Back in Blogging Business

Lately I seem to be starting each blog saying: "It's been awhile since I've written", and I'm realizing that keeping up with blogging is harder than I thought it would be. Ben and I have been keeping very busy with work, church, our home, and trying to have a social life. With all that going on it has been hard to sit down and truly reflect and write out what is going on in our lives. Probably like most people we take one day at a time and try to accomplish enough to make it through each week. The weeks have literally been flying by and we can hardly believe that we are at the beginning of April and close to embracing Spring (YEAH!!!). The Lord has truly been faithful in our lives and we are grateful for that. I will try and highlight what we have been doing in order to not write a complete novel that no one would want to read.

Back in January we finally had the opportunity to go back to the west coast to visit our families. We were gone for a total of 9 days and they were wonderful! We enjoyed the relaxation and rest as well as a good time with each of our families. In light of having 9 days of vacation, it never seems like enough time to see everyone that we would like to see. We had some very full days visiting with friends and family, but they were fun nontheless. A highlight from visiting my (Christina's) family in Washington was going to the skating rink and teaching my niece and nephew how to roller skate. They sure were troopers and quick learners. A highlight from visiting Ben's family was our bonfire/cookout that we had in the middle of the desert. It was so peaceful and serene. We got to watch the sunset, cook hotdogs and roast smores over the fire and sing worship songs as a family. Going to the west coast also allowed us to get away from the bitter cold and to defrost in the nice sunshine of California.

In February we expanded our family (I know what you are thinking, and no we did not have children, nor are we pregnant). Instead we purchased 2 kitties to add to the excitement of our life. We bought an all black cat and named him jet and we bought a white cat with patches of calico fur and named her patches. We are having such a great time having them around the house. The black cat, jet, especially has lots of energy and loves to explore everything. He never misses a thing and has to be around in all the action. The other day I was loading the dishwasher and turned around to find him sitting inside the dishwasher with the dirty dishes. He keeps us on our toes to say the least. Here are some starter pictures of them. I will post more as we get them.

March has led us into beginning to paint our home. We are taking it one room at a time, but are excited to get some color on the walls to spruce up the house. We are gathering that it will be a slow process for us, seeing as many other things keep us busy on a regular basis. Painting is fun for us and a relaxing thing to do together.

Church Ministry has been going really well. Ben continues to love his job and is doing a great job. He is in the middle of a very busy season right now. Our church has decided to go to two services instead of one service. One of our services will now be strictly in Chinese and the other service with be for our new English Ministry. We will go LIVE with this on April 19th. The church is both excited and nervous about this new development. For Ben this now means that the children's ministry on Sunday mornings is twice as long. He has come up with a plan and now he is working on recruiting man power for the job as well as developing the program for the entire morning. It is a huge endeavor for him, but the Lord has been faithful in leading him to just the right people to help serve the children. We also are continuing to enjoy building relationships with the people at the church and love serving alongside them.

That seems to highlight the past several months for us. I hope to be more regular with these blogs, but can't make any promises.

Empowered To Serve

Last night Ben and I attended our Young Adult Bible Study and it was really neat because we have been studying in the book of Acts. We chose to study this book because we will be starting up our new English Ministry in a couple of weeks and we thought it would be great to learn about the early church development and the characteristics of the early church. Last night we discussed in length what true fellowship is versus just hanging out and having a good time together and also about serving those in need who are around us. In regard to fellowship we decided that true fellowship happens when we bring the Lord into our times of fellowship. It can look different for every occasion, but if there is no spiritual component to our times of meeting than we are just hanging out with one another or partying ( much of what the world does). It seemed that we were challenged to try and go the extra mile when we are gathering in the future to really engage in conversation with each other to get to know each other and to grow spiritually with one another. It definitely takes extra effort, but is worth it when everyone is growing closer relationally and spiritually and we can encourage and sharpen one another.

