Sarah Clay is a Mom

Look! Sarah's a mom... that's so trippy and awesome! Congratulations Sarah! We miss you guys tons!
Here's what Mrs. Clay wrote:
Dear loved ones,
I am officially a "Nana" (that was my name of choice) Sarah delivered Isabelle Nadine Pouliot at 12:41pm on May 2, 2007. She weighed 7.2 lbs and was 19 3/4 inches long. Sarah had a drug-free delivery (other than putossin to start labor) She pushed through without pain meds and did a beautiful job. She was admitted last night and they started the "event" this morning around 6am. THings picked up around 10am and then less than 3 hours later, WahLah: Izzy.

Loquist Family on the move...

These are the Loquist kids. Erik & Kim & family are moving from Virginia to San Diego. Erik is a pilot in the Marine Corps. So God is moving them to the West Coast. We already got them hooked up for the In-n-Out, Alberto's and Rubio's. All the bases are covered... oh yeah, they already made connects with the Calvary nearby! See you soon Loquist family.

Brickl's Update

Over the years we have been here, God has brought some pretty incredible people into our lives. We have been blessed not only to get to know many of them but to remain in contact with so many that we have come to love dearly. The Brickl's were one of many. Kelli wrote us the other day to share some fun news.
Dan and I are very excited to share news with all of you! We will be adopting a baby from the states! We are far enough along in the "paperwork" process that we wanted to tell our loved ones! Some close to us already knew because we need references and help. This summer we will complete our interviews when we are home to Wisconsin!

Please pray for the Brickl Family! We love you guys!

Tinter's Baby- Carson

Our very dear friends Kevin & Bekah Tinter had their first baby! Praise the Lord.
"Baby Carson was born 9:09pm on Wednesday, April 18th! Measuring 20 inches long & 8lbs. 11oz. Heathy & adorable." - Bekah

Doogie departs after 14 years on Okinawa

The legacy comes to an end. After 14 years on Okinawa, our dear, dear brother Keith "Doogie" Duggan is leaving. He is retiring after 23 years in the Marine Corps. It has simply been a miracle of God that Doogie has been on Okinawa that long as a Marine. Doogie came to Christ 6 years ago and has been faithfully serving CC Okinawa all this time. We will miss him dearly and his two wonderful daughters, DeeDee and Teenie. We love you much and will come see you in Chicago!

Fast forwarding more...

Still trying to catch up to the present... here we go again....
Here's our Jr. High ministry... Tsunami... Mike & Cindy Langley, who currently lead.. and do an awesome job by the way... are leaving soon. Mike is in the Navy and they have orders to Virginia. To say that we will miss them would be the understatement of the year...
There's this field in Okinawa City. One of the possibilities God has brought us... someone has offered to build the church for us and we can rent the whole thing- land and building for one set price. Please pray for us... for wisdom and discernment!
Every Wednesday, we have a dinner fellowship before and after service. Here Megumi is showing us the jar of pickles.
Look at that Orpilla boy. Who's his parents? The horsemen of the apocalypse... the boys give a "shout out" to Micah Velarde!

Puttering around with Jim & Crew

At CC Naha... Pastor Jim taught on the Holy Spirit. The Lord really blessed it and many folks came forward for prayer and to be filled fresh and anew. It was awesome. Yoko did a smash-up job interpreting into Japanese!
Of course, we went to the Pineapple Park... Okinawa standard...
Then on to the Aquarium. It was a beautiful day.
Then of course, we had to have our Yakiniku fellowship time. Jim and Lo gave it a new name. Yokinoki. It has a ring to it.

Pastor Jim shared with us Sunday morning and then for Sunday night, we went over to CC Naha.
Pictured below is the worship team. It was just simply angelic. God has really blessed them with some wonderfully talented young people.
Afterwards, we had the world famous Oshiro Curry!
The girls...
The boys...
The man himself.... Masaru Oshiro... please continue to pray for CC Naha and Pastor Masaru. They are growing leaps and bounds! It was awesome to see what God has done in 2 years now!

Fast Forwarding...

Okay.... this thing (blog) can be hard to keep up. Yikes... where do people find the time? This my attempt to fast forward through the past weeks to catch up to NOW... hang on...
We were blessed to be a part of the Freeman baby shower. Rodney and Lisa (at that time were having a girl and now had their little angel!) God bless you Freeman family!
Our building search continues. This is an old pachinko that is available. Please continue to pray that God will lead us to the exact pasture (building) He wants us to be!
A group of us got to head up to Tokyo for the Annual Calvary Chapel Japan Conference. It was a blast.
This the conference in full swing. That is Travis and Glenn's bald head.
This year, we were especially blessed. Pastor Jim Stewart (CC Kansas City), his wife, Lo and the assistant pastor, Randy and his wife, Joan came down to Okinawa after the conference in Tokyo. They hung out with us for a few days.

Philippines Trip: Day 4 : Dinner & A Show!

