08.10.15

August 10, 2015.  Today marks 2 years of being married to the love of my life.  

Before I was married, I envisioned anniversaries being perfect days full of lots of celebration, a fancy dinner, and a (free) dessert with a candle on top.  Maybe that's how it is for some people, but that's just not us. 

This year, we celebrated with a 6:45am wake-up call from Adelaide.  I sleepily wandered into her bedroom to get her up and nurse her.  I sat down in our big bean bag chair that resides in a corner of her room.  She fell asleep eating.  I fell asleep too.  

Not long after that, I was abruptly startled awake by my handsome husband who was wearing a Wal-Mart Batman t-shirt that quickly reminded me that today was the start of the RA retreat.  Translation: he's leaving for two days in two hours.

Addy kept sleeping as the time ticked away.  So much for maximizing our time together this morning - he's last-minute packing and I'm holding a sleeping baby.  After Nathan finished packing, we transferred the babe to his arms and I threw together breakfast.

I'm guessing the glorious smell of waffles woke Adelaide up just in time to share our anniversary breakfast with us.  The three of us sat down at the table and sipped smoothies and savored waffles - the very thing we had for our wedding "dinner".  Our little girl ate her very first bites of waffle and only choked once which qualifies as a success in our book.  We ate our last bites of breakfast and then said goodbye.  Til Wednesday.  

At first, I was bummed about having to say "goodbye" on our anniversary.  I still am a little bit.  But the reality is, this is what marriage is.  Marriage is saying "goodbye" with the promise of being able to say "Welcome home" at a later date.  It's knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will be waiting for him with open arms upon his return.  It's being assured that he will look forward to seeing me on Wednesday afternoon.  

The Lord is teaching me over and over again that our marriage isn't ours.  It's His.  It exists because of His power.  It's held together by His love.  It's bound by His covenant.  

This anniversary, I'm reminded that marriage is beautiful because it is the gospel on display.  It says, "No matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter what happens, I will always love you and I will always be here."  

May our marriage be filled with many more gospel reminders.  May we continue to see our marriage as His, not ours.  And by God's grace, may this love that we have for each other be multiplied in the many more years to come.  

I love you, Nathan.  Happy 2nd Anniversary!

On life and missions

Honesty moment: sometimes I forget that "normal life" and "ministry" are the same thing.  Sometimes I forget that in the same way that God has called me to be a missionary, God has called me to buy groceries and have coffee dates with friends.  

I find myself constantly needing to be reminded of the fact that they are one and the same.  It isn't "normal life" and "ministry", but rather the fact that normal life is ministry.

As I write these blogs, I've tried to balance between posting about our personal life and our missionary life.  The more and more that I learn what it means to be a Christian, the more and more I learn about what it means to live as a missionary.  As God works on my heart, the lines in my head become more and more blurry between normal life and ministry.  

My prayer is that one day, there will be no lines at all.  I want to live in such a way that getting groceries feels just as much like ministry as talking to students about missions.  I want to see things in such a way that vacuuming the floor and debriefing a mission team fall into the same category in my head.  

I went through the most recent pictures on my phone and Facebook and I saw "normal life" photos interspersed with "ministry" photos and I couldn't help but smile.  God is changing my heart to recognize the thread that binds everything together - the goodness of our God.  In ALL things, he is good.

So, here's a glimpse into the last few weeks of our normal, ministry life:

My wonderful husband graduated from college earlier this month :)

 A prayer calendar we put together for each team while they are on the field.  It helps supporters know how to pray.

The Ghana team spent time before their trip at their "launch" where they did some team building exercises and final trip preparations.

Ghana was our first international YMI Team of 2014.

Baby Burres is becoming more and more noticeable each day!  This picture was taken at the end of the day, so my baby bump was a little bit bigger than it is without food in it.

 This is the look of first-time home buyers right after signing papers on our home.  We should get keys today!

Thanks for joining with us as we do life and ministry together.

