We are official!!!

   Hello friends! The second week of March found Adam and I headed to North Carolina for our spring ACMI trustees meeting. We were blessed to be able to have Anna and Jared join us on the drive. We enjoyed fun, laughter and some great conversation! We had a great time at the conference center, visiting with ACMI's board, missionaries and Tim and Cheryl. We met with the trustees as a team and then during a group meeting we were voted in as ACMI missionaries. We are official missionaries now!

   We stayed for an extra day and a half to begin our orientation with Tim and Cheryl. It was a wonderful way to get started and begin to help us to realize ways that we need to prepare that we may not have thought through ourselves. We talked about conflict resolution and personality types quite a bit. Anna came up with multiple conflict scenarios for all of us to work through! It was pretty interesting and fun, and we learned a lot about the dynamics of our team. We also worked a bit more in depth on our budget.
   Since getting home we have finished our budget and turned it in to ACMI. It was approved by the financial board and we are just about ready to begin our support raising.
   I think that covers the highlights of March. Oh, except for the Father - Daughter Dance!!! Our church held a dance as a mission trip fundraiser for the youth. Adam made Caeley a special invitation and then the night of the dance they both got dressed up and enjoyed dinner and the dance. Caeley borrowed a long, black, formal satin dress from her friend Brittan. She wore pretty high heels and looked way too grown up! Adam knocked on her bedroom door to pick her up when we done making her hair nice and fancy and coating her in hairspray, a bit of glitter and a dusting of eyeshadow. He gave her a beautiful corsage that matched her dress and the dance colors. I took a picture of them as he was putting it on her wrist and she is smiling up at him with the utmost adoration. It is one of my favorite pictures! They had a wonderful night dining at The Final Approach at the airport and then dancing the night away. Adam said that Caeley barely gave him a break! Once they got home, she danced around the living room for almost 2 more hours! It was really sweet. :) Ethan and I went out with our friends, Blake and Tresa. We enjoyed Subway and Green Apple Frogurt and then we snuck into the balcony of the gym at the church. We spied for just a few minutes, but it was so incredibly sweet to see Adam twirling Caeley around on the dance floor, with her beautiful long hair spinning out around her in the air. I'm getting teary just remembering....
   This month we spent a few days in Illinois for Spring Break with the Odle and Botzum families. We went to Springfield to visit the Lincoln sites and had a great time. Our family and the Botzums camped at a campground that was connected to a village that was recreated on the foundations of the village that Abraham Lincoln had lived in as a young man. We also visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library, his old law office, the only home ever owned by Abraham and Mary Todd, and his tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery. We had a wonderful time learning more about a wonderfully ambitious man! We enjoyed every site that we went to, but the museum was especially impressive. It was the only place we went that had an admission fee rather than accepting donations, so it was a bit more costly, but it was worth it! God blessed us with amazing weather for the time that we were there and it was a wonderful break away from school and busy life.

   We are still meeting with the Odles weekly to discuss the book, When Helping Hurts. We are really enjoying the book as it really addresses the ways that we are seeking to minister in Ghana. Adam and I have had some great discussions based on the questions in the book as have the 4 of us as a team. It really shares some wonderful perspectives and approaches to ministry.
   I also want to share with you about The Secret Church. I attended a simulcast of The Secret Church with Anna and Jared at their church in Terre Haute. It was a 6 hour intensive Bible Study by David Platt (author of Radical) with concentrated times of prayer for the persecuted church. David spoke on The Cross and Suffering and he covered from Genesis to Revelations. It was phenomenal! He ended up speaking for an additional hour, making it 7 hours, going from 7pm to 2am. It went by so very quickly though. Adam was unable to go due to his work schedule so we are planning to watch it online together soon. I really want to hear it all a second time as David was speaking so very fast to cram everything in! If you are interested, check out: www.radical.com. Or more specifically: http://www.radical.net/media/schurch/series_list/?id=303. Right now they just have the study guides available but soon they will have the audio and video as well.
   Today is Ethan's first soccer game of the season. It is not looking like very good soccer playing weather outside so far!
   Please keep praying for us as we are preparing. We are excited to be in Ghana, serving where we know God has called us, but we are really enjoying time now with friends and family and are working to be as ready as possible for the things that God has in store for us. We are enjoying our time with our Grow Group at church each week. We have done some great studies this year and Adam and I just started leading the group as we have begun a study called Start Being a Good Samaritan. It has already brought about some great discussion and raised some great questions. We appreciate the support of our Grow Group and the friendship that we have there.
I hope you are all enjoying Spring!!!