Seth and I are still alive, still happily married, and still here in Brainerd. I finished teaching my first year of school, and all the kids get to pass to fourth grade! Now I am working at Summer School (which is basically like a daycare but we teach one class a day). Seth is still working construction and staying busy with that.
Seth and I are so excited about what this fall holds for us! We are planning a trip back to Peru (through Baptist Mid Missions again)! This is much like our survey trip. We are praying for God’s will about being missionaries in Peru fulltime in the future, so we are taking this trip now to look at possible ministry opportunities and look at some of the seminaries and colleges that they have.
The plan is to leave in September and stay down there through May. We are going for several reasons. We are going to see the needs, we want to brush up on our Spanish which will make us more effective in our ministry (it helps if they can understand us!), we will be based in Lima where we were before and we will be helping with our church down there and another church plant, we will be working with the Carltons (the missionaries we were with during ARRIBA), and we will be traveling throughout Peru and possibly to Ecuador and Chile to see the different Bible Colleges that they have. Our reasoning for doing this is that we feel that God is leading us to be teachers on a foreign field. Seth would like to be able to teach at a seminary level so he can teach the nationals to teach in their own Bible colleges and to be pastors and I would like to be able to teach the women at their Bible colleges. That way, if the missionaries are made to leave the country, they still have plenty of well-trained teachers and pastors to carry on the work on their own. We plan to be in Peru for nine months and then we will come back to the States, probably live in Minneapolis, and go back to seminary, Seth for a Masters of Divinity and possibly his doctorate and I would like to get my Masters in Counseling.
Please pray for us as we are going around right now speaking in churches and raising support. We need about $9,600 for the nine months we are there (that includes the tickets to get there and back). We are about a third of the way there. Praise that Lord! If you feel God leading you to give, that would be great, but more importantly, we need your prayers (especially Seth who tends to get bitten by snakes, etc. =))! Seriously, we really do need your prayers for God’s leading and direction while we are there, and to what He wants us to do afterward. We have a tentative plan, but that could change if God shows us He wants us to do something different! Also, feel free to come visit if you have been wanting to go on a mission’s trip!
We love you all and miss you a ton! Seth and Crystal