Missions Conferences and New Support

God has been good since we last talked. We have started into the Fall Missions Conference "season" and so far the Lord has been very good to us. Last week we had the opportunity to be a part of a home missions conference at a church in Madison, WI. We started the festivities on Saturday night with a Fall Festival at the Pastor's Farm. We had a great time on the hay ride, sampling the different chili's for the chili cookoff, and sitting around the huge campfire that I'm sure was visible from the space station! We even had the opportunity to go to a corn maze after the church activity with the college and career class. The next morning the conference started. This was unique in the fact that it focused on home missions. Maranatha was highlighted Sunday morning, Leah and I were able to present Sunday evening, along with other home missions programs in the Madison area, such as a women's center and a youth Bible camp in Wisconsin. All in all the conference was a great success, made so by the hard work of the pastor and his family. As for this past Sunday, the 30th, we originally thought we were going to have a Sunday off. For a missionary on deputation, this is not generally good news. We received a call just a week and a half before our meeting that they would have to reschedule to another time. There obviously would not be enough time to obtain another meeting, so we started to look forward to our first Sunday at our home church in quite some time. On Tuesday of last week we received a call from a pastor in the Indianapolis area wondering if we could come that night for his missions conference. We were in the middle of the missions conference in Madison, and we did have a family get together on Friday night, but I told him I would be more than happy to go down Saturday and Sunday to catch the end of the conference. The pastor explained to me that his father had come to visit, and while at lunch, the pastor was excitedly telling his father about their missions conference that was starting that week. The pastor's father queried how many missionaries his church had going to God's chosen people, the Jews. The pastor said that he was so convicted that he immediately called IBJM to find out if there was a missionary on deputation that could join his missions conference. Consequently, we got the call because of the cancellation that we had. It was a great conference with a great group of people. What a blessing to serve a God that knows all of our needs. We did get a call this week that one new church has decided to take us on for support. Adding that to the other church that called two weeks ago, we are now up to 26.5%. Praise God! We are excited to see the Lord slowly but surely keep that support rising. Please pray as we have really started to make preparations for language training. We have consulted with our contact there in Kharkov and now I am in the process of contacting the university there in Kharkov to be accepted into their language program. We are not waiting for an email back. Thanks again for your love and prayers. We can't wait to see what God has for us in our future!