Snow Day

We had a fairly random downpour of snow. Within 18 hours we had a foot of snow!! I had already set up meetings with people around town to organize a volunteer trip in April, so after my hike through town, Kate and I built a snowman in the back yard. At first she was afraid of the snow, but after a while she helped me build the snowman and then lick him because she wanted to eat snow!

New Apartment

This last week we were able to find a new apartment more in the strategic center of town. For everyone who has visited or heard about our old apartment, we are no longer going to be on the lake. If it comes to mind, please pray for the month of February as we move to the new place and try and restore the old apartment to the way it was before we left (furniture, dishes, appliances). We will post pictures when we finally get moved in!

Balkan Burger

Have a taste of our life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/dining/20balk.html
Head to NYC and hit up one of the restaurants mentioned at the end of the article. Good stuff. Brian's favorite.

Packing for Macedonia

We are finally back in Macedonia! As we get settled I will be writing a post, but until then I want to share a video with you from before we left. This video was made a week ago and it is Kate commenting on her "packenizing." I hope you enjoy!

Thanksgiving at the Holder's

As you probably figured, we had Thanksgiving with the Holder's on Saturday following the Thursday with the Davises. Although there were not any guests, the feast was just as big!


Elley and Gabe!

Thomas sleeping on Jeff

This is me telling Kate that she will not get her milk until she takes this bite.

Tabby and Kate.


The Holder Family!

The Turkey! Oh wait, I mean my father-in-law :)


Everyone eating Thanksgiving Dinner.

Of course we all had a blast and Kate enjoyed having other kids with whom to play.

Thanksgiving at the Davises

I realize now that our last post was Thomas' birth and I haven't made a post since then. Needless to say we have been busy and had the privileged of speaking in many new churches and meeting many new people. I am looking forward to building on the relationships that we have made and hopefully seeing some of the faces we met in Macedonia! In the last month we got to spend Thanksgiving with both of our families. On Thursday we spent Thanksgiving with the Davis Family. Here are some pictures:

Here is Kate showing Grandpa how to really make eggs.

Thomas and Grandma (above and below)

Amanda Poe, Kate, and Mandy. The Poes came to our house for Thanksgiving.

Mrs. Poe and Thomas ... he was held a lot and therefore slept a lot :)

Thanksgiving Dinner!

... and all of us eating it! :)

Afterward we played Cranium.

This is me with both the kids, of course Thomas is sleeping.

Of course it was great to be in America for Thanksgiving again and to be with family. It has been good for both sides (ours and theirs) but we also understand and gladly accept why we have not been able to do it the last three years.

Thomas Andrew is here!

He was born October 21, 2009 at 2:40pm weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces! Both mom and he are doing well!

Beach Pics and Schedule

We just got back from a week at the beach with Brian's mom, dad and brother. We had a blast. Brian especially had fun riding the giant waves that a storm brought in off the coast. It is amazing to watch two guys as big as Brian and his brother play in the ocean. On land next to Kate, and even me, they are huge, but throw them in the ocean with crashing 9 foot waves and you begin to see how very small we actually are in this world. And then, it becomes even more amazing our great our God is that He not only created this beautiful world, but that He knows us by name and loves us.

While we were there, we had Brian's dad take some family photos of us and he did a fabulous job!!! There are a few here, some on Kate's blog and even more on facebook.
Brian and I comparing bellies. I've got him beat, but not for long!!! :)



Next week we are off for a massive speaking tour. If we are in your area and you want to get together for a meal, let us know.
Richlands, NC --September 19-20th speaking at First Baptist Richlands, NC
Chatanooga,TN area September 23-28 (leaving 22) at a GIC with Red Bank Baptist Church
Gatlinburg, TN area the 29th-October 9 --Mandy's family vacation WHEE!
Mandy and Kate in Hickory, NC area from the 10th-14th while Brian is in Forney, Texas for the Forney Summit (advertised below)
Hickory area 15-17th for South Mountain Mission Conference
Stanly County -- 18th speaking at Cornerstone Church
Stanly County --20-22 for Stanly County Mission Conference
Back to Raleigh on the 23rd

As you can see, we have a LOT of traveling to do. The doctors are obviously a little apprehensive about me traveling this much in the last four weeks of my pregnancy and so am I. That is why my mom and dad are going to be hanging with me and Kate while Brian is speaking and I will speak and travel as I am able. Pray for us to have endurance and stamina to get through this month of travel. Pray that Baby Thomas will hold off on his arrival until after the 23rd and that little Kate will adapt well to all her new "homes."

We will keep you updated on all that we can as much as we can.

My time in New York

This blog should have been posted a week ago, but it has taken me time to sit down and write it all out. Thanks for your patience!

I was in western part of New York (west of the Appalachian mountains down by Pennsylvania) for 10 days during the middle of August to speak to an association of churches as a part of their On Missions Celebration (OMC). I ended up going by myself because the trip required a lot of travel time and it would have been hard for my pregnant wife and 22 month old daughter to handle. The Association was the Central New York Baptist Association (link here) which comprises 44 church over 16 counties! Obviously you can tell by the numbers that this association is spread out! This is unfortunate because the distance between churches makes fellowship and encouraging very difficult. One thing that did impress me was that most of the pastors are bi-vocational or tri-vocational so their passion for the gospel was obvious. If there was any doubt to the gospel witness in New York, it was laid to rest. Although the churches are rather spread out, if anyone comes in contact with them they will definitely here men and women of God who really understand how to rightly divide the Word of Truth.

