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