Heading West and other Fall News!

Happy Fall, everyone! I suppose it shouldn't surprise you all that I love this season, considering my name! :-) Since the Fall season isn't something that we'll get to enjoy in Papua New Guinea, I'm determined to enjoy everything about this wonderful season! Besides the beautiful temperatures (Helloooo, boots and sweater weather!), amazing colors as the leaves change, and wonderful smells (can you say "hot apple cider?!?"), there are some other things Josh and I are looking forward to this Fall.

BUT FIRST...
Before I get to what's coming up, I just want to share with you about the past couple of months. I know it's been a little longer than normal since you've heard from us, and honestly, I've struggled with how to update you all. For the past several months, our lives haven't really consisted of what you might call "exciting newsletter material" type days.

LOTS of Skype calls with our missions team, meetings with pastors, and discussions with supporters, along with working our jobs, serving at church, and creating budgets and lists don't really make for awesome photos to include here!! :-)

It's a season of life filled with a lot of "unfinished" things. By that, I mean that there are so many things related to our move to PNG that we can't finalize or completely nail down yet, so we work on the parts we can, and then keep turning the rest back over to God.

However, there are some really big, important things coming up that we would love to have you pray about with us!

THE BIG EXAM

In 1 weeks, on October 23rd,  Josh will be taking his national theology exam! We are so thankful that he passed his district exam in July, and since then, he has continued to study many hours each week to be as prepared as possible.

For this exam, he'll be questions for 4-6 hours by a panel of 12 pastors. He already completed and turned in a 76 page paper which covered his beliefs on our statement of faith, and the pastors will use what he wrote in his paper help guide their questions

Here is a little glimpse into what some of his study time looks like.

Josh is writing out the references he has memorized for just one of the points on the exam.  

If he needs to retake any of the sections, he can do that in March, but we are praying that God would allow him to pass each section so that we can switch our focus entirely to support raising.

HEADING WEST

In November, Josh and I will be flying to Arizona where we will get to see our teammates, Craig and Sara Noyes, who are headed back after almost 2 years in Papua New Guinea. We are so excited to get to see them and to have this time together to plan together as a team. 

What kind of plans, you ask?

Well, in our next update, I'll give a lot more details on the types of things we are working through together as a team.

For now, please pray for Josh and I, the Noyes family, and our church leadership as we talk through so many really weighty, important things that will influence our ministry for years to come! We want God's will for our lives and our ministry! 

JUST FOR FUN
We are also taking time together as newlyweds (we just passed our six month anniversary!) to grow and strengthen our marriage. We had a chance to go on an overnight camping and hiking trip (check out the pictures below), and have enjoyed a number of special times with family and friends!

Enjoying several waterfalls along the hike. 

Our "bedroom"

Our Shower!

We are so blessed to have a beautiful apartment with this kind of beautiful view of God's creation!

A QUICK HEALTH UPDATE

Thank you again to everyone who has continued to pray for my health since the melanoma diagnosis and surgery in January. Some of you have asked for an update, and we are so thankful to report that so far, all of my follow-ups have been clear of any additional cancer. I'll continue to have 3 month assessments right up until we leave the country, but it's encouraging to not see any signs of the cancer having spread through the nerves. Also, we just received back the results of a further test which showed that my type of melanoma is some of the least likely to spread to other organs, so we are very encouraged to hear that news!

As always, we are so incredibly thankful for all of you who are supporting us through prayer, financial support, and encouragement! Thanks for being part of our team! 

Follow us on Facebook to get other updates and prayer requests. Click HERE to download a pdf bulletin insert of this update.