Waiting on the Lord

This summer has flown by! It seems like life has been busier than ever, and I am sure that has to do with why time seems to fly these days. As I mentioned in our last post, our goal has been to get involved in our church, until our time comes to go to the Missionary Training Center in MO. We have thoroughly been enjoying being a functioning part in the body of Christ. Since my last post we have moved thirty minutes away to be closer to Alton's work. He now has a 2 minute commute to work every morning, and this has been such a blessing! It has made juggling one car much more feasible, and it's given Alton the luxury of getting to come home for lunch everyday, which really helps break up our day.

Over the last couple of months we have been enjoying being part of a small group. Small groups really are such a wonderful way to get to know people in the church in a much more intimate way. We are currently reading through the book Radical together, and Alton and I love it! Alton will be leading our next small group discussion, so pray that the Lord would give him clarity of words. We are also co-leading our churches college and career group, which consists of mostly young college students. We are going through the video series The Truth Project. We hosted it three weeks ago, and we had 21 people packed into our tiny apartment, and it was great! :)  I (Grace) am helping with the care ministry, which involves writing and sending letters to those sick or grieving a loss in the church. Alton meets once a week with a godly man in our church for accountability, and they are studying Ephesians together. I am meeting once a week with two other married ladies, and we are going through the book, The Excellent Wife. About a month ago we taught children's church, and we will be doing this every couple of months. So as you can see, we have our schedules pretty full most days, but we wouldn't trade it for anything. We are really loving investing in the peoples lives around us, and having others invest in us.

January is approaching quickly, and we are really hoping and praying that the funds would come in for us to head off to MO to finish our training with New Tribes Mission. We have to let our apartment managers know in November if we are leaving in January, so that we don't get charged a fee, and so we ask that you pray with us about knowing what to do. We want nothing more than to be able to go, but unless the Lord shows us how to pay for the training, we are not sure how to make it work.

Riah is growing so fast, and is adding such joy to our lives! We love watching her grow, develop, and learn new skills. She is attempting to repeat some words like duck, and dog, and she is cruising all over the place. She still does not have any teeth, but it looks like several are making their way in. She will be 10 months old on the 21st of this month, which is crazy to think about. 

Thank you for praying for us!!!