a few more days and we have canceled our long time planned family vacation at Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, Washington. 

We hope to return to Orovada by the middle of next week.  Please continue to pray.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

PRAYER REQUESTS

This email update is really a request for prayer.

The new pastor arrived on February 11th and has begun to settle in quite nicely. This last Saturday he had to take his wife (Flora) to the emergency room in Winnemucca. She was admitted and then transferred to Reno, NV with several issues one of which was kidneys not functioning properly. She is on the mend, but we do ask for your prayers for her recovery. We had planned on departing for Lake Havasu City on March 14th but that is now in question.

Yesterday I got a call from my brother informing us that my mother had a stroke. As of right now she is in Intensive Care. Her entire right side is paralyzed. I did briefly speak with her on the phone and she could barely speak. The prognosis is not good. But the good news is that my brother was able to lead her to the Lord last night. My mother actually made a profession of faith! My brother said, "If it took a stroke to get her to see the light, then so be it!" Amen to that! After she prayed, she fell asleep and was resting peacefully.

As of this writing, there are some other medical complications and we all need to get together to discuss some things. So we will be driving to Los Angeles leaving quite early in the morning (Wednesday). It is a ten hour drive and we will be staying at my brother’s house which is near the hospital. We covet your prayers through all of this.

We also have a Gale Family Vacation planned for next week at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, Washington beginning on Monday. We have not yet canceled the reservations as we are hoping for the best. We will have to decide within the next couple of days.

Thank you for your prayers!

 

Shelley

for the both of us!

Sunday, January 24, 2016

We Worked Ourselves Out of Another Job!

We have some very exciting news.  After over five years Orovada Community Church will once again have a full-time live-in pastor. After much searching and reading resumes and discounting most of them we have found the man that we believe has been sent by God to pastor Orovada Community Church.  Pastor Bob Burns and his wife Flora are coming from Amarillo, Texas and will be here before the end of February.  I will be taking him to the Shepherd's Conference.  We will have the official installation service on March 13th and then we will depart Orovada on the 14th.  We plan on heading south to Lake Havasu City for a few weeks to thaw out.  We are looking forward to returning to Bethany Bible Church, where this ministry began for us.  We will also spend a week or so with my sister in Pinon Hills.  She has another "brother do" list for me.  One of those items is to replace the floor in one of the bedrooms.

In the mean time we have much work yet to be done here to make the parsonage ready, and to make a smooth transition.  We are so very excited for this church.  However we will greatly miss these dear  people as well as the area.  But that really is nothing new for us.  Where ever we have served we have developed some wonderful friendships all because we all love and serve the Lord, Jesus Christ!

Please pray for Orovada Community Church as they have called the new pastor "on faith" because finances are very tight.  But there is so much potential here in Orovada and we have seen much fruit in just the few months that we have been here.

Please pray for Bob and Flora as they transition to Nevada from Texas!


Monday, January 11, 2016

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone, the ministry continues here in Orovada.  The past two months have been quite busy for us.  Our Awana has increased to 13 children, and we even had a visit from the Awana Missionary.  Church attendance still averages at around 16.  For the month of December I have been preaching a series on the Preparation for Christmas.  We even had a church Christmas party.  We invited all the Awana children and their families and one actually showed up.  All in all it was a pretty good turn out.

The weather has turned very cold but we are doing well. It's been snowing off and on and the trailer is very comfortable and my Dayle is doing just fine. 

We drove to Port Angeles for Christmas and spent 2 1/2 weeks with our son and family.  The trip to Port Angeles while pulling the trailer was quite exciting.  The first day we only went 200 miles due to snow packed roads.  Our average speed was only about 30 mph.  It took us three days to go the 750 miles.  Stephen, Neeley, and the kids flew in and we all had a great time.  Well most of us did. Stephen is also a bike rider so on Christmas eve we decided to go for a bike ride on my favorite mountain trail.  Asher, my 17 year old grandson came along.  The first part of the trail is a 1 1/2 mile moderate down hill run.  One can get going quite fast.  Asher is a novice bike rider and got going at a pretty good pace.  When approaching a turn he couldn't slow enough, he hit the brakes and wiped out doing a pretty good flip and roll.  The only problem was that he broke his collar bone in two places.  We had to walk up hill for almost a mile then he spent four hours in the emergency room.  They gave him a sling and sent him home.  So much for all the fun activities that I had planned with him. He had a great attitude and was even joking about the whole ordeal. God had His own plans for him.

We did have a great time with all the kids.  Annie, Mel and the boys were not able to make the trip and they were greatly missed.  But we will be seeing them at the end of February at our family vacation at the Grey Wolf Lodge.

While we were in Washington we became Washington residents.  We use Jason and Shelli's address as our permanent and legal address.  I obtained a Washington driver's license and transferred the truck and trailer to Washington.  All we have to do now is register the car and get Dayle a driver's license which we will do during our family vacation.  Why change our residency to Washington, you ask?  Since we do not have a permanent place of residence we can establish residency almost anywhere.  And since we are on a fixed and limited income it was wise to establish residency in a state with no income tax.  Oregon takes 10% of our income and now I will not have to be burdened with that tax debt.

Prayer Requests:
1.  Please pray for Jason and Shelli as they have been caring for two foster children ages 2 and 4.  They want to adopt these two adorable children if God opens that opportunity. The courts have to decide after inquiring if any other family members of the children are interested and qualify to adopt them.
2.  Please continue to pray for a full-time pastor for Orovada Community Church
3.  Pray for us as we visit those who attend the church and those who once attended but have stayed home due to no pastor for 5 years.
4.  Pray that we would be faithful in using our time wisely making the most of every opportunity.

Praise:
1.  We praise the Lord that our son-in-law, Mel, Annie's husband, has passed his Professional Engineer exam.  This now makes him an actual full fledged Professional Civil Engineer.  Now he has to jump through a few Oregon state hoops and it will be done.
2.  Praise for the protection that the Lord gave us while traveling.
3.  Praise for our AWANA program and the faithful workers God has provided.
4.  Praise that Shelley's back is doing great.
5.  Praise for wonderful children and grandchildren