A God of Details

We are amazed at the way God continues to answer prayers!

We had been praying since the beginning that God would bring a Christian family to buy our house--guess what we found out at the inspection yesterday? The buyers are believers from a Free Church in Iowa and have already been checking out EFC churches in our area. We were happy to tell them about First Free, a wonderful church just blocks away from Maplewood Mall!

This is an instance when Lisa's faith was much stronger than mine. We would leave the radio on around the house when we had a showing. I would typically tune it to the public radio classical station but once Lisa said, "Jim, we're praying for Christians to buy our house, why don't we tune the radio to KTIS (the local Christian station)?"

I didn't think this was a good idea--why risk turning off a potential buyer?--so I said, "If they're Christians, they'll probably like the classical station, too." She was right, of course, and my faith was weak. We should have tuned into KTIS all along.

It is especially meaningful for our girls to see God answer prayers in these tangible ways. Our children are learning about God's ways in this world and we are encouraged by signs of His unmistakeable hand.

Now we are beginning to pack in earnest. Lisa's Mom is over today helping clear out the clutter in the basement, start taking down pictures and other decorations, and organize a very inexpensive garage sale. We want this stuff to go!

Anyone know good deals on laptop computers? I'm working on administrative things today and one of my tasks is sorting out gigabytes, megaherz, and screen sizes. Is there a difference between Intel's Dual Core processor and their Core 2 Duo processor? Ah yes, you'll be pleased to know indeed there is--it has something to do with chip architecture, speed, power consumption, and heat, I'm told. Or maybe we should turn away from the dark side and pony up for an Apple.

We are marking family milestones, too. Julia had her 8th birthday party on Monday. Nana & Papa hosted eight of her friends for a horse party over at their house. Needless to say, the girls (& one boy!) had a blast.

We were honored that four families hosted a dessert for us last night so we could update friends here on our transition. The Ministry & Education Foundation also explained how they could link arms with us financially. We could see it was a big group and when we counted everyone up, Lisa and I were touched that forty people came out to be with us.

When you pray,

• Praise God with us for the sale of our house to a Christian family!


• Praise for the arrival of all our visas. We finally had to call our congresswoman again to get Andrew's passport expedited, but the British Consulate whipped out the visas double quick.


• Pray for the packing process. It's overwhelming.


• Pray for the girls school assignment in Cambridge. That is still not officially finalized.


• Pray for my parent's transition to Windsor Park, a retirement community in Wheaton. We are so glad they will be living there. And all Jim's brothers and sisters are coming in for a wedding and will be there to help them move.

That's all for now! Blessings on you. Let us know how we can pray for you.

Seven Weeks Away

Hello everyone!

Thanks for coming to see our blog. We are looking forward to having this space to reflect with you on the journey to Cambridge and beyond.

Claire informed us a few mornings ago that we would be leaving for England in less than seven weeks--47 days! That puts things in perspective!

We have our tickets to fly out on August 17 from Ohare--a big thank you to our dear friend, Terri Miller, who suggested we check with MTS for special airfares for missionaries & non-profits. We saved hundreds of dollars on each of our tickets!

And another piece of big news: we have a contract on our house! We put it on the market in March and have been waiting anxiously for a buyer; God stretched our faith these last few months as we waited, but then brought the right family to see our house on Jim's last official day at First Free, June 30!

There was another coincidence to top it off. For the past three months there has been a realtor sign with "sold" on it on Highway 96 a few blocks from our house; we drive by it several times a day, so Lisa and I have both used it as a reminder to pray about the sale of our own house. It was still there as usual when we were waiting to hear back about an offer, but gone two hours later when we went out for ice cream to celebrate! It was as if God was saying, "You don't need to pray about this anymore."

We've been attending Bethlehem Baptist the last two weeks and we love it. John Piper preached our first Sunday there but I don't think he will be there again before we leave. The service is 1 1/2 hour, though, and the girls have to sit with us. So they are learning to sit in church, which is a good lesson before we head to Europe.

What about the next few weeks? Besides packing up our home, we will be heading down to our niece's wedding in Racine, WI and then a couple days of vacation in Michigan.

Jim is working on German this summer--he's gotten rusty over the last three years and will need to be able to read it well this year for his research. And he's beginning to work on his dissertation itself again so he can hit the ground running at Tyndale House.

That's all for now. We'll keep you up to date.