Summer Days

 Our summer has been full and fun so far! Here is a glimpse of what we've been up to in June and July.

         The kids finished Soccer Shots!

Grace had her last day of KINDERGARTEN!!! It's off to 1st grade!

Chillin' in the back yard

Happy Father's Day to Andy! Micah was really in a festive mood...

Andy and Micah enjoying some s'mores!

More s'mores!

Grace got her first driving lesson from Poppy :-/

Bikes, fireworks, swimming...what more could a kid want???

Celebrating Emily's birthday!

Micah's first trip to the ER...thankfully not a true emergency, just a bloody stubbed toe :-)

 A visit to Spiral Path Farm to dig for potatoes and enjoy some homemade ice cream!

For the record...Micah DID NOT help AT ALL. He posed for a cute picture but for the most part he just banged himself on the head with the container until we needed to fill it with more potatoes.

A trip up to Chautauqua Lake...one of our favorite places!

Costco --> it's been real!

Andy's last day at Costco will be June 17!  As long as we've known we were headed into full time missions, we knew this day would come. There are not enough hours in the day for Andy to parent solo during the day, work in the evenings and on weekends, make follow-up phone calls, manage the logistics of fundraising, travel to churches for speaking, and visit individuals interested in our ministry. Trisha does her fair share of support raising work -- mostly correspondence and writing {like right now}. Too much stuff. Good, worthy, beneficial stuff. Stuff we want to do well. Not enough time.

While we all accept a certain level of busy-ness in our lives, there comes a time to change things up. NOW IS THAT TIME!

We know the path the Lord has us on. Andy's job at Costco isn't getting us there any faster. We are just short of matching his current earnings through monthly donors {to MMS}. With a couple hundred dollars to go for this short-term goal, we have felt the Lord saying, "Now. It's time to leave the big-C and focus on getting onto the mission field."

Um. Ok.

Perhaps it is our vivid experience of not having reliable income in the past that makes us hesitant to give up Andy's consistent-dependable-surething-reasonable-paying job at Costco. Perhaps it is our desire to be in control. To determine our own course.

Perhaps we lack the faith to trust God in new ways during uncertain times.

Yes. That's it.

So, a few hundred dollars short of meeting our short-term support raising goal, we need to trust that the Lord will provide. As we sat with this revelation {and it was nothing short of a revelation for us!} we became more certain that the time Andy spends at Costco could be much better used. 

For those of you into logistics...you'll enjoy this next part. If you aren't into the nitty-gritty skip down to the next paragraph :-)
Andy will draw approximately a 1/4-time salary from MMS to work on support-raising 15-20 hours/week. We estimate that he could easily do this amount of work given the tasks we have put off for so long since neither of us has time to do them in our current schedule. Some weeks we'll travel to a church to speak. On a daily basis, support raising is very office-y.  Phone calls, managing finances, correspondence, searching for elusive receipts, filing, planning engagements...VERY GLAMOUROUS.

You might be wondering what Andy does during the day now as he stays home with Micah. Why can't he do more of these support raising tasks while he hangs out with Micah???  

Close your eyes {keep them open, actually, so you can continue reading}. Think back to a time when you tried to accomplish something that required concentration, a non-shaking surface, and both hands while in the presence of someone under the age of five.

Are we good, then? No explanation needed, right?

If you have been considering becoming a monthly ministry partner NOW IS THE TIME! When we say that we know the Lord has been pushing us in this direction, we also know that he uses his people to accomplish his will. Your prayers sustain us, encourage us, and uplift us. Your donation get us to the field to full time service. 

 For His Glory!

*Please let us know if you are interested in donating through the Bible Fellowship Church Board of Missions.

 

CaREEr MiSSioNArIeS!!!

After a long application process and a very encouraging interview with the Bible Fellowship Church Board of Missions we got the BIG envelope in the mail.

{baby drummer drum roll please}

Dear Andrew & Trisha,
We are please to inform you that you have been accepted by the Bible Fellowship Church Board of Missions as CAREER MISSIONARIES (emphasis mine, obviously).





Woo hoo!!!!

Well, what the heck does that mean? The BFC BOM (rejoice acronym lovers everywhere) is not a sending board that doles out money. They act as a gateway to the BFC community. It is with their 100% backing that we will approach the network of the BFC pastors and churches as we work towards becoming fully-funded.

