Sometimes ministry can be hectic. Especially in our position where we are working in a European Ministry Center, in which there are 17 different ministries and something always going on. One day we might be cleaning up garbage in Albania and the next cooking meals for 150 people that are in Brussels for a leadership conference. Sometimes I feel like my days come and go so quickly my mind is left in a whirlwind of what has actually happened. It can be a challenge to stay focused on the real reason we came here, to make disciples.

One of the things we are able to be apart of on a consistent basis is working with Master's Commission, which is a discipleship school now based all across Europe. You may have seen on our facebook statuses that we are in Amsterdam quite often and that is to help at the Master's Commission in Amsterdam (MCAN). We have spent a lot of time there this past year to do just what we came to Europe to do: Make Disciples. It has been incredibly exhilarating to watch the 7 students there grow closer and closer to their maker.

Just two weekends ago we went on a spiritual retreat with MCAN. Throughout the weekend I got to talk to several of the students and hear what's going on in their lives. I can recognize a similar theme to each of their hearts and that is a deep and real love for God that they haven't had before. I find these kind of people, who really and truly are in love with God, to become more and more rare with the ever compromising world we live in. What's even more exciting than the depths they are finding in Him is that there is still a whole half of a year left in their time with Master's Commission for them to go even further with Him. We, as staff, have 4.5 months left to continuously provide opportunities for them to grow in their walk with God and find even new depths to his character and will for their lives.

In the chaos that can sometimes be our life, this is where our focus is and should stay. I have to admit sometimes life can get too overwhelming with other demands that it becomes easy to lose focus on what we're here for. I pray that these next few months God would help us to stay focused and intentional on walking with these students to the next level with Him. Please pray for this as well.

This past week we had a unique opportunity to bring Janie Wead, one of our co-workers, to Amsterdam to teach the students about church planting. She has worked in our office for the past year under Michael McNamee and has planted over 60 spanish speaking churches throughout the US, Mexico and Spain. We love her and it was great to give the students a chance to hear her heart and passion for people to know the love of God.

She shared a lot of her personal experience and told a lot of great stories. The cool thing for me was thinking about where these students could be in 5 years. Right now they are on a journey of seeking God, knowing him in a deeper way and finding the dreams he has placed inside of them and called them to. In 5 years they could be planting a new church that will be the hope of their city. Europe desperately needs more passionate young people who will do as Janie talked about, become intentional in reaching out. We need to be more aware of the opportunities we face each day to show who God is to the environment around us. So it was amazing to see the excitement that came from these intensive classes on church planting. One of the students said to me that she had never considered planting a church before, but that this got her excited. It's amazing to see as we plant these seeds in the students how God will nurture those to raise up new leaders for this continent.

Fall in Brussels means the weather is going to be rainy! A few weeks ago the colors of fall were really starting to get beautiful but it didn´t take long for typical Belgian weather to start taking leaves off the trees. On Sunday we decided that if the weather presented sun we were going to make it to a park and enjoy autumn at it´s finest... all while throwing an American football :) Our friends Julia and Mike joined us as Hannah and I took Abe to the Abbaye de la Cambre.

I think what was most enjoyable about being at the park was just sharing a moment with friends. It´s not often Hannah and I get to stop and enjoy the moments around us like we were able too on Sunday. This Abbey is just in the middle of the city but located in a valley so the outside sounds are easily drowned out. There were many people out walking around the Abbey and many would stop to look at Mike and I. I guess the American football and the loud energetic noises from two guys running in a quiet Abbey might of drawn the response :) There was even a time someone was walking their dog and they let their dog go to come play with us. There´s something about Europe that we just love. Having Abe there was great! Belgium is home to every man and women owning dogs so seeing a cat at the park was a unique sight! Many dogs enjoyed a stare with Abe but unfortunately, Abe never really cared about them. Abe was always consumed with the new smells and fresh grass to eat!

For the past month Hannah and I have had a guest staying with us. In the pictures you will see Julia Duthie. Julia lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. If you were to ask Julia about her home town, home church and family you will find out very shortly she lives in the best city in the world, has the best church in the world and the greatest family. Julia´s family has been long time friends of Michael McNamee, our boss, and we have had the opprtunity to work with their church as they are starting a Master´s Commission program in Aberdeen in the coming year. Hannah and I have been having such a great time having her stay with us. It´s doesn´t take long before you just adopt her into your family, even though she isn´t the biggest fan of our Abe. By the way... Abe who has a serious crush on Julia :)

The Friday Update... on Tuesday :)

I was thinking that perhaps it would be nice to share a little about the past week. While this isn´t the week schedule every week, I would say that our schedules are starting to move this quickly all around for us. It´s easy for us to just get caught into the flow of the week that we easily overlook all the things we are doing. And if we are moving too quickly it´s easy to forget the details of what we enjoy so much... :) For those who dont´get to walk life out with us everyday, I hope you will get a bit of an idea of what our lives are like here in Brussels.

Just a two weeks ago, both Hannah and I were in Vienna, Austria in our annual MCE Director´s Retreat. During that time we always have a MCE Board meeting in which we discuss upcoming events and give updates on what´s been going on in the MCE head office here to the rest of the board. One of the focuses that was address this last time was the upcoming MCE Conference in March that will be held in Amsterdam this year. The talks lead to the MCE website. Every year we try to bring new focuses to the site to make it more effective in reaching new students and informing leaders what MCE is about. One of my jobs was to work on the new look and get the website updated. On Monday, I sat down with in my media office and began working...

