Life

Our house stands out on a street full of apartments. While it looks like a southern style house, it really is just a main entry for 4 apartments. Mike, a guy from the church that bought the house, helped us put in new tile. We love having him around.
Andrea shows her artistic side while mudding the wallsAs the weather turned cold I told Andrea we had to make a good old fashioned pumpkin pie from scratch. Pretty impressive since we realized we had no rolling pin.
The final product. We put on our old TMI shirts just for fun. Later that night...Jill & Andrea dancing in the living room

The Ministry of Presence

I really hope to upload photos, but have been distracted recently. Until then I think I'll just leave a few thoughts.

When I was in missions school in New Mexico our director would often talk about the "ministry of presence". She believed that often people just need to know we are there...whether or not we speak or really "do" something amazing. Not that these are bad, but often we overlook the need for our presence.

Living on a street with one of the worst crime rates affords us the opportunity to be a part of a unique community. During a recent worship nights one of our acquaintances showed up drunk in the tail end of a 4 day binge. We helped him detox, prayed fervently over him for 3 days, and then helped him get to rehab. I'm so proud of the people God has put in my life. The guys took turns staying with him 24/day and everyone else held him up in tough love and prayer.

Thanksgiving morning our neighbor came in with tears on the characteristic methamphetamine scars on her face. Her guy had punched her and kicked her out of the house. After praying over her we helped her get to family who could take care of her.

This weekend another neighbor came to the door crying. She was just shy of a month clean, but the cravings for drugs were driving her crazy and she was scared she would slip and abuse again. We prayed over her and welcomed her and her kids for dinner and hang out time to provide a distraction.

Though we sometimes go for walks or have random time of passing a football outside, God seems to be bringing people right to our door. As an introvert I'm not always sure of why I'm here...I'm not the one out there talking or really good with lots of people. Just my own feelings of inadequacy. But then the other night I had a blast just doing one of the girls hair and trying on shoes. We all have our place in the puzzle and I'm having a blast in the kitchen trying to help people feel welcome and like they can enjoy a piece of home.

This Thanksgiving break has been great! If you'd like our newsletter, please let me know and I"ll send you a copy.

Keeping Up with the Midwife Skilz...

Trying to suture Ben's hand sans lidocane (frozen bag of tomato sauce instead).

Catching Up

Here's my attempt at catching y'all up on all that is going on. We are working on a newsletter and prayer card. So keep looking for that. Yessssssssss the toilet has been fixed and installed!!!

A gathering of friends for fellowship and prayer. David was telling us about the people that have been working and praying in this neighborhood for years. We have been enjoying putting out our open invitation for people to join us for dinner.

Ben leading worship night.....

Our focus these first few weeks has been to fix the house and grow together as a team that lives here. On Halloween night we started to turn a corner and go OUT. It looked differently than we imagined as there was hardly anyone out on our street. But we got out there and then us girls came back to pray while some of the guys went out to meet more people. This is us warming up in the foyer of the house before we go back out.

We have the girls apartment done, so we've moved on to finishing the community apartment where we hope to reach out the the neighborhood and work with kids and feed people. Some guys from the church that bought the house helping us tile and paint.

W