We were blessed to stay there at the CC Bacolod facilities. We joined them for dinner and it was quite amazing to see how they feed everyone.
The kids help to cook, set up, clean and do all the necessary work to run the home, just like a regular family but amplified! :)
The meals were super yummy. Not once did I hear any of the kids complain! I'm going to bring my own kids there and leave them for a while. :)
After dinner, the kids did a wonderful song and dance for us. It was so humbling and touching to have these kids minister to us. I so wished that all of the church could have been there with us to experience the love they poured out to us.
Boy they could sing! It was just plain awesome. I don't have the right words to describe how blessed we were.

Philippines Trip: Day 4: Bacolod

On Day 4, we took a 5 hour bus ride up north from Dumaguete to Bacolod. At the bus stop, Pastor Joe Rosmarino picked us up and brought us to CC Bacolod's Childrens Home.
It was very touching when we pulled up. All the kids were waiting for us outside and welcomed us to their home.
This portion of the trip was special for us, because for the past two years, CC Okinawa has been sending Christmas shoe box gifts to the kids. It was our chance to meet them in person!
This was only one half of the kids that came out! The Rosmarino's have over 150 children they call their own and have taken in to love and minister to them.
This is the whole clan. One of the simple blessings we were able to do that day was to take a family picture for them that way everyone would be included. It was quite the sight to see - I have trouble getting my four kids to smile and stand still for a picture... imagine 150 kids doing this! It was the beginning of an incredible time in Bacolod.

Philippines Trip: Out in Town

Here are some other sights from our time in Dumaguete. We were told that each area has their own version of a "Jeepnee". Here in Dumaguete, you can ride what is called a "Tricycle". It is a converted motorcycle with a side car. They serve as a taxi. We even saw some that had like 10 people on them- no kidding!
Many of the taxi's had "God Bless Us or Bless our Way". It is the prayer you want to pray when you drive there.

We got to go out in town to the market area. It was very lively, with many sights, sounds and smells!
Here Becky is preparing us as we walk through the butcher area. Imagine raw meat with no refrigeration on a hot day! Quite the experience.
Across the street was the world famous Filipino chain, "Jollibee's". Unfortunately, we didn't get to go inside and try any. We'll have to do that next time! :)

Philippines Trip: Day 3 : Calvary Chapel Dumageute

The last night we were in town, we attended the Thursday night bible study at CC Dumageute. The Senior Pastor there is Pastor Joe Joseph, who I had met several years ago at a Pastor's Conference. Actually Pastor Mike Ramsey introduced us.
The fellowship was sweet and the message was solid! Pastor Joe taught from Proverbs 12 - it was a great word!
As you sit in your seat and look up, there in the ceiling they have the familiar Calvary dove embedded in the ceiling tiles. It was cool.
The place was packed! God is doing a great work there. Pastor Joe shared that they are already outgrowing their facilities, which are in the process of being remodeled to accommodate all the people God is bringing.

Philippines Trip: Day 2 CCTC

Another ministry that we were able to visit and hang out with was the Calvary Chapel Training Center. It was quite an amazing place. The campus area reminded me of CC Murrietta Bible College main campus. The Training Center has a 3-fold ministry. 1- They serve as a CC Bible College. 2 - They have a missions sending agency called "2x2" and 3- They organize and teach Inductive Bible Study Workshops all over Asia. We were blessed to be able to stay on the campus with the students.
One of the evenings, the students blessed the team by putting on a Cultural Show. Pictured above are the bible college students preparing to sing the Philippine National Anthem.
Of course, there was the FOOD! It was so delicious. Filipino food is right up there with Japanese food! Boy was it good!
Here's Ken and Henry enjoying fresh coconut juice. We were treated like kings! It was so great to be there with the students and the staff.
At night, we'd gather under their multi-purpose area and just worship the Lord. The students were so gifted in playing and singing. It is their summer break so the students here are mostly ESL students from all over the Philippines. The director told us this campus is much different than some of the other extension campuses in that 90% of their students are local nationals that they raise up and send out back to their homes to do ministry. Many Korean students are also coming to learn ministry. Since English is a predominate language in the Philippines, the students must learn English.
Each morning we would join the students and staff for morning devotions. By 7am, the sun was out and bright and HOT! It was great to be there with them. God is doing a neat work there at CCTC. Please pray for the students and the faculty- they are expecting up to 70 students this coming semester!

Philippines Trip: Rainbow Village

We spent three days in the south part of the island of Negros in an area called Dumaguete. One of the ministries we visited and were blessed by is called "Rainbow Village". You can see more and learn more at www.calvarychapel.com/rainbow

During the day, we would spend our time here helping where we could and learning about all that God has done and continues to do. The ministry was founded by Trip and Susan Kimball many years ago. Their daughters are still in ministry there as well as a group of other dedicated servants. The new directors are friends of Henry. They are the Yost Family sent out from Calvary Chapel Joshua Springs.
Here is a picture of some of their homes and the field they share in the common area.
One of the ways we were able to minister was by simply playing with the kids. Here we are playing a fun card "who done it?" type of game called "Mafia". What is Henry looking at?
The kids were too cute. Here are the toddlers playing outside.
This Becky Kimball pictured with Grace. Becky was the lead director while we were there and she was a great Christian host. Becky practically grew up there and spoke the language fluently. It was so neat to see how much the kids there love her so much. We were blessed.