Columbus Home y más

Looking forward to going back to my Columbus home. I am ultra excited about this year coming up. I am looking forward this next chapter in our lives. Yesterday I was listening to a message on-line and the preacher said that Faith isn't the absence of doubt, but rather it's the act of moving forward in the face of doubt and fear. Just because fear and doubt exist doesn't mean that we lack faith. I am ready to jump into the next phase of our lives that God has for us. I don't want to just go through the motions of life and never really live.

I hope to get more involved with the Latino/Hispanic community in Columbus this coming school year. I am excited to learn more about what God is doing in that area of our city.

This summer I have learned that God has given me a great confidence in speaking Spanish. I think I've been waiting for this moment for the last 14 years since I started learning Spanish. It's not that I've reached a point where I know it all, but I just feel a new comfort around Spanish speakers that I haven't felt before. I feel sure of my abilities and sure that I can communicate in a myriad of different situations without getting stuck.

I've also learned this summer more about being a good mommy. I've learned to involve Adah in what I do, and try to focus on her world and what she's learning more and more. She's 16 months old now, which is amazing. I still think sometimes how blessed I am to be Adah's mommy. She fills my day with so much joy and accomplishment. Having her here in the midst of so many people who love her too is a beautiful thing to watch. I'm going to miss the companionship of being able to walk out my door and have so much and so many people for Adah to explore.

Something else that I have realized is what a blessing it is to be a part of all that God is doing to save lives here in Rosarito and Tijuana. Through my service, people's lives are being changed. Although I'm doing the grueling and tedious background work the majority of the time, I am able to derive so much joy out of that because I know what the end result is.

Praise the Lord for another amazing summer!

Difficult for different reasons

So each week here seems to bring its own challenges. Isn't that how life is, though? This week has been rough because last Saturday we said goodbye to Matt and Amanda and Jeremy. Also Bill Drake was here last week, which was such a blessing. We had an amazing dinner at our favorite restaurant in Puerto Nuevo. They have tortillas the size of pizzas, and they taste amazing! We have one team here from New York, as well as two guys from Canada. Thinking about heading back to Columbus is starting to make me feel a little nervous, just because I know that this fall is going to be different for us, and what awaits us beyond the fall is exciting to think about, but it's also an unknown!

Adah is growing so much...today I think she babbled non-stop. She does this weird sound where it sounds like she's a motorcycle revving up, like "a-nun-nun-nun-nun." Then she makes another sound, "neener, neener, neener..." And she makes the sounds so loud sometimes! She is definitely going to be a talker. She talks to me all the time. Sometimes she's just babbling, then other times it seems like she's really telling you something, with the correct sentence intonation and everything. I think the thing that I need to pay attention to now is keeping my eye on her all the time still. Since she's a little more independent now, it's easy to just kind of let her do her own thing, then you realize she has a crayon in her hand, is unrolling the toilet paper, or worse, getting into some kind of trouble that she shouldn't be in.

We're flying home on August 29th. Katie is coming to hang out with us for a few days before we fly home. It will be great to have her help on the plane!!!

Holy moments

This morning I had the incredible opportunity of leading worship for the team of 11 that are here this week from New York. We held the worship/Bible study in the newly re-designed staff lounge. It was one of those holy moments for me, when something of heaven touches earth. We had people of Chinese, Pakistani, Cambodian, American, Canadian heritage there in that room, all worshipping in unison the one and only God.

"Missions exists because worship does not."
--John Piper

June 2010 Newsletter

Well the time has come once again. Time for us to pack up say our good-byes and get ready for another crazy amazing summer of service in Tijuana! As some of you may know since we’ve been doing this in 2006 we were able to pack up our vehicle, a Jeep Liberty, and take a long yet fun drive across our wonderful country from Ohio to California. This year with our beautiful addition we’ve decided to both fly down to San Diego instead. We don’t think for Adah that long of a trip would be the best way for us to travel. Pray that we’ll have a pretty non-eventful trip you know, no delays, Adah adjusts well to the new environment, etc… We will be leaving on June 11^th at 6am. We hope to be all packed up by Tuesday of this coming week. The summer season of outreach begins on June 13 and ends on August 21. We will probably be staying beyond the outreaches for a few days or weeks to debrief, rest, and meet with people there.

