November 2014 Prayer Letter

 

God definitely showed up at our final I Still Do event in Washington DC! Check out these comments:

We had hit a plateau.  I think we just broke through today with a re-commitment to our marriage!! Married 20 years

It saved my marriage – THANK YOU!! Married 3 years

This event Inspired us to stay on the battlefield for others and to help other couples navigate through the greatest relationship on planet earth. Married 40 years 

This conference changed my heart toward my spouse – to be wanting to care and sacrifice for him, identified sin in our hearts, and gave us opportunities to ask for forgiveness. This gave us helpful tips on ways to improve our marriage, and to submit before God. Married 9 years

In the twenty one years of our marriage, this was the BEST DATE EVER!!! 

We are looking forward to working the WTR events in Dallas and San Antonio this month. We will share more life change stories after the first of the year. We will be very busy this Spring. Here are the TX cities where we are doing events:

Dallas (Rockwall)                         

Tyler            

Dallas (Frisco)                               

Corpus Christi                           

Houston                                       

Houston (Sugarland)                       

 

Our youngest son Erik, and his wife Amy are expecting a baby girl in March! We would so covet your prayers for a safe pregnancy and delivery of a healthy baby. Thank you!

  

 

Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support! We are so blessed to be able to continue serving the Lord at Familylife and truly love our jobs. That is only possible because of you. God is using you to introduce many to Jesus. He is using you to help restore many marriages and families!

October 2014 Prayer Letter

I’m too old and too busy to memorize Scripture

We have all heard recommendations that we should
memorize Bible verses. Kids do it in Sunday School right? But
adults, really? I knew there was no way I could ever accomplish
such a task. Then one day a co-worker had his sons come into
the office at lunch time. They were preparing for the “Bible Bee”
and needed some experience being questioned on stage. We all
went into our staff meeting room with our lunches and asked
these young boys to recite passages that we were handed on
small pieces of paper. It was incredible. They not only quoted perfectly
many, many different passages but several were 10 or more
verses long!
Well, that did it. I was so impressed to think these young
men were beginning their lives with the Word of God firmly fixed in
their heads! So at home the next morning while doing my boring
workout video I decided to turn down the volume and work on a
short verse as I marched along doing leg kicks, etc. It worked!
That was nine years ago. I’m convinced the only reason I have
managed to memorize Scripture at all is because God is the one
teaching me and fixing it permanently in my brain. Thank you
Lord!
For those of you who feel you’re too busy, or too old, or
just not able to memorize anything consider this; you know the
Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner, the Lord’s
Prayer, and many other things like phone numbers, addresses,
etc. There are probably a lot of verses you have nearly memorized
already. I encourage you to just start with one favorite verse
and go from there.
If I can do it anyone can. The additional benefit for me is it
encourages me to also keep up with a regular exercise routine.
(Even if it is a boring workout video.)

Weekend to Remember statistics
from our fiscal year end 8/31/14.

Number of events: 102
Number of attendees: 51,054
Number of salvation's: 1,989

God is Good!

September 2014 Prayer Letter

September 2014

Response from I Still Do Conference in Portland:

· We were thinking of separating before this event, but a friend bought us tickets for us to attend. The event changed everything. We are now looking at making our marriage stronger.

· I have seen the man I fell in love with, the man I thought was gone. The man that I had destroyed. I realize that now. He is not gone and he won’t be “missing” ever again!! I love him today and forever.

· You did open heart surgery on my stony heart!

· It changed the way I look at communicating with my wife. It has reinforced my commitment with spiritual and practical tools to make our marriage better. Better for us and for our children. A marriage that will serve as a testament to others.

· Brought forgiveness and healing to us.

Blended and Blessed Summit

There will be one more I Still Do event in Washington DC on October 4. In combination with this event Ron Deal will also be putting on the 2nd Blended and Blessed Summit. It will be held on October 2 and 3 at Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, VA. 

The purpose of this event is to encourage the local church to embrace blended families by providing step-family ministry in their congregations. It is believed the church has been reticent in the past to offer such ministry. The need to help step-families however is huge. As Bob Lepine has stated, “Like Paul who also had a past, blended families desire to put the past behind and press forward seeking to exalt Christ in their marriages and families” 

The hoped for outcome is for blended families to be welcomed, encouraged, and helped in the local church. Encountering other step-families is in itself a start. It is so helpful for these couples to realize they are not alone in the challenges they face.

How to Encourage Your Military Friends

   Familylife has partnered with Cru Military Ministry to offer scholarships to active duty service men and women to attend our Weekend To Remember. It has been a great opportunity to come along side those that serve on our behalf. If you know a married person currently serving in the military who is interested, please send them to our website: familylife.com or have them call 1-800-FLTODAY.

