In case you missed it on the way in, click below to view Noah's review of 2013-14...and our first eighteen months at UW-Whitewater!

This week, in preparing to teach at NavNight, I printed out a few more paper outlines than the usual 30.  I printed out 80!

That's because tomorrow night, I have the privilege of speaking as a guest at NavNight at the University of Illinois!  Tomorrow we're returning to Champaign-Urbana for our first visit since we moved north back in June.  We're excited to return to a community and people that hold a special place in our hearts.

Printing my outlines reminded me of what God has done at Illinois over the last five years.  We had the privilege of watching the Illinois ministry grow by leaps and bounds.  God is continuing His wonderful work there.  It's then exciting to think about where the Whitewater ministry could be in five years!

The Illinois ministry is doing a series of messages on "How many people are in The Navigators?"  As staff we get this question frequently, and it can be hard to answer.  Do we say 100 (the number involved in bible studies at Illinois)?  Do we say 80 (the number who come to NavNight)?  I'm speaking on 25....the number of non-believing students who are reading one of the gospels with their Christian friends.  I'll be talking about how evangelism sounds scary to us, but how a different perspective (seeing ourselves as Christ's ambassadors [2 Cor 5] and viewing evangelism as a process rather than an event) can help us make a real impact for Christ among non-Christian friends.

Would you please take a minute now to pray for me?  Pray I would speak clearly, that God would be glorified, and that students at the U of I would be challenged to trust God to use them to share the gospel on their campus.  You can pray the same for Whitewater students as well.

Thanks friends!  Grace to you this week!

-Noah

Hello friends.  My "Friday Updates" often haven't been on Fridays this summer.  I'm all over the place!  Hopefully we'll get a little more consistent when the semester starts :)

Today is the debut of an occasional series, "Things we didn't know about campus ministry life."

Every job has its perks and quirks.  Katie and I often joke about the quirks we experience.  Some are larger, some are smaller.  Some are annoying.  Some are just funny.  From time to time, I hope to share some of the quirks of our works...the things we had no idea we'd experience when we were beginning a career in campus ministry.

Today's quirk is STUFF.

It's amazing how much stuff we accumulate in our work.  Part of this is due to having an office at home (which is currently pending, as we put a guest bedroom/office in our basement).  I have all my stuff there, plus other resources we'll need later in the year:  bible studies, books, office supplies, etc.

But there's other stuff too.  When we left Illinois, I chuckled as I offloaded on the other staff a trunk-full of boxes, books, bags, volleyballs, you name it.  There was a certain pleasure in getting that stuff out of our hands, and out of our basement!

But sure enough, upon our arrival in Whitewater, we've inherited another load of STUFF.  Tubs and boxes of sound equipment, banners, bibles, books, markers, nametags, giveaway bags, old candy, a water cooler/dispenser, and on and on. And we haven't received the huge box full of sound equipment yet!  Oh, and some kazoos!

Much of the stuff we'll put to good use in our fall recruiting and large group meetings.  But I don't know about the kazoo.


We'd appreciate your continued prayers as we plan and pray to get ready for the semester.  Nick, our EDGE Corps staff, moves here later this week!  We're so excited he'll be colaboring with us!

Happy Monday, friends!

-Noah

I encountered this verse while reading the Word this morning.  It seems easy to understand, and for me at least, easy to nod at and pass over.  But upon further thought, I think I really love this verse.

We know God loves us.  We hear that all the time.  We tell our girls that all the time.

But here, John gives an example.  "Look at this demonstration of God's love!  He's called you his children!"  If I take the time to remember my state without Christ, this is pretty incredible.

Ephesians 2:12 says, "remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  Earlier, I'm simply described as dead prior to Christ.

Having grown up in a Christian home, these facts about me are easy to forget.  But Paul makes it clear that this describes all people (2:3).

Yesterday, the Lord gave me an interesting example of this spiritual truth.