We also discussed serving others whether they are from our church or neighborhood or from somewhere around the world. In Acts it talked about the people selling things that they had to give money to the leaders to distribute to those in need. What an incredible picture of sacrifice! They did not treat their posessions as their own, but the Lord's and wanted the Lord to do with it what was needed. What could that look like for us today? One question that I wrestled with was whether I give my best or my leftovers. Also, do I really put my heart into it in order to see what the Lord can do with what I give. Often times I give with a half heart for my own purposes, instead of with a full heart and for God's purposes. One barrier we did mention is that often times we are not made aware of the needs of those around us. Often times our hearts are ready to serve, but we just don't know where to offer our services. Helping each other is a two way street. We, as people, need to let down our pride to admit when we need help and there needs to be people willing to give and serve where needed. It was awesome to see the passion in the different individuals of our group to really make a difference in the lives of those around us as well as those around the world.

The work of the Holy Spirit is utterly amazing when we let go of our own agendas and really let the Lord work. I hope our group maintains this fervor for serving the needy around us. I can't wait for next time when we discuss our spiritual gifts and really determine how we can be at work for the Lord the way He gifted us.

Celebrating All the Holidays in Indy!!

Where has the time gone. Looking back at my last blog I realized that a lot of time has gone by since I have taken the time to sit down and share what Ben and I have been doing for the holidays. Ben and I have stayed in Indiana for all of the holidays thus far. I (Christina) will not earn any vacation time from my job until the beginning of January, and there was not enough time during the holidays to go to the west coast to visit family so we stayed put at home. For Thanksgiving we started off our day going to the park and playing flag football with the youth and young adults from the church. We had a great turn-out of about 50 people come to play. I learned really quickly that flag football is not my thing. I felt as though I was running in circles trying to figure out what I was doing. I took over watching the youth pastors 3 year old son, which was much easier. That evening the youth pastor and his wife hosted the young adult group for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out to be a wonderful, meaningful evening with a group of our new friends. We were blessed to have a place to spend Thanksgiving since we could not be with our family.

Next came the very busy season of Christmas. We had several great parties and celebrations that we got to be apart of. I will only mention a few of the highlights. One of the highlights from Church was the Christmas program that we had a week before Christmas. Ben had the opportunity to put together a short play for the children to perform during the program. He wrote a play based off of Luke 2 and each of the children played a part. You will see in the picture the angels, which are the kindergartners that Christina works with on a regular basis. They did a wonderful job, as did all the children and the play turned out great. A highlight for me (Christina) was a Christmas party that the youth pastors wife Grace and I put on for the women of the young adult group. We spent many weeks planning for this event and felt that it turned out really nice. We had dinner as a group, sang Christmas carols, decorated sugar cookies and made cookie jars that we could give away as presents. We had many new women join us for the event, which was wonderful because now they are coming to our young adult group on a regular basis. We love to see the growth in our young adult ministry.

Ben and I had a great time celebrating Christmas in our new home. We had fun getting a tree and other fun decorations to make our house look festive. Ben and I kept our tradition of looking at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. We landed on a gold mine when we found a house that was not only decked out with lights, but they had it set to music on a certain radio station. They had a sign outside of their house that told what radio station to tune into and then you could watch the light show. It was amazing and utterly outstanding. We can't wait to go back next year. Christmas evening we went to Chicago to spend a few days with our friends. We had a great time traveling around seeing people we had not seen since we left in July. Again, it was nice being amongst friends when we couldn't be with our family. The last major celebration we had was a New Years party that we hosted last night. We had about 23 people come through the house to visit and to ring in the new year. We even had a time of sharing/reflecting on this past year and praying for the year ahead. It made the night really special.

Soo... another year has gone by and Ben and I know that we have much to be thankful for. It has been a full year, but one of many Blessings and the Lord's direction. Ben and I look forward to this next year and what the Lord will do in and through us for his glory.