5 Fun Facts About YMI

1. We pre-trip every location we send to.  What does that mean?  It means that before any team or intern goes out on their mission trip through YMI, we take the time to personally invest in their trip by sending a staff member ahead of them.  This person will spend at least 48 hours with the missionary the team or intern will be received by.  We believe that this time is more valuable than any phone call, email thread or Skype and it makes us confident that our participants will be doing Gospel-centered work abroad.

L to R: John + Brian (2 YMI Staff) and Keith (1 awesome volunteer) are currently traveling through Asia pre-tripping sites in the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

2. We have 2 main offices - One that is YMI's Headquarters in Tacoma, Washington and one that is BASE Sports Ministy's Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  In the last year, YMI added a specific division dedicated to growing sports ministry as a way to reach out to local churches and equip them to reach out to their communities.  Nathan is the Washington State Athletic Director for BASE.  Nathan is able to work remotely, since his main office is in Colorado Springs, but his ministry area is Washington.  

Last year, much discussion surrounded coming up with the BASE logo.  We're pretty pleased with how it turned out!

3. The median age of our YMI staff is 23 years old.  You know how we're YOUTH Missions International?  Yeah, well, we take that seriously.

L to R: Garrett (Bay Area Mission Mobilizer), Lis (Southern California Mission Mobilizer), Emily (YMI College Specialist & newest staff member) and Taylor (Executive Assistant)

4. Staff meetings currently involve three states & we have staff members in a total of 5 states.  The main office in Washington, Drew and Tim (BASE) in Colorado and me in Oregon.  The non-Washington people video chat in through Google Hangout and staff meeting proceeds as usual.  It's pretty incredible to study God's word together, pray with and for each other, and hear what God is doing not only around the world, but in our own country.  

These are all the areas where we currently have staff living and working.

5. The YMI office in Tacoma is located on UW Tacoma's campus.  We share a building entrance with their library and we get to have the beautiful view of their campus out our windows.  It's fun to be able to take lunch break outside on the HUGE steps or take a 15 minute break to stroll down to the waterfront.  We are blessed to work where we do.

The view out one of our many office windows.  Wow.

A spring update on our {growing} family

S - Sending.  So much of our ministry season is spent training, after all, that's really what we're about - training youth to share their faith.  We are now entering into a season of sending.  1 month from today, our first mission team of the season will head out to Ghana to serve alongside a missionary there.  They are in the final stages of preparation - receiving their Visas, finishing raising financial and prayer support and turning in paperwork.  This is just the beginning of many, many youth proclaiming the Gospel in many, many nations so that others may come to know Christ.  We are so excited to see God work in this way!

P - People. The last 8 months have flown by.  Moving to Salem has been a great adventure in our first year of marriage.  As we consider the time we have left, we are realizing how hard it is going to be to leave.  Salem has become our home, not because of the building that we reside in but because of the people we do life with here.  We have spent many hours fellowshipping with our small group and church body here.  We have hosted game nights with college friends from Corban, we have opened up our home to our Sunday school class, we have filled our home with the praises and prayers of new friends.  These people have become those near and dear to our hearts.  They have cheered us on through our adjustment to married life, living away from family and finding a home church.  New seasons call for new challenges.  Leaving our friends here in Salem will certainly be one of them.

R - Resting...NOT. There is a time for rest and a time for action.  This is the period of action in ministry.  I am calling, emailing, Facebooking, and texting participants on a daily basis.  I spend much of my time keeping tabs on where individuals are at with funding, paperwork, and life in general.  I have the joy of seeing first-hand how God works in their lives to bring their mission trip to fruition.  It's a pretty cool thing!  Nathan is busy as well!  This is the time when churches are signing contracts, working out details and making deposits.  It's also the time when he is finalizing summer staff, communicating with them and making sure that they are ready for training in a little over a month.  There will be a time for rest, but that time is not now and not anytime soon!  We are grateful for the strength and stamina from God to head into this season healthy, rested and eager to see God work.