Yesterday morning I went down to the basement to get my running shoes.  A book near our guest bed happened to catch my attention, so I walked over to pick it up.  As I turned to leave the basement, I noticed that there was something at the bottom of our egress window -- a CAT!  (I should've taken a picture, but the cat at right looks something like it).  Somehow it must have fallen into the 3-4 foot deep window well.  I had no idea how long it had been there.

This cat's situation got me thinking:  what if I hadn't gone down to the basement for a couple more days?  Would the cat have starved to death?  This cat was stuck in the window, and was completely helpless unless I intervened.  It had fallen in there on its own accord, but was now stuck.  It was dead unless I rescued it.

And I was dead unless God rescued me.  We made some phone calls and were able to rescue the cat.  It was interesting to watch as we tried to get the cat out of the window well, it didn't want our help and tried to jump out of the window well on its own...unsuccessfully.  Finally we were able to get it in the crate.

Don't we do the same thing?  Resisting the very Hand that reaches to save us?  One of my solemn responsibilities as a campus minister is to pray for our work, but even this morning, I find myself lingering on small tasks, more practical tasks.  (I trust some of you can relate).  Even today I need to be reminded to continue asking, seeking, and knocking.

Because God one-upped me in my cat illustration.  He did something Katie and I weren't prepared to do with the cat.  (Sorry animal lovers!) 

He didn't just rescue me.

He made me a part of his family.  

-Noah

"We're home!"

These were Ellie's words just over a week ago as we pulled into our new home in Whitewater after visiting a local church.  We all smiled, thankful that she's recognizing what's really happened.  It still feels weird to call this place "home".  But it is our home.  And for the house itself, we couldn't be more thankful!

God has placed in me a desire to trust Him for big things (at least in some areas of life).  He's answered prayers too numerous to count over the last several years.  I try to write at least some of them down.  (I've done a pretty poor job of this).  But every so often a story comes that I don't need to write down, because it's so memorable.  This has been the case with this house.

In the months preceding our move to Champaign, we prayed regularly specific prayers for a house to rent. The Lord provided incredibly above and beyond.  We have truly loved life on Green Street! As we've prepared to move to Whitewater for a new season of life and ministry, I wondered if He'd provide again in a similar way.  Katie and I have tried to prepare for the possibility of buying a house by saving up money for a small down payment.  I called to mind the above verse as a reminder (to Him but mostly myself) that He would provide for our needs.  Would He provide a house to buy?

So what did we need?  I asked God for a house that would provide three things:

• a place for our family to thrive
• a place to bless, host, instruct, and share life with the students we minister to
• a place to bless the many guests that stay with us at various times

I made a specific list of what this house might look like:  I'd need space for an office, a guest room, bedrooms separate from the living area (so our girls can sleep during loud student gatherings at our home), close to campus, and many other specifics.

I spent much of December-February scouring the internet for options (WW is a smaller town so options were limited).  In the meantime, we qualified for a rural housing loan through the USDA with incredible terms, but some limits on value and square footage.  If the house didn't qualify for this loan, it was unlikely we would be able to buy a house that fit our needs, so it was very important to us that the houses we were looking at fit the terms of the loan. Finding a house that fit "the list" and the limits of the loan was quite difficult. It was easy to think:  maybe this prayer list was too ambitious.  The Lord didn't have to provide anything we wanted.  I was reminded that our God isn't a vending machine.  Maybe He had something else in mind.

Yet, this Scripture reminded us of the Lord's generous provision in every way.  I continued to pray and research.  And over-research.  It was hard to keep this house search from becoming the focal point of everything else.  And we weren't finding "the house."

Then one night in mid-February I got home late.  Katie and I decided to check craigslist.  This is how we found our Champaign house, but WW doesn't even have it's own craigslist, so we had rarely checked it at all.  Only 5 houses came up for Whitewater and this one stood out to us.  It was newer and seemed to fit "the list" very well.  

This was the first house Katie was excited about (a big plus for me, knowing this would be a difficult move).  It all looked great until we saw the price and value, several thousand over the limit required by the loan for Walworth County, where Whitewater is located.  Oh well, we thought!  Back to the drawing board!