Post Physical Therapy

Many of you know that I have undergone lots of knee problems in the past year and a half and have been in and out of doctor appointments, MRI's and therapies. I wanted to give the good news that I have just been successfully discharged from Physical Therapy. This is the second time I have been referred to therapy and I must admit I was very skeptical about the possibility that it would work and that I could come out of it capable of being active again. Well, the physical therapist that I was referred to was exceptional and worked one-on-one with me to accomplish my goals. I had extremely weak leg muscles going into it and failed all of my strength tests. I took another test at the end of my 8 weeks (16 1 1/2 hour sessions) and passed everyone of them. I feel great and stronger than I have felt in a long time. Now I get to embark upon my journey of running again. I will be taking it slow, but nontheless will get to run again soon. The only possible thing that could keep me from running now is the cyst in my knee. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about the cyst at this time. Only time will tell if it will go away on its own. If it doesn't go away and bothers me, I unfortunately will not be able to run, but if it doesn't bother me than I have the go-ahead from my doctor to begin running again. I want to thank everyone who has prayed for me and inquired about my knee. I appreciate it greatly and am encouraged to see how God has worked all things out.

A Much Needed Update

Much has happened in the past month since we last posted a blog. I will do my best to update everyone without writing a complete book.

At the end of September, I (Christina) graduated from my training course for my job. It was a great feeling to graduate and move forward into my career as a social worker. Ben was able to attend the graduation and it was great to have him there. He was a continual support for me through the entire training course. Since graduation my job has taken off and life at work is very busy. Despite the craziness of the job, I love what I do and working with the children and families that I work with. I am learning the job quickly and how to stay organized amongst the chaos.

Ben's job continues to go well. He is quickly approaching the holiday season, which is busy, but he is managing all of his tasks efficiently. On the 16th of November there will be a Children's Ministry Sunday where Ben will be the main speaker. The children will also be apart of the service in the way of singing and skits. This will be Ben's first time preaching during a service along with doing it via translation. He looks forward to sharing about the children's ministry and getting others excited about it as well. Ben has also been working with the co-workers to establish a Mission and Vision for the department that will guide the Ministry. He is very close to having an official statement that the ministry can be driven by.

In the middle of October Ben and I took a mini trip to Virginia for the Columbus Day weekend. We went to see the historical triangle there, which consists of Jamestown, Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg. We had a wonderful time on our getaway trip. One of our highlights was that the hotel we were booked to stay at was full so they put us up at a resort and we got our own 2 bedroom condo to stay in instead of a hotel room. The resort was remarkable and helped make the trip extra relaxing. The other highlights were visiting the 3 different historical sites. They were full of great information and had it set up in a way where the people were dressed up to represent the time period and the people were demonstrating the different things that were happening during that time period. It was a fun way to learn history and we would recommend it for anyone. It was a well-needed break for both of us and we were grateful to get away together and to experience history in the way that we did.

At the end of October Ben and I recieved sad news that a friend of ours from our previous church in Oak Park had passed away due to heart problems. We received the news the night before her funeral service and therefore up and left Indiana on the spot to drive to Chicago to be able to say our goodbyes and be apart of the service for her. It was a precious service and one of hope as she had a personal relationship with Christ. We got a chance to spend the day with some of our friends in Chicago, which lifted our spirits and was a nice time for us. We had wanted to go back to visit, but didn't expect to go on those conditions. Nevertheless it was a neat time being among our Chicago friends again.

It's hard to believe, but the Holidays are approaching rapidly and we are doing our best to prepare for them.

Unfortunately we were not able to post any pictures from our most recent endeavors due to a problem with our main computer that houses all of our pictures. We hope to post some pictures in the near future.

Friends Going The Distance

Friendships can be what we choose to put into them. I (Christina) have learned over the past 5 years that quality versus quantity of friendships is what is important for me. Back in high school it used to be about the quantity of friends because that showed popularity. The problem became that once I graduated from high school and moved away to go to college I no longer kept up with any of those friends because we didn't have the quality of friendship that we would make it over the distance. From my high school days I only keep in contact with a few and those were the people that I spent quality time getting to know and our friendship was on a deeper level. When I moved away or they moved away we had the strong desire to keep in contact with eachother in order to stay connected with eachothers lives. So, in college I changed my focus for friendships and started focusing more on quality than quantity and it has made a huge difference in the longevity of them. Granted I met a lot of people in college and don't keep up with them all, but the ones that I did put more energy into to get to know on a deeper level are the ones that I am still in contact with today. I am also grateful for new internet connecting sites like facebook that help me to stay in contact with many friends from both high school and college.



