They say that in the Northwest, summer begins after July 4th. This year that was definitely the case and here in mid-September it seems that summer took early leave of us as well. But what there was, we enjoyed, camping in the back yard, going to zoos and the beach, taking in baseball games, and pretty much filling up our last few months in the States with family time. Even so, Tim’s made progress on his thesis. We moved out of our house a couple weeks ago (thanks, Bartletts!) and stayed with some friends in our home church (thanks, Carol and Ricardo!) for a few weeks before moving in with Tim’s parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!). We’ll be heading to Puebla the first week of October. Moving out has officially given us the moving bug and we’re really starting to get the itch to be back in Puebla. But first, a wedding to celebrate!

We’ll take between two and three weeks to drive about 4000 miles to Puebla. Once we arrive in Puebla, we’ll stay in the house where our goods have been stored until we find housing in Pueblo Nuevo. We are trusting that the Lord will provide a house in the neighborhood that works well for our family but can also accommodate guests, small groups, ministry activities and serve as a focal point for reaching out into the community. Some of the factors in this are location, space, layout, security and quality. Affordability also comes into play!

In addition to getting settled back into Puebla, our second major (and simultaneous) task will be team-building. We will be making contact with a church that has a small group in Pueblo Nuevo to see if that relationship will be a good start. We’ll be talking with pastors of other churches to ask for their support, even if only in prayer and encouragement, in the ministry. We’ll be seeing if other friends there would get involved. Finally, we’ll be investigating the opportunity of working with some EBM colleagues who are in Mexico City as well as another young man who might come down.

Our third area of work will be to begin establishing ministry relationships in Pueblo Nuevo. We’ll make contact again with the neighborhood president to see what needs we might be able to help with. We’ll get in touch with schools to see about helping them with at-risk students. We want to renew our friendships there as well. There are other ideas as well, but we don’t want to get over our heads too quickly. Starting slowly but with excellence will be more effective than trying to do too much.

So that gives you an idea of our first activities on arriving. Of course reconnecting with old friends, visiting many of the churches in our fellowship there, and catching up on our favorite foods will be important! We plan to keep up our relationship with our old church, but want to give them space. God has been good in our time away, and we hope to encourage them without getting in the way of their growth and maturity.

Thesis update
Tim is making progress with the thesis. In fact he has three out of five chapters written for a first draft. The plan will be to finish things up back in Puebla. Being able to find resources electronically is a huge benefit.

Help Wanted
Right now, we’d ask for prayer. Your biggest help will be praying faithfully and meaningfully for us in the immediate future, as we travel, cross the border, and settle back in Puebla. Beyond that in the months and years to come we covet your prayers as we seek to follow God’s direction and see him transform community. Pray for our spiritual condition, that we will walk closely with the Lord. Pray for our family, that God will keep us growing together in faithfulness. Pray for the items in our lists. We try to keep our letters short because, well, they’re faster to write (!), but also because they’re easier to read and get to the essentials. That’s why we have the prayer points below. We took a hiatus from writing over the summer, but as we go back down we’ll be updating our web site and Facebook regularly, as well as trying to get out short email updates. So you can help by praying…as follows…