Installed Successfully

Lots of good news to share! First, Heather FINALLY was able to spend some time with someone her age and was invited to a high school football game with Heather (the only girl she has met at school) and her husband Chase. They are committed Christian people and Heather had so much fun. She also met a girl who usually attend Pearl River Mennonite who is 22 and a college student too. Her name is Deidre. Thank you to those of you who have been praying for Heather's social life... it seems to be improving! :)

Saturday was a Youth Leadership Retreat at Pine Lake Camp, which Heather and Duane attended. It was a great time of refreshment, encouragement, fun, and prayer. There were only 9 attendees, but they were able to make some good connections with other youth leaders from the Gulf States conference and also a few from Alabama.

And today was the BIG DAY! The morning service was a very emotional one as the congregation shared many tears and much laughter, reminiscing on the 36 years that Glenn & Emma Myers have been leading Pearl River Mennonite. They were presented with a beautiful handmade quilt with squares from many congregation members and other families and individuals who have been blessed by their ministry. The youth were excited to share another modern worship song as a gift to Glenn & Emma today as well.

The 100 attendees to the service were then joined by members of Choctaw Christian and Nanih Waiya Mennonite churches for a fellowship meal, followed by Duane's installation service. Duane and Laurie were presented with gifts from Glenn & Emma as they turned over the ministry. Gifts included the church keys, church cell phone, a few leadership books, and a handmade shepherd's staff made by Jesse Ben from the church. Art Smoker (conference pastor) and Mark Roth (Pearl River Mennonite's overseer) presented Duane with his pastoral license. Heather played and sang "The Potter's Hand" and then people laid hands on Duane and Laurie and blessed them and prayed for their future ministry.

So, it's official! Duane is the pastor of Pearl River Mennonite Church. His first task? Plunging the toilets in the men's room. Task complete. If that's any indication of how the ministry will be... it should be an adventure!

A Week and Counting...

We have officially been in our house for a week and a day, and you'd be surprised how many boxes we've gotten unpacked and closets and rooms we've been able to fill! And, Heather was finally able to find a car (A 2001 Malibu... just what she wanted).

This weekend we were blessed to be a part of the church business meeting held at Pine Lake Camp, about a half hour away. The meeting went well, though not as many attended the meeting as attended the lunch afterward! Heather will begin leading the youth on Wednesday nights and Duane and another lady named Arlene will lead on Sunday mornings. The worship will also be led every other month under the leadership of Heather and the musical talents of the youth... which we hope to develop greatly considering how interested they seem in doing so!

After the lunch at camp we were privileged to take part in witnessing the baptism of two of the young girls from church: 10 year old Camry, and 16 year old Mahli. Duane even got to help baptize Mahli. He's getting some practice in already! :) It was a fun time of fellowship with the church members, and Duane was able to freshen up on his basketball skills thanks to 17-year old Jazzlyn Ben, who gave him a run for his money... which is even more impressive when you realize that she's 7 months pregnant! Heather has begun forming a strong friendship with Jazz and hopes to be able to be a strong support and mentor for her.

Today, Heather led the youth in singing "Breathe" which is one of the first contemporary worship songs the congregation has heard. Heather played the piano and Duane got up and sang too so the young men would feel a little more comfortable. Heather received lots of compliments after on how delighted the congregation was to see the young being involved. Last Wednesday night Heather had taught on the meaning of the lyrics of the song and had presented it to the youth for the first time, giving them an opportunity to listen and think about the song before practicing it to perform on Sunday. It went really well, and hopefully will continue to do so!

This week will be more job searching, and continued studies for Heather. This coming Sunday will be Pastor Glenn Myers' retirement celebration service in the morning and then Duane's installation in the afternoon. Things are becoming more and more official everyday... and God continues to open doors. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!

Getting Settled...

WOW! God is so good... especially for bringing us so many amazing friends who were willing to help us pack up our belongings, load the trailers, lend us trailers/trucks, and even go down with us to help us UNload!

At 6 AM on Friday most of us left for Mississippi. There was a second group that didn't leave til the afternoon but drove all night so we could get the trucks unloaded into our house on Saturday morning. It was amazing how fast everything was unloaded, and from what I heard, everyone's trips seemed to be pretty fun. Always a good thing! Many of our church members from Pearl River Mennonite provided dinner for our family and our friends at Glenn & Emma's house Saturday evening. Our friends left to drive back and made it safely by Sunday morning. We are SO GRATEFUL for everyone who helped us... thank you all so much!

Sunday we attended church and then continued to unpack our boxes and try to get things settled in our house. It's been quite the ordeal figuring out how three people are supposed to share one tiny bathroom, but we're figuring it out. :)

Monday we had some visitors from back home in Indiana already! Clyde & Sharon Moore were driving through on their way back from Louisiana, so they treated us to lunch and we gave them a high-speed tour through the reservation and our church. It was a blessing to have them visit!

