As we reflected on this past year, we tried to think of how
to best describe the whole year. The only word we managed to think of was “full.”
Full of children.
Full of change and transition.
Full of basketball.
Full of life lessons.
Full of spiritual growth.
Full of using our spiritual gifts.
Full of memories.
Full of dependence on God.
A full life is a good thing. We truly feel that the Lord is
using us to our full capacity.
FOSTER CARE
Our personal ministry and much of our free time is devoted
to foster care. When we left working at a school for orphans in Kenya, we knew
we still wanted to be involved, in some way, with orphan care. Back in the
U.S., we quickly felt the Lord directing us to be involved in foster care. The
deeper we get into it, and the more we realize and live-out the challenges and
uncertainties with foster care… the more we feel called to continue. It is
hard, it is frustrating, it is full of unknowns… yet, it is worth it. While we
do desire to have “forever” children, either biologically or through adoption,
until God brings us those children, we are glad we can play our part in the
community to support some children during a very difficult time in their lives.
It has often been HARD. But in those times, we try to imagine what the kids are
going through, and we’re pretty sure that it’s much harder for them than it is
for us. Our hope is that the kids’ families will be restored and God will redeem
their story. Our prayer is that, during their time with us, they will experience
a very real example of God’s love, have an example of loving and encouraging parents
and a Christ-centered marriage.
In 2017 we had 9 children in our home, from the ages of 0 to
15 years and for lengths of stay from 3 weeks to 5 months. There were surely
many struggles, yet the highlights and blessings from our foster care journey this past year were:
·
Seeing 3 siblings reunited with their
birth father and go live with him.
·
Spending 2 weeks in the NICU with a precious
newborn baby and slowly jumping into caring for her.
·
Gaining great wisdom from the Ezzo’s and Young’s
by going through Preparation for Parenting.
PARENTS: this is such valuable wisdom.
Their Biblically-centered teaching tools are available for children of all
ages!! Check out
Growing Families Int’l.
·
5 amazing moths with baby "K". She was a true
joy in our lives and we loved caring for her and watching her grow.
·
Caring for "K" helped us better understand a
mother or father’s love for their children.
·
Letting go of "K" to return to her birth mom,
was terribly difficult yet it helped us grasp an understanding of God’s love
for us and how he let his only son come to this broken world and face a very
uncertain future.. but ultimately for the Father’s Glory!
·
Teaching "M", a the 15-year old teenager, about
the natural consequences in life and the importance of making wise choices.
·
Seeing "M" get excited about her report card
of all As and Bs for the first time in her life; or at least, since elementary school.
·
Daneen and another local foster mom started a
foster/kinship/adoption support group for our community which is being hosted
at our church. We are grateful to be a part of a church which desires to
support the needs of our community in practical ways.
·
Sharing about foster care with our church
congregation on Stand Sunday (also Orphan Sunday). We are blessed to have a pastor
who leads his church well and is a great teacher, yet also recognizes the
passions and strengths of his congregation.
·
Our final placement of 2017 was a sibling set of
4 which really, stretched us. When we were overloaded with the
challenges of these kiddos, we were blessed by our church community who desired
to support us in a very practical way by providing meals.
·
When the court hearing unexpectantly ruled that the
4 children should be returned to their mother just 5 days before Christmas, we
were thrilled for them!
BASKETBALL
Joe has been excelling in his roles at Dawson Community
College. It’s certainly a challenge to balance his two positions of Athletic
Director and Men’s Head Basketball Coach, which are both technically half-time
positions (ha!) Some of his work-related highlights and blessings include:
·
5 of his 6 Sophomores (from Spring 2017) were
recruited and are playing college basketball at higher levels.
·
Added Volleyball to the NJCAA Athletics
Department at DCC; after it was defunct for 4 years.
·
Hired a new Assistant Coach who has been a valuable
asset to the basketball program.
·
At half-way into the current season, their record
is 13-4 (three of those four losses were to Top 25 teams).
·
The basketball team has been working hard and is
excited to start the conference part of the season on Jan 8th.
