I think the world of this man!

Happy Father's day to my Daddy!!
I set out to look through my pictures, hoping to find maybe 2 or 3 good pictures of him to post on here.....aaaaaaand found about 9 million of them. It's taken some weeding through, but here are some pictures that portray some of the wonderful sides of his personality, his loves and interests, and hopefully give you an idea of how we, his family, think of him. :)


First and foremost, he married the most wonderful woman in the world. She is his Queen and he treats her like one. Never in our lives have we (my sibs and I) ever doubted his undying love for my mom. Kudos to you Mom for marrying such an amazing man! You are one blessed woman!



Yeah, that's right....MY Dad plays the tuba. Can your dad top that? Didn't think so. ;)



He's always had a soft spot for babies. He loves them, and, lucky for him, they love him too. My mom and I can attest to the sadness a person feels when they love to hold babies, but every time we touch them, the little boogers throw back their head and wail! My dad has been a wonderful father to each one of his 5 kids. And he's going to be a fantastic grandpa when the time comes!!






Seriously, I could have never asked for a better Dad. He's a goof-ball, he's a comforter, he's a wonderful listener, he gives the best hugs in the world, and he has a remarkable sense of humor. He has always worked so hard to make sure that his family would be cared for. You walk in his office at work and there are pictures of us all over....they serve to remind him why he is there day after day. He has raised a son who knows how to be a gentleman and takes care of his sisters. (Whatever girl manages to capture the heart of my brother Peter is going to be one lucky woman!!) He has raised 4 daughters who love cars, airplanes, and know more about concrete and construction than most guys. He takes care of our family, both of my grandmas, and my great aunt, all while working long days at a strenuous job. But through all of the stress he deals with each day, he is still such a wonderful example of how we are to rely on the Lord. Everything points back to God. He loves to sit around and talk about the Scripture! I could go on and on about him!!!



So Happy Father's Day to my Dad!!! I'd like to honor my father who was so influential in teaching me about OUR heavenly Father!

I love you Pops!!!

This comes from an email that I sent to my dad.....

But really, it was something that was such a blessing to me, so I'll share that part of it with ya'll too!

"Here I sit in New Jersey......this is possibly one of the most hectically crazy summers I've ever had! Always on the go! Last night we went to another family gathering to allow the bride and grooms families to get to know each other a little bit. I sat at the table with the older people. It was wonderful to just sit there with a group of believers that was so much more mature than me. Most of them had been on the mission field for years, but all of them have been in ministry for a long time. They shared about failure in their lives and how God used it for His glory. They talked about the dangers of allowing your eyes to get off the Savior, even if the distraction is too much ministry. They talked about self reliance (my personal favorite...I struggle with that a lot) and the importance of placing yourself completely into the care of God! We get angry, bitter, and frustrated when we fail and things don't go our way...but if we're striving in our own power, that's exactly what is going to happen! This brings me to the quote of the day. I got it from a book that I read while I was at school. It says "To be disappointed in yourself is to have believed in yourself." -Miles Stanford I have to remember to only look to God and trust in His strength alone. Only then will I experience any victory in my spiritual walk.....because the victory is His, not mine."

Please pray for the Parkers!!

Rachel is one of my friends from New Tribes. She's in the same class as me. The day before we were going to graduate, her brother Daniel was in a bicycling accident and died late on Sunday night. The Parkers are a very close family, wonderful people who love the Lord. Please pray for them! The funeral is tomorrow.
I posted the link to the newspaper article about the accident below. It was amazing to see Daniel's beautiful testimony shining out on the front page of the Jackson newspaper! A wonderful witness for our Savior!

http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2010/05/jonesville_man_23_dies_from_he.html

I'm done!!!

Can you believe it? I finally graduated! It's been a long journey. There have been ups and downs, there have been struggles and blessings, I've made mistakes and learned lessons. God has brought so many beautiful people into my life, people that I know will remain part of my life for many years to come. I've grown in my walk with the Lord and have been stretched in ways I never knew were possible. I have been taught to study the Scriptures for myself and not a day goes by that I don't become increasingly more aware of my great need for its wisdom and instruction. I'm looking to the Lord as I prepare to enter the next phase of my life and can not wait to see where He takes me! He has proved Himself to be so faithful, even when I am faithless. Life with Him can be nothing but wonderful, even in the hard times. Lets see what comes next!!

A day in the Joti tribe

Here is a picture of my group in "the tribe" during our senior trip at Wayumi getting a taste of language study in the Joti tribe. It was funny because we knew that it wasn't a real tribal person....but he played the part so well that it was so easy to forget that he was someone that we interacted with every day there. The last day we did this, at the very end of our session, we were trying to say goodbye to him and couldn't figure it out. So there we sat, talking amongst ourselves trying to figure out the culturally acceptable way to excuse ourselves without being offensive and he finally started laughing and said "there is no way to say goodbye in Joti!" I think it made my brain twitch! Everything inside of me was saying that this wasn't Steve, it was an honest to goodness Joti man who spoke no english! haha Really though, this was such an amazing time! I loved it!

Senior Retreat!

I'm on my senior retreat this week, spending a week here in Jersey Shore, PA and I'm loving it here!!! This week is kind of like a quick preview on what life is going to be like for those of us who are planning on going on with New Tribes. We're learning a little about building a good foundation for teaching, how to understand culture and the importance of knowing it, phonetics and linguistics, and so so much more! Today we "went into the tribe." They have a village set up with people in it and it's a small taste of what it's going to be like for us the first day we go to the tribe. It was really hard!!! Here we come in with absolutely no idea of what is culturally acceptabe and absolutely no knowledge of the language and we had to communicate with them and try to make it out of there with some new vocabulary. It'll take too long to tell ya'll about it here, but seriously, ask me about it sometime! Seriously, as time goes on, I become more and more excited about pursuing tribal missions! My passion to join this team grows every single day!
Please be in prayer for us as we continue to study this week! There is a lot of information to understand, lots of foreign and difficult concepts to be grasped, and lots of "stepping out of my comfort zone" and trying new things. I can't wait to fill you all in on what God is teaching me here....and it's only day one! If you have a few minutes, here is the NTM promo vidio for Wayumi that will give you a better picture of what we're doing here.

I'm in the Lord's army.....YES SIR!!!!

~The Spiritual Qualifications to Enter God's Army~

1. Foolish enough to depend on Him for wisdom.
2. Weak enough to be empowered with His strength.
3. Base enough to have no honor but God's honor.
4. Despised enough to be kept in the dust of His feet.
5. Nothing enough for God to be everything.




1 Corinthians 1:27-29
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.