Friday, June 29, 2007

Summer Has Begun

Well - after a crazy spring, summer has hit us. It has been so good for us to have time as a family. Right after graduation of Black Forest Academy, Sam flew back to the US for two weeks to take a class at Moody, visit his home church (for their 25th anniversary) and see his parents. He returned last week, and we have taken this week off, as well as taking the next week off, as well. It has been good to finally have a few moments to breath.

We are traveling to Switzerland (it's actually only about 2 1/2 hours) and will be staying at a hotel in Adelboden from Monday - Friday. We have not gotten away as just our family in a while, we look forward to this time off and away.

We continue to ask you to pray for us. Though the summer doesn't create as many needs ...

1) Please pray for quality (and quantity) time together as a family. If you read my last E-mail (sent in a normal E-mail format) then you know our Mar-June was chaos, especially on the family. Pray that we can take advantage of these down times to re-connect together

2) Pray for wisdom for Sam as he begins to plan for next year. It will definitely be easier going into his 2nd year as chaplain, but he desires to be ahead on stuff when the school year begins. Pray also - for the chaplain's office staff. Sam has an assistant to help him (Hans Shaffer); as well as a lady who commits her time to the chaplain's office, mainly in the area of Small group coordination (Renee Grubb). This next year he has someone helping him with Middle School for the first semester (Lee Evans), but will have to take over the second semester and do both groups again.

3) Pray for personal renewal and spiritual strength throughout the summer. Pray that we would not forget to grow and deepen our own walk with God this summer

Thank you for praying ... Continue to Pray
Sam Stemple