I - In between.  In so many ways, we find ourselves in the "in between".  We are in between renting and owning a home.  The buying process is long and tedious, but we are trusting God to see us through.  We are in between being settled and packing.  I have begun to get this home ready to load into a trailer.  We are in between being a family of 2 and a family of 3.  This little one has many more months to go before we will hold him/her, but Baby Burres's presence is becoming more and more noticeable with each passing day.  Living in the "in between" calls for lots of prayers, reliance on God's sovereignty and faith that things will work out.  It's a good exercise of trust in our good, good God.

N - New life.  YES!  We are expecting Baby Burres in late October of 2014!  I am just over 12 weeks along and so ecstatic to be carrying this precious life.  Nathan and I find ourselves giddy with excitement and nervous for what is ahead.  Our comfort is in knowing that God has given us everything we need to parent well and that he has ordained this child to call us mommy and daddy since before the creation of the world.  We are thankful for 6 more months to prepare our home and our hearts to meet this little baby and we look forward to raising our child in a ministry-focused family.

G - Graduating. Nathan is just 2.5 weeks away from graduating from Corban University with his degree in Student and Family Ministries.  Today he is working on completing 2 of the 6 papers he has due next Wednesday.  I cannot wait to see him cross the stage as a sign of all the hard work he has put in over these last few years.  He'll be done with school for now, but who knows what the future may bring!

FREE mission trip? WHAAAAAT?

We find ourselves at the end of another busy week and we are so excited that we get to vacation with our families this weekend!  We will take pictures and post them sometime in the future  :)

Today, we want to share with you an exciting announcement that YMI just made!

If you or anyone you know is interested in winning a FREE mission trip with YMI, click HERE.  

If you are interested in where we are sending teams next year, click HERE.

We are so thankful that God is working in this world. He's not done yet.  Maybe YOU are a part of His plan for the Gospel to be known in every tribe, tongue and nation in 2015.  

To God be the glory for the GREAT things he has done.

Praises and Prayers

Praises:

1. We think we have found a place to live when we get back!  This is exciting news and we are eager to get it all finalized sometime between now and May.  Please keep praying that this works out and that we will be able to have a smooth transition back to WA.

2. Work is going well - we are really looking forward to summer ministry season starting with mission teams and sports camps! It's just around the corner!

3. We get to go on a short weekend vacation with our families in a couple weeks.  Our parents decided to rent a beach house for all of us to stay in - my immediate family, his immediate family and us!  We couldn't be more blessed to have families that love each other and desire to VACATION together!  Wow!  God is so good.  We will be hanging out in Lincoln City, Oregon in a couple weeks.  

Prayers:

1. The YMI Fundraising Banquet is tomorrow evening.  Please pray that God lays it on the hearts of people to give and give generously.  This event plays a huge role in the amount of ministry that we are able to do in the coming year.  We know that God always provides, so we are asking that this is one of those ways.

2. Pray that a) our summer mission teams fill up (we still have spots open) and b) sports camps fill up.  We are finding that, for whatever reason, filling ministry opportunities is difficult this year.  We are also hearing the same reports from organizations like us.  Pray that God will allow our ministry opportunities to fill up so that our missionaries have teams to receive and so that communities are connected to local churches.

3. Pray for Nathan as he finishes up school.  He has a TON to do in the way of assignments over the next couple months.  Pray specifically as he prepares to give a sermon in chapel at school.  He has decided to teach on marriage and we both recognize that teaching is a high calling.  Pray for wisdom and discernment as he figures out what God would have him communicate to these students.

4. Finally, pray for us in our last 2 months in Salem.  We have grown to love it here.  Our friends are here, we love our church here and we like our first home together.  We know that God is going to supply all of our needs when we move back - relationships and fellowship included.  But it's still hard to think about leaving!  Thankfully, Salem is just a (relatively) short drive from Tacoma.  We'll be making visits, for sure!

And, to end this post, here are some pictures from the snow storm a few weeks back!

I convinced him to go for a walk.

Someone's car was COVERED in snow up on the road.

February Newsletter