This summer brings a new position for both of us. We are now officially going to take on a position as Outreach Directors. It’s so amazing to see where God has led us the last 4 years that we’ve been involved with YUGO. When we first went to take part in the outreaches, we just wanted to do whatever God wanted us to do…we really didn’t have any plans. Now he has given us the ability to lead others in a really powerful way. The whole time we have worked with YUGO, our goal has been for unity. We are driven by Jesus’ prayer for us in John 17: 20-23:

“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me…may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This has been at the core of what we do when we’re in Mexico. We put almost all of our effort into maintaining the bond of peace and love amongst the staff, the team members that come from the US, and the Mexicans that we have the privilege to work with. We have seen that as we love each other and serve together, we are able to show the world God’s love. So often in the Church and as Christians I think we don’t realize how much our love for each other really needs to be at the center of what we do. When Jesus prayed to God in the above passage, this was at the center of his heart, and we strive to make it the center of the ministry that God has entrusted us with.

We wish there was enough space here to fill you in on all that will happen this summer and all that we hope to see God do in us and through us. We could probably fill many pages!! We hope to update our blog (and Facebook!) as much as is humanly possible throughout the summer to try and fill you in on the details of things as they happen! One of the most exciting things this summer will be our Mexicanos a Mexicanos (Mexican to Mexican) outreach week during the last week of July. During this week, we will be bringing in Mexican youth from the Tijuana area. We will be training them and sending them out as teams into the local communities to reach their city for Christ. It is an amazing and humbling thing to watch God use us to empower the local people to reach their own people for Christ!

Our prayer for you is that the Lord would richly bless you as you pursue Him and His will. I have discovered lately that life is all about relationships. Our relationship with God first, then our relationship with others. I think that relationships are all that really matter in this life. It is through our relationship with God that we are able to find strength. It is through our relationship with others that we are lifted up, are able to serve, and most importantly, are able to point people to HIM.

Here are some well 2 pics of us playing in the snow. just some fun shots. the snow is melting and the forecast shows warmer days. So hopefully this will be the last of the snow pics this year.

Gotta love sinuses.

Well in my last blog or prayer letter, not sure which I wrote it in, but I wrote about not being sick. As with many things I do I spoke to wrote rather too soon. Dar as been battling a small cold and is now getting over her PINK EYE!! (gasp) I didn't think adult got that anymore. She had to go to the doctor or minute clinic of Customer Value Store better known as CVS. That was sunday and today I am happy to announce she's just got a little cold. I on the other battle a horrendous EARACHE. (chills down your spine) This was the most painful earache I've ever felt. It made me wake up twice last night and both times I seriously thought 1. I might need to go to the emergency room and 2. I though I was going deaf. My ear was ringing (and still is as I am typing this out) all night and sounds coming into the poor ear seemed like they were going through a fan. You know the sound when you talk through a fan. I was battling between thinking that it was kinda cool and could someone just knock me out! Thankfully I checked on line and I'm pretty sure its not an infection because I don't feel feverish or "sick". I think its just wax build up and SINUSES. Of course it had to be SINUSES, because of the first 3 letters in the word. Says it all. However we are doing okay and the promise of the weekend had lifted at least my spirits. I hope everyone is doing well too. Who's excited for Easter? I am more than normal. God is showing great stuff about obedience and life. I hope to share about it soon. Well good night and God bless.