CHRIST’S GIFT ACADEMY
Daneen continues to work part-time from home for
Christ’sGift Academy. This role is a perfect fit for her gifts, abilities and for our
family. We love getting to stay connected with what is happening back in Mbita,
Kenya and having the opportunity to share the stories of the students and the
ministry. She loves the flexibility that comes with working from home
especially when we have children in our home!
Some of the CGA highlights and
blessings include:
·
Celebrating CGA’s 20th year of
ministry in Mbita, Kenya
·
Communicating with’s CGA first-ever Kenyan
Ministry Coordinator and being able to get timely updates on things happening
on the ground in Mbita.
·
Receiving comments from supporters, sponsors,
and church partners about how they enjoy and appreciate the updates on the ministry.
·
Receiving the news that 5 of our alumni graduated
from college/university. These were all students who started university when we
were still in Mbita. Two of our all-time favorite students were among these graduates.
Steven Ogechi finished nursing school to become CGA’s first Registered Nurse.
Ogechi gave his life to Christ in 7th grade after Joe shared the
gospel to his class!! Moses started secondary school, through CGA, after being
out of school for over 10 years. He is a living testimony of CGA and the importance
of perseverance and waiting on the Lord’s timing.
·
CGA met the year-end giving needed to meet the
needs of our financial budget.
SUBA LAKERS
We continue to also stay connected with our girls in the
SubaLakers Football Club. Our focus has been to ensure the girls have the funds to finish
their education. This year we have 9 girls who started their final year of high
school last week. Most of them are all on a full or half scholarship for their football
skills!! We are so proud of these girls and desire to see them have opportunities
for a great future. Yet, as we talk about it last in this newsletter update, it’s
also (unfortunately) gets the least amount of our time to focus on.
There are
some great highlights and blessings from the Suba Lakers this past year:
· Lilian was recruited for to play on the Kenya National
Football Team, the Startlets. Since late 2016, she
has traveled to Botswana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Morocco, Cameroon, and Jordan!
She is the primary goal keeper for the Under 20 National Team and currently a
back-up keeper for the Women’s National team. As a member of the national team
she has received enough funds to not only pay for her own education but to also
build her mother a house!
· Alicent, who has been like a daughter to Joe, started
college at Kenya Medical Training Institute studying Nutrition and Dietetics. A friend
of ours has graciously offered to support her college education!
· This coming Fall, Karen will graduate from Mawego
Technical Institute with an Agricultural Diploma. Thanks to the support of a
friend who have assisted with her tuition fees.
· In December
we received the report for the needed funds for the girls’ education for 2018 and,
to our surprise, the needed amount was in the Suba Lakers USA account. The Lord
is a great Provider.
A few additional 2017
highlights were:
· Hosting the Watoto Children’s Choir from Uganda in
Glendive, MT. For 3 days, our church had the opportunity to host this incredible
group of children and adults. I knew the choir would be amazing and everyone
would be blessed. But until they arrived and later performed, no one else had a
clue how blessed they would be!! Daneen LOVED having a little bit of Uganda in
Glendive. She even cooked them Ugandan-style beans and rice as well as chai and
mandazi. The team thought they were in heaven when they got to enjoy a taste of
home!! We love getting to be a part of a church who was open to bringing the
choir to Glendive; and we were thrilled the Watoto USA team found a way to
bring the choir to our off the beaten path (middle of nowhere) location!
· We continue to the lead the campus InterVarsity at
Dawson Community College. With it being a very small campus (approx. 250
students) it’s a challenging place to minister. This year we have had a solid
group of students attending Bible Study each week. We partner with a number of
local churches who provide a meal for the students once a month. This past fall
we had 2 students attend the Montana Fall InterVarsity Conference and really
learned a lot. We are thrilled that one of our DCC IV students has been
accepted to go on a 6 week mission trip to KENYA with InterVarsity!!
As we start a new year, we
literally have no idea what this year might look like. Our peace is in the fact
the we know the Lord has great plans in store. Surely the year will be full of blessings and many lessons
along the way.