The BFC has a high level of commitment to supporting missions and we are excited to share yet ANOTHER way that God is advancing the Gospel around the world. Airplanes. Or rather what and who they carry! Bibles, everyday life and medical supplies, and missionaries! Missionary aircraft make the transportation of goods, services, and people SAFE & EFFICIENT.

This presents a HUGE prayer request.

Visiting churches typically happens on weekends.
Andy works at Costco on the weekends.
This is a problem. 

We need $500 in monthly support for Andy to be able to leave his job at Costco and concentrate on support raising. Support raising is a full-time job that he is currently juggling with day-time-child-rearing and evening/weekend work at Costco.

Please pray for $500 in monthly support! We will not be able to start the BFC concert tour...I mean missions-speaking tour until Andy isn't working at Costco. We also have other invitations to speak at churches near and far that we must put on hold until we reach our short-term goal of $500 in monthly support.

Praise the Lord for the opportunity to share about Missionary Aviation with the BFC community!

In other news, Grace has lost 2 teeth and Micah lost all the important Lego pieces (you know, the cool flames and wings and missile launchers). Andy & I have lost our minds. Never a dull moment!

Missions Monday 2.3.14

MISSIONS MONDAY

Since August of 1975, MMS Aviation has served over 100 Christian organizations who use aircraft in support of their ministry. Sixty-nine graduates have served or are serving in remote locations around the world.

Visit the MMS Aviation for more about how they Prepare People & Planes for Worldwide Missionary Service.

::Each Monday we'll feature some info about missions to help us all broaden our understanding of how God is at work in missions throughout the world::

It's a New Year!

It's a new year and we are excited about where the Lord is leading us!  We hope to get to MMS in 2014 and we are eager to serve as God leads us.  Our Christmas season was full with family, time with our kiddos, unexpected illness and time spent visiting in the hospital (Trisha's Pappaw), perpetual coughing....ahhhhhemmmm, excuse me, and even snow!

Here's a picture journey of our Christmas season. Enjoy! Please continue to pray with us for God's provision in MMS support raising. We are looking forward to many contacts and are hopeful for the Lord to provide mission partners.

We had some December-fun with Christmas lights, snow, winter-weather-dress-up, and a Jingle-Bell-Jog in freeeeeezing snowy temps!

We spent Christmas morning with our kids and had hours to open and play and open and play and eat and open and play some more! That was a gift in and of itself!

If you'll join us in praying, here are some things we are focusing our prayers around:
~Renewed energy for support raising. The months of November and December were intentionally low-key in support raising because we know people (and ourselves, too!) were focusing on family and additional activities.

~Andy requested a winter leave-of-absence from Costco for March and we pray for this to be approved. This is an opportunity for employees to request extended time off during the non-busy season without losing their status. We hope to make a lot of visits, talks, phone calls...whatever!...in an effort to invite folks into the mission and ministry of MMS.

~Prayer for our personal walks with the Lord and the discipleship of our family.

Thankful

*Disclaimer: after proofreading this post I realized that I grossly overused the exclamation mark.  Too bad.  I was just really excited about a lot of things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!  We had a lovely long weekend with our families and were grateful for a few days to spend together as a little-4-person-Gudeman-family! 
            I was going to say "relaxing as a little-4-person-Gudeman-family" but with a 6yo and a 3yo there   
            isn't much relaxing going on! Ha!  But lots of fun was happening!

Micah contemplating his turkey dinner!

Grace and RP at the kids table!

Don't mind me.

Grace went to the movies for the first time! Naturally, she saw Planes. 
I ran a 5K Turkey Trot! 
Micah turned 3! 
Andy spearheaded the Christmas decorating at our house!  We are thankful for his dad's help with the lights on the tree :-)  No Clark Griswold mishaps here!

Christmas magic :-) Try not to be jealous of our floral wallpaper borders.

I am so thankful for this guy <3

And the turkeys are off!

I'm just thankful I can run with a smile on my face!

We avoided Black Friday shopping so we could truly appreciate what we already have rather than adding more "stuff" to our lives.  We ventured out but without a buying agenda.  It's frustrating -- yes??? -- to watch the news about people fighting over Black Friday deals just hours after gorging on turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie --> uhhh, I mean reflecting on all they are thankful for. 