Snowtorious B.I.G

Ahhh White death has engulfed us!! Here is whats going on here right now. Of course I'm gonna talk about the snow because of what I just wrote. Here are the top 5 things we are doing to beat the winter blues. It's not in any particular order. 1. dig it up and shovel yourself out. Its not something thats very fun especially since I seem to be doing it every other day but It's neccesary. 2. make snow Ice cream. Yes we even have it on video. it basically turned out to be a really sweet and cold slushy. 3. cut down iceicles with your samurai sword. Yup also on video. the best part was that Eric went out barefoot in his sweat pants. 4. biulding a smowman and 5. doing nothing and enjoying the 2010 Olympics. We are having a pretty good time even though the weather seems to be disasterous. Today Darlene didn't have school and if you know anything about OSU then you know its pretty bad. However God is good and we have power and staying warm. so I hope your doing ok cause I know its been pretty bad all around the country. these times are so crazy but I think we need to see the positive. its the middle of the week and most of us have a little time off. to me thats a blessing and we can only do what we feel right. Maybe try something from my top 5.

Peace

Snowtorious B.I.G

Ahhh White death has engulfed us!! Here is whats going on here right now. Of course I'm gonna talk about the snow because of what I just wrote. Here are the top 5 things we are doing to beat the winter blues. It's not in any particular order. 1. dig it up and shovel yourself out. Its not something thats very fun especially since I seem to be doing it every other day but It's neccesary. 2. make snow Ice cream. Yes we even have it on video. it basically turned out to be a really sweet and cold slushy. 3. cut down iceicles with your samurai sword. Yup also on video. the best part was that Eric went out barefoot in his sweat pants. 4. biulding a smowman and 5. doing nothing and enjoying the 2010 Olympics. We are having a pretty good time even though the weather seems to be disasterous. Today Darlene didn't have school and if you know anything about OSU then you know its pretty bad. However God is good and we have power and staying warm. so I hope your doing ok cause I know its been pretty bad all around the country. these times are so crazy but I think we need to see the positive. its the middle of the week and most of us have a little time off. to me thats a blessing and we can only do what we feel right. Maybe try something from my top 5.

Peace

I just want to go on record that this particular blogging site in very confusing. I guess I just need to familiarize myself with it more and just blog more. I am to use to facebook which is much easier in my opinion.

Anyways, we are doing great. I just want to thank God for keeping all 3 of us very healthy. Adah had a little cold in December but nothing before and nothing really now. Dar and I have had similar success. I had a cold in November or so but have not come down with anything this winter season. So praise the Lord!! What is really cool right now is that we are becoming more and more free by being more and more disciplined as humans. Of course we're not perfect and are still major sinners but things have been going really smooth. Its all blessings from God in every way.

Its so amazing how the more you train yourself the better you feel. For example physical activity such as exercise. You know you loathe thinking about it, but once you're on the go and working out, even though its painful, you instantly feel better. And medical science has proven its good for you too. We are becoming more healthy and trying to make better choices and I feel the Lord is definitely honoring that. With exercise to the soul, we are learning alot from all around. Isn't that just the amazing thing about God. He is just everywhere and always speaking and teaching us. As life moves He is in front guiding our every step. This is just part of all that He's showing us. I will reveal more as He shows more.

So all in all life is good and thats all it needs to be right now because we have Christ. What else do you need?

Thanks for reading,

Linn

Happy New Year

Well just a quick update for all 8 of you who are on here reading. I hope we can have more. Anyways I just wanted to get even this up to speed.

The Holidays:

We had a great Christmas. The most special reason for us to be so happy was having our daughter celebrate with us. She is just the best and loved all her gifts and so did we.

New Years was well good and bad. It was bad because of our travel issues which is now a really funny story. We really had a hard time because the outreach we did before hand tired us out. The outreach though was excellent. We were encouraged and humbled by what happened there.

As of Now:

We are hard at work getting teams for the summer. Its crazy but in a few months we'll be heading back to Mexico! It feels like the summer sneaks up on us all the time. We've got one week for individuals this summer and are really excited for this. We hope to get at least 10 people or more. Getting worship leaders and teams and interns are going well too. Adah is doing so great! She getting bigger, stronger, smarter etc... A few more weeks and we're pretty sure shes going to do some real walking.

Well thats whats happening as of now. We are doing great and thankful to our Lord for His amazing blessings. Each day is a new and full of promise but only because our hope is in Him.

Thanks and peace.