At the beginning of this month, Eric and I had the great privilege of heading west to San Diego to celebrate the marriage of these dear friends:
Jon Bonker was one of the best men in our wedding (Eric had two. So did Jon. So did Brian).
Katie and the best men
He is like a brother to Eric and I am SO grateful to God for his faithful provision of this man who sharpens my husband and encourages him towards grace and godliness.
Up until now, Jon has been our only teammate for South Asia. He had been there already for two years this past summer, when this wonderful young lady contacted MTW about joining the work there and eventually got in touch with Jon. That was August. I’ve had the amazing privilege of getting to know this amazing woman of God over the last several months via phone, and “watching” these two fall in love (as much as you can watch two people in Asia and California from Florida). Seeing the Lord work in their relationship these last 5 months and bring them to their wedding day on January 7th was such a blessing to me, reminding me in many ways of God’s provision and grace and kindness to his children. Besides the obvious blessing that they are to each other (if you could only see the in-love-ness of these two!), I am grateful beyond words for the provision of Katie in my life. Not only has the Lord used her to encourage and bless and challenge me in the few short months since we became friends, but I am over the moon that the Lord has provided another woman for our team, a friend and sister to labor with when we are on the mission field. What a tremendous gift!
So here’s our new team picture (we’ve grown by 33%!):
The other incredible blessing of the wedding was being with so many dear friends from college:
The wonderful Bonker family:
Me and my only best man:
It was such fun to be in a wedding together again!
All the goofy guys doing their thing to the car:
Krisha also posted on their blog with some great photos and some amazing marriage quotes to chew on. You can see those here.
You can also see a slideshow of really great photos from the wedding here.
Eric and I stayed in San Diego for an extra day and a half to have some much-needed time together. We had an absolutely fabulous time. We enjoyed old-town San Diego, riding the trolleys around to see the city and harbor, some great food, and sunset over the pacific from the cliffs.
We watched the sun go from this:
to this:
to this:
Absolutely glorious!
We are so grateful to have been able to celebrate our dear friends’ marriage, be with several other dear friends, and also celebrate our own with some special time with just the two of us. God is so good. We are also incredibly thankful to our friends Greg and Christie who stayed here with the girls and loved on them so well while we were gone. Kimberly and Danny also helped out by caring for them during the daytime a few of the days. We are so blessed and grateful, because we really could not have gotten away without their sweet service to us. What a gift this was!
So thankful!
Thank you so much to all who prayed for us this last week. We praise the Lord for the ways we saw his care and provision. One of the big ways we saw it was that he arrived us safely in ATL on Sunday night after driving – very slowly – for two hours in this:
Because of the snow/ice storm, the plans for the week had to be changed, but it was still great.
It was the perfect environment to be challenged, and we had a lot of wisdom spoken into our lives in a very loving and God-honoring way. It was both humbling and encouraging, and we came away with many insights into ourselves, our walks with the Lord, our marriage and family, and the realities of overseas ministry. We also met some amazing people, and were honored and blessed to share life and “work” with them for a week. It was such a gift.
We’re excited and thankful that MTW gave us a “green light” to move forward in pursuing a call to serve with them long term in S. Asia. We had prayed and hoped that this would be the outcome, but were really open to anything, and it was just such a joy to have so many others affirm how we believed the Lord was leading us. We still have several steps, but this was one of the bigger ones.
And, while it was a great week, we’re thrilled that it’s over and we are home safely with our family.
Praising God!
Eric and I enjoying the snow... We thought we had avoided it by not going north over Christmas, but we still managed to "get" some. 
In my last post I shared about Eric and I being at REV this week. Would all pray for our family while we’re here? Pray for the Lord’s wisdom and guidance as we and those who are assessing us seek confirmation in our call to overseas missions. Would you also pray for kids, who are home in FL with my amazing sister, Hannah. We miss them so much already and when we spoke with them this morning, my heart just ached and I could tell it’s going to be a long week for all of us. It feels like I’m missing one (or three) of my appendages.
On another note, as we were driving into Atlanta last night the snow hit quite hard and we weren’t even sure we’d make it to our hotel. After our crazy adventure driving north in a snow storm last year, we were pretty nervous. Praise God we made it safely (though much later than we had expected).
Thanks for your prayers for us. Much Love!
So, as many of you know, our family has been on track to head back to the foreign mission field and are hoping to go to South Asia. Next week Eric and I are going to Atlanta to participate in our mission agency’s (MTW) Readiness Evaluation. We don’t know all it entails (going into it, we’re not allowed to know) but we’ve heard it’s a great, HARD week that comes with lots of good feedback and wisdom. Basically at the end of it we will get a green, yellow, or red light to go back with MTW to Asia. Obviously, we’re hoping for a green or yellow light, but either way, I am excited to have godly, wise people speak into our lives and (hopefully) confirm this call we have felt for so long and also help us know what we can do to prepare ourselves for a life of crosscultural ministry.
So, last fall Eric and I completed pages and pages of applications, short esseys, theological tests, psychological tests, you name it. And the people who will be assessing us next week, from what I undestand, have it all and are going over it this week. I think these people will probably know more about me than I know about me.