    We are grateful to be a part of a ministry that “gives back” to help our service men and women. To date we have had over 700 military couples attend the Weekend to Remember free.

August 2014 Prayer Letter

Fr o m B u i l d in g A i r p la n es T o B u i l d in g F a m i li es 

August 2014 

I Still Do Returns 

Our one day arena event called “I Still Do” has returned. There are three events. Our first was in Chicago on August 2nd. The next one is in Portland, OR on August 23rd. The final one will be in Washington DC October 4th and it will also be available as a simulcast to churches across the globe. We were originally planning on working all three until our move to Texas interfered. Now we will be working the one in Washington DC in October only. We are looking forward to working one of the large arena events again. It is a ton of work but truly a blessing to see the Lord impact so many marriages in the span of a few short hours. The format includes great Biblical teaching to strengthen your marriage. There are terrific comedy acts and great worship music. The price also includes a box lunch. There were pages of positive responses to the first event in Chicago. Here’s just one: It was a moment of laughter, tears, hugs and reconciliation. I was truly blessed and my husband hasn't been the same since Saturday! I was dragged here. I was angry. But my heart softened enough to ask my wife for forgiveness, and I could renew my vows willingly and heartily, albeit tearfully. If you are interested in more information you can go to our familylife.com website or directly to istilldo.com. We look forward to sharing stories of God changing lives from the next two events. If you want to attend but aren’t close to Portland or Washington DC your church may want to consider the simulcast from DC event in October. Along with the October 4th “I Still Do event” we will also be working two “Weekend To Re- member” events this fall. We will be in Dallas (Los Colinas) at the Omni Mandalay hotel Nov. 14-16. The following weekend we will be in San Antonio at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort Nov. 21-23. Though there are fewer events this fall we will continue to be busy with our office responsibili- ties while working from home. We will also be traveling back to Little Rock a few times. We have an “All Staff” meeting the end of August and warehouse days in September. For our warehouse days it is “all hands on deck” as we go through all of our equipment sets to make sure they are all in good working order and no missing parts. We look forward to our staff meeting in a few weeks. It is a time to hear how we are doing as a ministry, where the Lord is directing us next, and a time of spiritual renewal. It will also be a won- derful time for us to reconnect with friends on staff. We’ve only been gone for a couple of months but really miss all the great folks we worked with for the past 13 years. On the way to and from Little Rock we will go through College Station, TX and spend a little time with our sons, their wives, and our grandson. We will also be dropping off Oscar (our rescued 20 year old African Grey Parrot). He is our only pet and fortunately he likes to travel.

July 2014 Update

July 2014

 

Belated Greetings From Texas

           Some of you may have noticed we missed sending a letter out in June. We apologize, it was the 2nd time in 15 years we missed a month.  We have had some extenuating circumstances recently. We appreciate your understanding and grace.

FamilyLife has agreed to let us continue working in our current capacity while living somewhere other than Little Rock. We moved to Little Rock 14 years ago from the Pacific Northwest. It has been a wonderful transition for us. However, both of our sons and their families have now relocated to Texas. With no other family in the Little Rock area we knew we would not want to stay there long term.

So, we put our home up for sale after Easter. It sold in two days with a closing date of May 30th. We were not able to find and purchase a home in such a short time so we put all our things into a Penske truck and hauled them to San Antonio and put them in storage.

Yep, we’re moving to San Antonio. We will now only be a couple of hours away from our sons instead of a full day’s drive. Since we look at this as our final move we made sure we are in an area with all the goods and services we’ll need. There are plenty of things for our family to do when they come to visit. (We’re hoping grandchildren will still want to come visit even when they are teenagers.) That goes for all of you as well. We have a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in the Northeast section of San Antonio. So feel free to contact us if you care to come visit.

Though we will be working quite a few of the Texas Weekend To Remember events we may also fly out to some of the other locations across the country as well. We will certainly make an effort to get back to the Northwest on a regular basis since we have family there and a large percentage of our supporters along with our sending church.

When not working events we will continue our normal office responsibilities but will do them from Texas. We feel so blessed that FamilyLife has allowed us to work from home!

Our house does not close until August 1st. Consequently we have been staying with our sons and their wives. They have been most gracious to support us during the transition. Instead of staying too long at one house we are staying too long at both homes!

Follow Up from Austin WTR

Here is an update from our final spring event in Austin June 6-8. We had 449 in attendance and 26 salvations!  Here are a couple of comments from the event:

I really thought we were at a breaking point in our marriage.  This has helped show us there are more ways, and our marriage serves a bigger purpose for each other, rather than the selfishness we get wrapped up in. 

Married 8 months

The event provided clarity, direction, and ways to apply the information.  It was a gut-check to step up as a man.  Sex session was amazing.  Even my wife really enjoyed the info, too.

Married 11 years