Kenner Update: July 2008

Well, we left Georgia yesterday morning, and made it to Wisconsin last night. We didn’t get in until very late. The plan was to drive a long way yesterday so we could have an easy day today. About 10pm we pulled into the town we decided to stop at and evidently there was major flooding in the area. We hadn’t heard anything about it in the news. The hotel clerk told us we weren’t going to be able to get a room within a 3 hour radius! It must have been some pretty bad flooding. We saw people being directed into emergency shelters. We still haven’t heard anything more about it. The clerk was right though… we drove for about 3 hours and found another place to stay. Ahh, the adventure of a road trip!

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This has been an amazing month of seeing God work as we seek to stay flexible to His leading and wait expectantly to see where He will take us next. It is so freeing to give it all over to Him, and fully trust in His Sovereignty!

We started out with a visit back to Forsyth, Montana. Among the highlights was a visit with our teammates, Laura Thulesen and the Richards family (including the newest addition, baby Addy). Since they had been in Idaho since January, we hadn’t seen them in quite some time. Houghton and Josh went at each other with sticks. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Houghton was giving Josh some fun lessons in self-defense! Toward the end of our visit with them it dawned on us that we wouldn’t be seeing them again until we are together in Vanuatu! The Richards and Laura fly out July 30^th, only a few short weeks from now. Praise God, they are on their way! They will be securing housing for us and the Jones (teammates) in preparation for our arrival the end of September.

We didn’t get to see as much of our Montana ‘family’ as we would have liked during our short stay (partly because Tania came down with a serious case of the flu ? while we were there). We look forward to being back in August for what will be our last visit for a long time.

From Montana, we loaded back into the car and scooted off to Ohio. We stayed with old friends, Andrew and Katie Worsham. Grace and Josh had a great time with their two boys, Noah (7) and Lucas (4). They spent plenty of time in the back yard pool working on a base tan (in preparation for Vanuatu of course)! This year, after all, will be one long summer for us. We will leave at the end of the summer in the Northern hemisphere just as summer begins in the Southern hemisphere! Crazy. And for a fair-skinned family, a base tan for protection is a good thing.

It was our privilege to visit Katie and Andrew’s home group and meet many of their friends (Hi there, you-know-who’s). While there, Grace and Josh got to go to VBS for the very first time! They had loads of fun, and learned some good lessons, too.

We had been in Ohio for almost two weeks and preparing to hit the road again, however, we had one last stop to make. Team Vanuatu has been working with a group of churches that happened to have a church plant in the Columbus area. We were told to stop by and introduce ourselves. There we met, among others, Scott Ronyak and his wife Kate. The Lord has been preparing Scott and Kate (as well as a handful of others in their local church) with hearts surrendered to serving God and glorifying His name among the nations. We stuck around the area for the rest of the week to spend more time with them, their pastor, and others. Long story short... (The long story is good, unfortunately there isn’t nearly enough room here.) ...Scott and Kate will be joining us at BMW headquarters this month. While we go through the Pre-Field training, they will be attending the Candidate Orientation. Join us in praying that God would give them clear direction as to where He would have them serve. Join us also in praying for this handful of others that are asking God for clear direction as to what the next step will be for them.

The whole situation was just a stunning example of the Master Conductor orchestrating to bring people and circumstances together at the right place and time to accomplish His purpose. Oh how amazing it is to be overwhelmed by the Sovereignty of our God!

What a blessing, as we travel to various places, to find people that are devoted, and just plain sold-out, for God’s glory – whatever it takes.

"Now to Him who is able… to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." ~Ephesians 3:20-21

So here we are—Houston, Texas. We will be here until about the 10^th of July. We will go on with what we’ve been doing. Pray, and wait, and watch, for God to open doors. He continues to provide opportunities for us to share the work He is calling us to and to invite others who love Him, and worship Him, and seek His glory, to partner with us.

After Texas we are off to Lawrenceville, Georgia (Atlanta) for the ‘Field Preparation Seminar’, our last two weeks of training before we leave the states. We will be there July 14-23 going over key concepts and tools to help establish an effective ministry on the field.

Until next time, thank you for being a part of this journey with us!

Your Partners in the Gospel,

The Kenners-

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