As for us, there were 10 missionaries in all (5 from NAMB and 5 from IMB) to speak at 20 churches. Because of the way the OMC was laid out every missionary would speak at 10 churches in 8 days. This means that we spoke at 2 churches on each of the two Sundays (morning and night) and then a church every night of the week. We would travel to the church where we were to speak for dinner and dinner was hosted by a member of the church. After dinner we traveled to the church and we were given 45 minutes to an hour to share about our lives and ministry in our respective fields of service. After the presentation it was an open floor for a question and answer time at which point people were free to leave. I spent as much time dialoguing and answering questions after my presentation as I did giving my presentation. I never grew tired of talking to people and encouraged them to "try to annoy me with questions"... which obviously never happened. One evening I started speaking at 7:00 and left at 9:00 and no one left early or complained.

I always enjoyed the dinner where I would ask questions about the area and the history of the church. One of the places that we ate dinner was a partner in a farm and I was fascinated to learn about their farm. It was a milk farm, but they grew all their own crops to feed the cows. It appeared to me that almost 70% of their work went to just make food for their cows. They even made a video for YouTube which gave me a greater appreciation for their work. Here is the video for anyone who is interested.


This is a picture of me speaking at Southport Baptist Church.

I was graciously hosted the first half of my trip by Southport Baptist Church in Elmira, New York. I had a great time with them and would consider the pastor and his son new friends. I was greatly encourage in my time with them and enjoyed our sometimes 2 hour car rides one way to speak at the different churches. One of these churches

The second half of the week I was hosted by Beacon Light Baptist Church in Vernon, New York. I spent my stay with a retired couple, Milt and Helen, who liked watching the Yankees as much as I do and taught me a new card game, pitch. The second half of the trip was as much fun as the first. There was one church at which we spoke that was an hour and a half from any other SBC church. It turns out the pastor has an easier time talking to missionaries than he does most pastors because he tends to be isolated like most missionaries.

Overall, my time in New York was encouraging for me and I hope it was for the churches as well. Please be in prayer for the churches in New York that they would be encouraged in their ministries!

Family and Fun in New Jersey

About 2 weeks ago, we got to spend an awesome 10 days with Brian's cousins in New Jersey, his home state. He is so very proud of the place he was born. In his opinion, it is 'God's Country' cause there are Dunkin Donuts every 1/5 mile and the YES network which shows all Yankees, all the time. I reminded him that they do not have sweetened iced tea or Bojangles, but he said there was no need with donuts, NJ pizza and Yankees TV.

We had a blast spending the first part of our time in Towaco with his woodsman cousin and his family. ;) Mark loves to hunt and will shoot anything that moves and has fur on it. :0) Their little girl is just a few months younger than Kate and they had a blast playing together.


The second part of the week, we moved over to Licoln Park to stay with his oldest cousin and his family. We had a great time hanging out with their two boys, one of which is Brian's godson.


The family took us to the zoo, kept Kate while we went to the 15 inning Yankees, Red Sox game, made late night Dunkin Donut runs with Brian, took us over to Hoboken, NJ (greatest place in NJ), went with us into THE city (NYC), and ate with us at quite possibly the most expensive sandwich shop in the world.
Look at the size of that sandwich!

Brian and I in Time's Square.


We also got to go over to Garfield, NJ, where about 30,000 Macedonians live. Our friends, Marija and Aleksander, live there now. We enjoyed a day with them. Brian was the best man at their wedding about 2 years ago. They showed us where they work, took us to the Macedonian grocery store, and made us a skara (Macedonian cookout). While we still miss them terribly and wish, selfishly, that they would move back to Macedonia, we are so thrilled to see that they are thriving in this new world. Please pray for them, that they will find a church in which to be active and that they will grow in their faith in Christ.

Remember to Sign Up!!

We do not have a lot of people registered as of yet for this Summit! Please, if you know anyone in the Dallas/ Fort Worth region, please let them know about this. A lot of missionaries will be there and talking about opportunities to help in our work in Europe.
Engage Europe Summit.

Check it out and let all your Texas buddies know so they can come out and learn more.

Gatlinburg and Camp Mundo Vista

Hello Everyone,
We just finished of our week 3 tour. Our first week we were in Virginia, the second week we were in Gatlinburg, TN with Mandy's family for family vacation. Although it was vacation, there was no relaxing, it was go, go, go! Here are some pictures! After Gatlinburg we got to speak at Mandy's father's church. And then last week we arrived at Camp Mundo Vista in Asheboro, NC. We were the resident missionaries there and we tried to explain to the campers what it means to be a missionary and tell them about what we do in Macedonia. The three weeks were enjoyable and helped us to reflect on what we had been doing in Macedonia, but we didn't get much rest.

Here is a 6 month shot of Mandy as she was filming Kate and I throwing rocks in the river!

Here is Kate carrying Papa because he was tired on the nature trail.

Here is Kate throwing rocks into the river in Smokey Mountain National Park.

Here is Mandy addressing a group of campers during our presentation time at Camp Mundo Vista.