Just two weeks ago... I was also in a meeting with the Convoy of Hope Europe team discussing a conference that COHEU was going to be at promoting their new position in Belgium with all Pentecostal Dutch churches. This year COHEU will be the official Disaster Relief organization for Belgium. What this means is that COHEU will be connecting with local churches in disaster relief areas holding their arms up during these times of natural disasters. Convoy is constantly expanding their reaches in Europe and outside of Europe and in these conferences that we are attending we are bringing awareness to local churches and organizations on how they can be apart of bringing hope and aide to these areas. For this conference we are given a five minute window to present Convoy and I have been asked to work on that video. We also have a 12ftx16ft booth that we needed to create. We decided to create 8 different roll up banners and 1 large banner to share on the Disaster Relief arm of Convoy of Hope Europe. On Monday... I needed to start this as well.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I was back and forth working on the MCE website and Convoy media for the conference. Since Hannah and Julia took off to Amsterdam for the week to work with the Master´s Commission I kept almost 9-8 working hours here in the office trying to get this work done.

While I had been busy working with media, Hannah was preparing for the week in Amsterdam teaching at the Master´s Commission. On Tuesday morning she was given the opportunity to speak at the weekly chapel with the students. This was Hannah´s first time speaking at chapel this year! Not only did Hannah prep for that morning but that night she also taught her bi-monthly girls discipleship class! When Hannah isn´t teaching she is spending time with Joy, Enzo and Sandy, the MCAN staff this year, discussing and reviewing the program making sure that things are working smoothly and continaully growing.

On Wednesday evening, I drove from Brussels to Amsterdam (2.5 hour drive) to be at the MCAN monthly board meeting with the Pastor James (Senior Pastor), Enzo and Sandy (MCAN Directors), Ton ( Church Board Member), Joy (MCAN staff) and Hannah and I (MCE Advisors, extened Staff). We had a great meeting discussing where the program is right now, where the program is growing and how to continually raise the level where MCAN is at. Sitting in that meeting at Enzo´s house, listening to them discuss discipleship, concern over young men and women, desiring to see them grow was incredible. In that moment, just that one, Hannah and I can sit back and know why we are here. If you look at the relationship we have with MCAN and if you had been able watched this from the beginning you would see why it´s been so great to be apart of what God is doing here in Europe. It´s exciting times for the church in Amsterdam. It´s exciting times for all of Europe.

I could go on even more with the other things that even went on this past week but the post would get way too long :) I just say that to say our week is continually filled with opporttunities to serve and be apart of some pretty incredible ministries. The great thing about all this is God knows when we need rest and He so perfectly provides it for us! We are very much looking forward to our time with family this Christmas season!

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Last week we had our annual Director's retreat in Vienna, Austria. We were actually an hour outside of Vienna up in a Mountain. With all the leaves changing it was absolutely beautiful and incredibly peaceful up there. The perfect "retreat". This is a time we take every year with all the director's to pray, fellowship and discuss things on leadership and discipleship. It's always really refreshing to be around many people with the same vision and heart as us. This year was unique because we had a lot of new people who came with questions on how to start a Master's Commission in their church.

We had two pastors representing Scotland that want to start a MC, another couple from Italy and a pastor from England. We had a lot of time to sit with them and talk about what they can do in preparation to start strong. I'm so thankful for these opportunities to share and pray together. It's exciting to see our MC family grow. It's even more exciting to see more youth being trained and discipled across Europe. Pray for these programs as they start in the next year. Pray for the pastors and directors who will be laying a lot of ground work and recruiting for students.

We also had representatives from the programs in Southport, England, Braunau, Austria, Reykjavik, Iceland, Amsterdam, Holland, Tartu, Estonia and Paris, France. The programs face a lot of different oppositions and God has helped them overcome a lot to be where they are today. This retreat allowed them to all come together and we find that through this we have been encouraged by fighting together for one common goal and leave feeling refreshed and built up.

You may remember a trip we took this past February, to Tirana, Albania, where we cleaned up a community called, Grumbillini. The community has now grown from 17 to 22 families, in which we're ministering to. On this trip Convoy of Hope was joined with a team from Calvary Church in Toledo, Ohio.

The experience is hard to put into words. The families there are living in extreme poverty. There are a lot of children in the area. At times we had 60 children gathered in which we sang worship songs and taught bible stories. God is so good. The children have a great leader who is teaching them God's love at such a young age. This is something the adults never had. You can see how these seeds are growing fruit in the children that will hopefully reach to the adults. Calvary Church has sponsored 52 of these children to go to school. 40 of those were not in school last year.

The team worked hard to redo the roof of the building. Last time we were there we had heard that the roof has major leaks and that in the night water will drip on the children, making them sick. So now this will no longer be an issue. The woman worked to create a children's play room and surprised them at the end of the week with Rainbows and flowers painted on the walls. This will be a bright and cheery room for them in their dreary world.

I spent the entire week with the children. I have never been hugged and kissed so many times in my life!! The children love unconditionally. It has made a big impact on me. I have really fallen in love with these kids. They have so many gifts and talents. God really and truly made each one of them uniquely and for a divine purpose. Please pray with us that God's hand will be on them and they will have a chance in life, unlike their parents. Many of them don't experience love like they should. Pray they will know God's love. I felt so blessed to be able to love on them while I was there. I can't wait to go back and see them again!

Thanks to all who are supporting us. Because of your giving we are able to do things like this, where we can show God's love in practical and very meaningful ways so that more people can know who God is.