Good News

Dear Friends and Family around the world,

We hope all of you are doing well. Things have been going pretty well with us and our YWAM family in Shillong.We have some big news to share with you today. Summer had an ultrasound yesterday which confirmed that she is in the early stages of pregnancy. We are excited, as well as a little nervous.

Summer has been doing well, and so far, has not been sick. She does feel very tired. She calls it "supernaturally tired". Everything she has felt so far though has matched well with what the books tell us to expect.

We wanted to ask all of you to pray for us, as well as for our little Houser forming inside of her. We will need grace, health, and protection. We want to be good parents, and we want to have a healthy child who becomes a spiritual child of God.

We appreciate so much your love and support for our lives and ministry. We are so blessed to know all of you, and we hope for God's best blessings to come to each of you wherever you are.

Love Feast

This last Friday we had a love feast at our base, hosted by the Discipleship Training School staff. They worked so hard to decorate the room with beautiful cloths, candles, and special tables. Wati went aroud and sang songs at each table and there was great joy written on everyones faces. They prepared a true feast with rice, chicken, pork, vegetables, and fruit.

Everyone was shown to a seat and then the staff came and served us food and took really good care of us. They brought us seconds and even washed our plates, it was a true labor of love and we were all touched.

Water Tank

A few weeks ago after one of our trips away from home, we returned and our water was very dirty. From every tap in our house, some sort of green vegetation, as well and bugs and other debris, came out every time we tried to use water. It was a bit scary and frustrating, and we figured it was time to clean out our water tank.

The city that we live in receives a tremendous amount of rainfall every year, but for some reason there is a major water problem here. Every day for our base we have to call people to come and bring water supply in a truck to our house.

Our water tank is separate from the base. Every morning and every evening, some supply from the city is released into our tank. It is usually enough for us. The tank is quite large, and made of concrete. Houser couldn't remember the last time that it had been cleaned it was definitely in need of special attention. Many of our friends helped Houser clean it out. All of the water was drained out and then a lot of scrubbing inside was done. Then Houser had to bang all of the pipes to get all of the greenery and different things out. Thankfully, ever since then our water has been clean and fresh.

Surprise!

We had just returned from our trip to Thailand and as we entered our home, it was hardly recognizable. Beverley and Sanni had spent hours decorating our home with streamers, confetti, balloons, and all manner of things, in honor of my birthday. We were so surprised.

The kitchen had the most decorations, with presents on the table, streamers and confetti everywhere, and balloons all over the floor. There was even a really big picture of a blond Barbie that said Happy Birthday.

It was nice that they thought of me. I'm so thankful to God for the incredible friends and family that I have in my life. So many people did so many things to make me feel special on my birthday even though we are far far away.

July

In the first week of this month, our housing filled up quickly as the new Discipleship Training School arrived. We have a pretty big group this time and we're still trying to get to know them all. They are from several different tribes and states in the Northeast.

We have base meetings every Thursday where everyone gathers together for a time of worship, prayer, and a time of announcments for everyone to hear. At any given time at the base we have several different ministries going on. Right now a DTS is running, as well as the ANHOP, All Nations House of Prayer. During different times we run Mission Adventures, a short ten-day program, and a School of Frontier Missions, which begins in September. So our base meetings are a time for people from different ministries to gather together. We took this picture after one of our base meetings. A few people are missing from this picture, but it's the most recent one we have.

Theja and Aren's son, Ziza, just celebrated his first birthday and we had a good time together as a base, eating a special dinner in honor of him.

Every six months we need to leave the country for visa purposes and this time we went to Thailand which is only about a 2 and 1/2 hour flight from us. While we were there, we both had our teeth cleaned and checked and neither one of us had any cavities or problems, hooray. We had a good time of rest and relaxation and ate a lot of good food. It was also my birthday while we were there and so we had a nice dinner together to celebrate. We had a really nice time and yet it's always good to come back home again.

Kohima Market

A group of 9 of us recently went to Nagaland as a group to be a part of a conference and seminar in two different churches. We had a really good time as different ones of us did skits, sang songs, and taught about different subjects that are dear to our hearts. At the conference in Longleng, we were overwhelmed by the number of people that came to participate with us. Longleng is a town that was a true adventure to visit. It is a bit difficult to reach because of the roads and location, and we didn't have electricity the whole time that we were there. It was beautiful and the people were so kind and hospitable to us. We had an opportunity to visit several of the schools there and share our hearts with them. A couple of people from our base are from that area and so we got to meet and visit with some of their family too.

We went to Kohima after Longleng and held a prayer seminar at one of the churches there. One of the neat things about Kohima is the market that is there which happens to be across the street from the church we stayed at. At this market you can buy frogs, eels, worms, dog, and all other sorts of meats for eating. It's really surreal to walk down the aisle of the market and see a dog claw for sale. One time Beverley was walking through the market and one of the eels jumped out of the bucket in front of her and she screamed so loud. All of the ladies around her were laughing like crazy. Bev was joking that she was going to bring back enough frogs for the whole base to eat, but we decided that we would need about 40, and we weren't sure how they'd handle the bus ride back home.

Temjen and Margriet

Our Regional Leader, Temjen, got married to a beautiful woman named Margriet. A group of us made the three hour drive to where they got married, and celebrated with them. Margriet is from Holland and a few of her family members flew out here to be there for the wedding.

We are so happy for Temjen and Margriet.

Pictionary

We had a "couples' night" in our house and had a nice meal together as well as played a game of Pictionary. Just for fun we played girls vs. boys, and the girls won hands down. Our prize was a delicious chocolate bar, and of course, most of us shared with our husbands.

It's only been this last year that we have had a growing number of couples in our base and it has been good to get to know each other and spend time together.