Anyway (onto the point of my post), one thing that we just added to the piles of papers they have about us is a little statement they asked us to include about our plans to adopt. And since many of you might be wondering how our call to missions and our call to adopt overlap, I thought I’d share what we wrote with you too:
We are currently in the process of adopting two children from Ethiopia. We have been interested in adopting for years, but since early 2010 have felt the Lord’s specific call to pursue it at this time. He used many people who have adopted sharing their stories with us, as well as increasing our understanding of the orphan crisis around the world and opening our eyes to the many times in his Word where his heart for orphans and “the least of these” is so evident. We have come to understand how adoption, like marriage, is such a beautiful picture of the Gospel and what our Father God has done for us. We long to live out the Gospel in response to what the Lord has done for us; and for us, part of obedience in that is pursuing adoption. Beyond that, we have always wanted more children and as we’ve learned of the many children in the world that need families, it just makes so much sense to us that this is how the Lord is choosing to grow our family.
As far as our timeline goes, we applied and were accepted to our agency, Celebrate Children International, in November. We have completed our home study, and plan to send our dossier to Ethiopia at the end of this month. If Ethiopian adoptions continue to move at the rate the process has been moving, we expect to have our referrals sometime this spring and be able to bring our kids home by sometime this fall.
In regards to this call and it’s place in our call to overseas missions, we have prayed and sought wisdom about this. We have felt the Lord’s call to long-term missions and don’t see these as conflicting calls at all, but rather, as in missions, another way the Lord is calling us into obedience by graciously letting us do things we are passionate and excited about. We have felt convicted that we could not knowingly accept the referral of a child with chronic disabilities or illness, as life on the mission field may not be conducive to meeting his/her needs. We also acknowledge God’s sovereignty in building our family – whether biologically or through adoption – and view our call to overseas missions through the lens of our primary call to be parents and our responsibility to see to our children’s best interests. At this time we feel certain that life as missionary kids is in our children’s (and future children’s) best interest and so we pursue both of these calls wholeheartedly.
I can’t believe it’s here. Tomorrow morning Eric and I will leave the girls in the loving and capable hands of my parents and siblings and fly to South Asia. We’ll be joined by two good friends: a Japanese church member, Keiko and a team member who works with Eric at school, Andrew. We’ll meet up with our MTW Asia director and one of our dearest friends from college, who just arrived on this mission field for a two year term.
There has been so much that has led up to this trip, and it has been truly amazing to watch the Lord lead and direct, and move in our hearts. This is a vision trip so we are going to explore the possibility of becoming long-term missionaries there after seminary. We’re praying for hears that are open to hearing God’s voice as we see and experience a life and ministry unlike anything we have ever even come remotely close to.
I would love to share more, but it is late and we have to leave early. Plus, my glasses are broken and I already took out my contacts, so I can’t see this screen to save my life. I have to pull the computer real close every few minutes to make sure I am typing what I want to type
Anyway, please be praying specifically for these things:
~Our family as we are apart. I feel like I may stop breathing when I think about about saying goodbye to my babies tomorrow morning. I know they will have a fabulous time at Baba and Gigi’s house (Noa has been talking about it for weeks!), but It is literally painful for Eric and I to be leaving them. Pray that we would trust God with them and be able to focus on the purpose of this trip.
~Safety. We’re not going to the most politically stable country, and there are also significant risks for physical illness. We have taken a ton of precautions and will continue to do so, but please pray that ultimately the Hand of God would be our protection, especially for my body and little one inside.
~Vision. This is a vision trip so please pray that God would use this to broaden our scope of what he is doing worldwide, and that he would be gracious in revealing his specific will for each of the members of our group. Please pray that we would come back with much to share with our church family about how God is building his kingdom.
Thank you! Can’t wait to share with you what we sea and learn!
Our family at the park this evening having "Super Family Fun Night"
We had a fabulous evening on Saturday night with three families from the house-church we attend in the neighboring town of Toke. We have loved getting to know these saints, and praise God for their friendship and fellowship, and their welcoming our family into that community of believers.
This is during family worship after dinner: 
And here are Noa and Noa. 
Noa Nagata was born when I was in highschool and even then, I loved the name “Noa” for a little girl. It is so fun for our Noa to enjoy time with “big sister Noa” and her two other sisters, Mana and Mikuni, and her little brother Yoshiya.
And here’s the whole group! 
Please pray that the Lord would bless the efforts to begin a weekly worship service in the town of Toke. Please pray that He would provide a place to meet and that he would draw many to himself from that town.
In the left of the photo, you will notice our newest teammate and housemate, Andrew. We are thrilled that God brought Andrew to Japan in time for the new school year. He teaches with Eric at CCSI and has been an incredible blessing, even in his first week here. Andrew is living with us for one more week until Eric comes to the States, then he will move in with the Stewart family permanately. We have loved having him here and so enjoyed getting to know him better. Noa has double the excitement when Daddy comes home from work, because Andrew comes too! We are excited for a lot more time together in the coming year.
