We have had a lot of new developments over the past month. As you probably know, we are both graduating 2 weeks from today. This is so exciting! We are about to embark on a whole new part of our lives. During this past month, we went to visit Central Church of Christ in Huntsville, Alabama, and they decided that they would like to fully support us. We are moving there after we graduate to live with the church for the next several months. We will stay there at least 6 months, during which we hope to grow in our ability to serve, as well as prepare for our trip and try to grow our team. Please be praying for us as we look for team-mates. There are currently 2 young couples contemplating joining us.
Over Thanksgiving, we were able to travel to Dallas to see Chris' brother, Jeff, and family, Chris' sister, Nicole, and our dear friend, Amy Greek. We also were able to attend the Cambodian Church of Christ in Balch Springs for worship on Sunday and Thanksgiving lunch Cambodian style. We traveled back to Searcy, took the dirty clothes out of our suitcase, put in clean ones, and drove an hour west to Greenbrier, Arkansas to visit Chris' sister, Kathryn, and her family. The next morning we drove back to Searcy, packed up over half of our belongings, and drove to Huntsville, Alabama. We enjoyed worshiping with Central that Wednesday night and then seeing our new home. We had Thanksgiving lunch with Casey's family and enjoyed spending time with some of Casey's friends. We traveled back to Searcy on Saturday and crashed! It was a wonderful week!
MAFIA has been going so well this semester. We enjoyed hearing David Buskirk, veteran missionary in Indonesia one Sunday night, and we are looking forward to hearing Rachel Filbeck, a Thai missionary kid from Chiang Mai, this Sunday night. We've enjoyed hosting MAFIA, and we hope the group will continue.
We have also enjoyed spending time with and learning from our stateside mentors, Matt and Andrea Miller. They have been such a blessing to our family as well as to Harding, and we look forward to many more years of their advice. Our mentor in Asia, Robert Reagan of Chiang Mai, has also been such a help to us. We are going to be leaning on these families as we prepare and start our new work in Cambodia. Please pray for their ministries in Togo, West Africa and in Thailand.
Finally, school has been going well for us though we are ready for its end! Chris finished his senior project (which was building a computer game) this week, we both attended a seminar on Handling Criticism in Youth Ministry that was very helpful, and Casey was able to do a Cambodia presentation for her Healthcare Missions class. We've learned so much here at Harding and feel as prepared as we can be for our future ministry. However, we hope to be constantly learning for the rest of our lives.
Please pray for us as we embark on the this next step toward Cambodia. We want to love and grow close to the people at Central and minister to those around us during our stay. Pray also for our sponsoring church, Central, and our supporting church, Hillcrest Church of Christ in Paragould, AR. Please pray as we learn more to equip us in our ministry, as we raise our family, and as we begin the process of moving 10,000 miles from home.