Heather started classes at Mississippi State University-Meridian on Monday evening and also had a class on Tuesday evening. She met a Christian girl named Heather in her class on Tuesday and is hoping to form a friendship with her and hopefully find some other Christian friends that she can hang out with!

All in all things are going well. We are going to Wednesday night church tonight for the first time. Duane and Heather are leading the youth group and are introducing one of the first of many contemporary worship songs... hopefully it goes well! Other than that we are still applying for jobs and praying that God will open doors that need to be open. Duane and Heather have been diligently looking for a car for Heather as well. The pickins are slim!!!

Please continue to pray for us, and please feel free to visit sometime! More updates soon...

The Day After Tomorrow

Moving day is quickly approaching! On Friday morning, August 14th, the troops will be headed to Mississippi. Who are the troops, you may ask? Car #1: Duane & Laurie. Car #2: Heather & Jarod (a friend from Fort Wayne). Truck & Trailer #1: Jack Corwin & Doug Blosser. Truck & Trailer #2: Steve Bell & Derick Lehman (and possibly Joe Stichter and/or Brooks Egolf). Please be in prayer for each vehicle, driver, and passengers as they make the 14 hour trip.

Please also continue to pray for the sale of our house, which ended up not being finalized and the people backed out of buying. It is now listed with Sandy Toney of Century 21. If you know of anyone who'd be interested, have them give her a call at (574) 534-1421. Next week we will be having a mound put in for our septic system. Please pray that everything goes well with that too.

Also, just after arriving on Friday, Heather will begin her classes at Mississippi State on Monday! She's really hoping to meet some people her age that she can connect with and hopefully not feel as lonely as she's expecting to feel. Please pray for that as well.

More pictures will be up soon! Thanks for praying!

We Found "THE ONE"

Thank you all for your prayers... they have been answered!

We decided to check out the first house we'd looked at on the first full day we were here, and had a talk with the owner who wanted to do a lease to buy deal with it. We were unsure that we would necessarily want to buy it and didn't want to be in a binding contract like that, but she was very gracious and was willing to let us lease for 6 months, with the house still on the market, without us being obligated to buy. We took Glenn & Emma Myers with us this time and Emma's comment was, "I could see myself falling in love with this house!" Laurie agreed this time, even though last time she hadn't been overly thrilled with it.

So, August 14th we have a place to move to! Praise the Lord! Here are some pictures of the outside. The inside is very cute as well, almost everything repainted and with very nice crown molding around. I (Heather) wouldn't be surprised if her parents ended up buying it eventually... but SHHH! :)

So tomorrow we're off to find jobs! Keep praying!

A Hunting We Will Go!

Well, we arrived in Philadelphia, MS around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon, after driving all day and half of the previous day. We were warmly welcomed by Glenn & Emma Myers, the current pastor and his wife of the church that Duane will be taking over as pastor. There was no time to waste with all that needed to be done, so after dinner we contacted a man who's ad we had seen in the local newspaper about an apartment to potentially rent. It was nice, but extremely small, almost claustrophobic, so we headed back to the Myers' house just to relax before our long day of searching to come!

On Friday morning we met with a realtor who was very nice and attempted to be very helpful, despite the fact that there are a very limited number of places to rent in the Philadelphia area at the moment. We checked out an apartment and a house, both of which Laurie was not thrilled about even though Duane and Heather had really liked the house, and attempted to find a house that we had seen in the newspaper. What an adventure that turned out to be... the GPS led us to the middle of nowhere on red dirt roads, some spots thick with mud thanks to the heavy rainfall from earlier that morning. While Laurie cringed and "wanted out", Duane and Heather were enjoying the chance to "off-road" in our Mercury Sable. Once we found the house (after three attempts and finally turning onto some unmarked roads), we saw that it was only a doublewide trailer, and that if we were to EVER try giving anyone directions to that house it would be absolutely impossible! So, we marked that one off of our list. :)

We visited the Meridian campus of Mississippi State University where Heather will attend for two of her classes this coming semester. She was able to get her student ID, as well as a "tour" of the one building that makes up this tiny campus! It was a relief for her to find that from Philadelphia to the campus is only about 45 minutes and only requires driving on one road. No getting lost for her!

Duane had a contact with Roy Smith, the dormitory director at Choctaw High School, located on the Pearl River reservation. We visited with him to talk about potential jobs and he was very kind and even said he would come check out Duane's preaching sometime! By the time we left there, all of the tribal offices were closed where we had hoped to apply for some jobs, but we have Monday to do that still.

Dinner with the Myers' was delicious and we concluded the night with homemade blueberry pie and an episode of Numbers.

Today there is much more house and job hunting to do. Please pray for us as we continue to walk by faith that somewhere in this town there is a home and three jobs awaiting us! We will be moving on August 14th, which is less than 2 weeks away. God's in control. Pray that we would not live in fear, but that instead we would eagerly anticipate the bigger story that's coming to completion as we continue to move forward into the unknown. Blessings to you all, friends!