The reason I started thinking about this a lot was that Ben and I recently moved and in the 2 months since we left from Chicago we have already had 3 sets of our friends come to visit and we were invited to a beach house as well to meet up with former church friends. It is extremely touching to have people specifically plan and come to see us just to keep up the friendship. It is touching when people will not allow distance to stop them from being apart of your life. Moving from place to place is a natural part of life and God has called us to be faithful to follow wherever he is leading us. Moving can also be a scary and lonely journey in life, but when you have friends all around the world who are praying for you, calling you, writing you and making special trips to see you, you know that God is in those friendships and that those friendships are life-long friendships.



Since moving to Indiana Ben and I have met some new people who we know that overtime will develop into new friendships and we are excited for that. Only the Lord knows if we will be moving again, but I am more confident than ever that in that time we will not be losing any friends, but just expanding our network of friendships around the world.

New School Year Has Begun!!

The new school year has begun, which means a lot of new beginnings for the Church Ministry. Ben has been working extremely hard to get the Children's department in good standing for the beginning of the year. Back in the middle of August he held a kick-off meeting for all of the volunteers in the children's ministry. The volunteers are involved in either sunday school, AWANA, or the Chinese school. Many of them are involved in multiple ministries, which is great. The kick-off training meeting was extremely successful. We had about 50-60 people in total and they were all excited and motivated for the new year. This years theme is being a piece in God's puzzle. We were challenged to consider the gifts that God has given each of us and how they will play out as we minister to kids. Ben has been encouraged since the meeting seeing the volunteers applying what they learned.

Last Sunday, August 31st, was promotion sunday. The Chinese Church has never had anyone to organize an event for it, so all they would do was have the kids go to their new classrooms. Ben wanted to change that tradition by having an actual ceremony for the kids prior to them moving up to their new classroom. It ended up being a great time and the parents loved it. Ben had each class come up in front of everyone and he talked about their specific class, then he had a picture taken of the entire class with the teachers and the parents of each of the kids. It was a special and momentous time. That is another project that Ben had been working on in order to start the year off with a bang.

AWANA also started this past Friday night. I (Christina) am working with the cubbies, which is the 3-4 year olds. We had a smaller group than normal, but they were a great group nontheless. I will be working with the same kids each week working on their verses and crafts. I also will be doing the puppet show each week that will correspond with the lesson. I had an interesting first week doing the puppets since I had never done them before. I practiced the script before hand, but when I got there that night I was told that I had to hide outside the door and the kids would yell for me to come in. That part went great, but what I wasn't told was that I would be hiding behind a chair. I came waltzing in with the puppet and was quickly told to duck behind a chair. I quickly dropped to the ground behind the chair trying to act as though that is how it was supposed to go. Good thing they are only 3-4 year olds. This next week should go much smoother.

As for the rest of our life outside of Church (which is not much these days) we are doing well. I currently have 3 days left of in-class training before I move on to the mentorship part of my training. I have spent one complete week with my mentor so far and it was great! I will spend my remaining 2 1/2 weeks with her, shadowing all that she does and will graduate on September 29th. Soo... the training portion is winding down and I must say that I am excited about that. Ben and I have also gotten to meet our neighbors in the past couple of weeks. We have some wonderful people living in our neighborhood. We are all in the same boat in the fact that we are new to the neighborhood and dont know anybody. We are all trying to be helpful and generous to eachother in our different needs. For example... we asked a neighbor to borrow their lawn mower and not only did they agree, but the very next morning the husband showed up at our house with it. We are thrilled with our neighborhood and look forward to building upon these new found friendships.

The Lord is doing great things in our lives each day, confirming that He had for us to come to Indiana. We are feeling more and more at home here in our neighborhood, job and church and are grateful to all those who have kept us in their prayers. We will try and post things more often as to not have each of our blogs be so long.