Seriously, though.  It is just crazy. 

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving {November 30th} we celebrated Micah's 3rd birthday!  I vividly remember having Thanksgiving dinner 5 days before he was born.  Talk about feeling stuffed.

What a kid!!!  We love this 3yo!!!

Pumpkin birthday pie!

Licking the pumpkin off his #3...wouldn't want to waste any!

On October 27th our sweet Gracie turned 6! 

Love this girl!!!  Such a sassy, sweet 6yo!!!

Rapunzel!

Disney on Ice for her b-day!!!!  Serious business.  Don't smile.

We continue to raise support for full-time missions with MMS.  Things will slow down over the holidays as our schedule {work/school/church/family} is too full {of good stuff} for church and home visits.  We are 20% funded (!!!!!) and praise the Lord for this!!!!  We are excited to have a more focused fundraising time after the New Year. 

If you'd like to join us in prayer, here are some specifics:

1.  Our spiritual growth -- we will be focusing on some particular areas in which to grow with the help of our pastors.  This is so exciting to us!  We are thankful for leaders who care about us, for a process that exposes our needs, and an opportunity to grow in God's Word.
2.  Our kids -- pray for their hearts to be open to God.  Also pray for their ability to learn obedience and respect.  They are GREAT kids but they need Jesus just like the rest of us.
3.  Parenting -- this is probably our biggest challenge currently and it is likely to remain our biggest challenge for, oh, I don't know, 18 years or so.  Or forever.  Consistency, diligence, obedience, and love.
4.  Preparing our hearts for missions.  There is so much involved with preparing to go -- spiritually, emotionally, and physically.  In church on Sunday I was overwhelmed -- with sadness, fear, grief, but also the knowledge of strong support-- at the idea of leaving my church family.  I realized how much preparation my heart will need in order to go.

Here is a glimpse at some additional Gudeman Fall Fun!

LEAVES!!!

A fall family hike

Grace's 1st loose tooth!!!

Togetherness <3

Togetherness with scarecrows <3

Peter Pan & Tinkerbell rocked the block!

So many Fall Festivals, so little time!

Grace met Jan Brett, the author and illustrator of some of her FAVORITE books!

A Desk Jockey, Super-Heroes & School

There's been quite a bit of exciting transition in our family over the past several weeks!

I {Trisha} started a new FULL-TIME job!  I am a caseworker at the County Assistance Office.  This is a *huge* answer to prayer and we are daily humbled at God's provision.  Many people have prayed with us for over a year {one year, three months and ten days to be exact} for this and now we rejoice together at how God provides at exactly the right time.  My job is about 10 minutes from home so I can take Grace to the bus stop in the morning and be home for dinner.

Me in the land of cubes and fluorescent lighting!

Andy will continue to work at Costco evenings and weekends while he takes care of the kids and the household during the days.  He is also the main driver of our support raising efforts.  We both do the calls, letters, conversations, visits, etc., but Andy makes the game plan that moves us forward. 

He's pretty much Super-Dad.  His Super-Dad cape sometime gets stuck in the door of his BatMinivan-mobile.

He cooks.
     He cleans.
          He launders.
He's Suuuuuuper-Dad!

It really doesn't get any better than this!  Don't show this picture to his chiropractor...

Grace started kindergarten in August and is totally a pro.  She loves Ms. Geyer, art, centers {rotating activities}, and reading.  She picks out her own clothes and gets dressed by herself each morning.  She reads in her book-nook in the morning until I get up.  Every morning she tells me, "Mom, hurry up or we'll be late for the bus!"

It's 7:00am.  Her bus comes at 8:07am.

Micah is also off to school this year -- pre-school...or "pre-cool" as he calls it!  He goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to Ridgeway Nursery School.  He also spends his days visiting Fort Indiantown Gap airfield, hiking around Memorial Lake or at Wildwood, or chillin' at the library.  A perk of Micah's pre-school schedule is that it frees up a few hours during the week for Andy to focus on support-raising. 

And he's off!

We are moving along steadily in our support raising for MMS and are currently at 14%.  Our ability to get to the mission field depends on how quickly we raise 100% of the funds we need.  We are eager to get to MMS!  We are thankful for each opportunity to share about missions and how we hope to be a part of kingdom building at MMS.