Dear Friends and Family,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from St. Louis, Missouri! We’ve had a very full year, with many miles, adventures, and great memories with many of you. We are still teaching at our same schools of the past five plus years (Chrislyn – 6th grade science and Chris – elementary P.E.). Despite our best intentions to keep up with everyone, it’s been a while since we’ve seen many of you.
Here are some of our highlights from 2013:
– A spring trip to NYC to visit Chrislyn’s brother and sister-in-law, Parker and Daphne
– A six week, 7,000 mile road trip out west, visiting family, friends, and 12 national parks. Ah, the perks of being a teacher! It was a once in a lifetime adventure, highlighted by hikes to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite and to the bottom of the Grand Canyon!
– Going to a Cardinals World Series game!
– Hosting our first Thanksgiving, 16 lb turkey and all, at our little apartment in St. Louis with Chris’ parents and brother Matt.
Future highlights:
– Spending Christmas in Oregon with Chrislyn’s family.
– Heading to Louisville in the spring to run a half marathon
– Quitting our jobs and fleeing the country! (Keep reading, it’s about to get good!)
We are especially excited to share with you our plans for this coming school year. After much prayer and consideration, we have decided to take a year off from teaching to do overseas mission work. We have applied and been accepted to a program called The World Race (part of Adventures in Missions, with whom Chrislyn traveled to Haiti in 2010).
We will be leaving the country July 2014 and returning June 2015. In this time, we will travel to 11 countries, spending one month in each – Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia, Swaziland, Botswana and South Africa. We will be participating in various types of ministry: home building and repair, orphan care, HIV and AIDS victim assistance, youth camps for village children, healing ministry, cleaning and feeding projects, human trafficking prevention, health education, teaching English, and much more. It is worth saying that our main focus, apart from the ministry we will be doing, is the discipleship of our brothers and sisters whom we will be serving alongside.
Just as God has called us to go, we trust that He will also call several of you to be part of this work through prayer and giving. Would you consider partnering with us through financial support and prayer during this next year?
We deeply covet your prayers for safety, health, our marriage, and for the needs of those we encounter. If you would like to join us in this work through giving, you may do so by clicking the “Support Me” button at the top or left side. We need to raise $32,504 – no small feat, but as we believe God has called us to this, we know He will provide the resources needed.
If you’d like to learn more about the program, you can check out the website at http://theworldrace.org.Once we leave in July, we will update our blog frequently (whenever possible) in order to better inform you of how to pray.
We would like to thank you in advance for all of your encouragement, support and prayers! We don’t yet have plans for what will happen after this trip, but are certain God will use this experience to strengthen our marriage and ministry and to prepare us for whatever is next!
Again, Merry Christmas! Thank you for the role you play in our lives.
We thank God for you,
Chris & Chrislyn
