Spring Cleaning...in Summer

Wow! We spent all of last week preparing one of our facilities, Hiram Hall, for the upcoming Village Missions conference. We swept and mopped, painted and organized, even made minor repairs. This building will be used quite a lot next week, so it was important that it be sparkling clean. We're looking forward to the conference and sharing about Shepherd's Staff with the many missionary pastors who will attend. Part of the mission of Shepherd's Staff is to minister to the rural church: its pastor, and its congregation, and these missionary pastors are definitely rural!

One neat thing about this mini-makeover was how much our children were involved. Tyson and Jesalynn both helped with painting, and Natasha and Jesalynn worked very hard one afternoon to vacuum the stairs. Sometimes the kids were just around, hanging out in the basement or watching a movie on the big theatre screen, but often they were chatting with us and learning about service. What a joy to see them continuing to develop a heart of service!

On another note, Gwen has started work on a relaunch of the Shepherd's Staff website. As part of this work, she's reading a book on designing with web standards and another on designing graphics. Sometimes she feels like she's gone back to college! She's looking forward to putting some of this new knowledge into practice very soon!

We so appreciate your prayers for us. There's a lot of work yet to be done here in Kansas, and challenges to face each day. We are learning to lean on God all the more, to align our hearts with His over and over again.