But then I noticed the county listed on the information sheet:  Jefferson.  

Turns out a small fraction of Whitewater is actually in Jefferson County.
And as you might guess, Jefferson County has a higher limit for the loan ($20k higher!)
This potential house fit easily into the limits!  
We sensed the Lord might be giving it to us.

A friend from Katie's hometown offered to be our realtor and within 36 hours of seeing the house on craigslist we were headed up to visit it.  On our way there I made the off-handed comment "if only it was near one of Whitewater's parks for the girls to play at."   Wouldn't you know, an hour later as we drove in front of the house for the first time, we noticed a park that had been built in recent years a few houses down from us.

We wrote an offer that day and received and accepted a counteroffer all before we were halfway back to Champaign.

This house matches up perfectly to the list we'd been praying, and then some.  It is simply an incredible gift from our good Father, and we are GRATEFUL.

The house was for sale by owner and so we are blessed to have met the previous owners. They are gracious people and followers of Jesus.  They hung brand new shower curtain liners before they left, filled the water softener, changed the furnace filter and numerous other really kind things. They even brought a bouquet of flowers to our closing.

We have been abundantly provided for, beyond even what we could ask.  I researched and obsessed way too much over this whole process and it was like the Lord said, "You do your research, but I'll provide for you when and how you least expect it."   I write all this to point to HIM, who provides abundantly for His children.  We don't deserve this, but we're incredibly thankful. And each night as we watch the beautiful sunset in our backyard, we are giving God the glory.

Please join us in thanking the Lord for an abundant start to our time in Whitewater!

-Noah

While I may not have asked for it, wished for it or even admitted I wanted it,  it has happened.  Our life has become a whole lot simpler. 

We live in a small town. 

After having every store I could ever want to shop at "just across town" I now have Wal-Mart, Sentry grocery store, Walgreens, a hardware store and Maurices as my local options. (I've been to all but Walgreens at least one time already :))
We have one coffee shop.
A few parks.
Maybe 2 or 3 places that are open past 9pm?
One weekly story time option at the library
We get an ad and coupons for ONE grocery store.
We had one good option for a local bank

Our life has gotten a lot simpler! Noah and I LOVE to find good deals.  We can spend too much time online shopping around and looking for the best deal. And I can spend way too much time going to 5 (or more) stores just to get the best deal. I guess the Lord wants to make things more simple as He knows that is what we need!

Our life has been anything BUT simple for the last month.  In 5 weeks we have had two major trips to Chicago for my brother's graduation and then again for his wedding, packed up our entire house and life in IL and moved to WI. We have unpacked an entire house, cared for two little girls, hosted my parents and Noah's parents for long weekends, gotten new drivers licenses, license plates, bank accounts, library cards, purchased (and assembled) a house worth of furniture, found a new dr. for the girls, visited two new churches, been shopping at a LOT of stores (including 2 carts at Lowes!) getting everything under the sun to complete our new home.

It has NOT been simple.  In fact we are exhausted. But somehow God has found a way to slow us down by eliminating options and making life more simple. 

I don't know if I like it, but I guess it's good for me!
Here's to a simple life in small-town Wisconsin. 

(Where the only thing that isn't simple is choosing what flavor of ice cream I want and what lake I want to go to :))

Yesterday was an emotional day.

Worshiping at the church we've grown to love and spending time with good friends made us realize what we're going to be losing as we move.

Yet the Lord has met us, giving us all we need.  The church service yesterday seemed custom-tailored by the Lord for us.  Our staff supervisor, Norm Hubbard, was the guest preacher.  One of the hymns was "Be Still My Soul".  It's eerie melody and right-on lyrics brought tears to my eyes.

And that's just one verse.  It's been easy for me to focus on all that's exciting about our upcoming move and new ministry opportunities...and there's a lot to be excited about.  I'm thankful the LORD isn't letting me get away without properly mourning the many losses we face as well.

Should we have any reason to doubt or worry or fear as we leave Champaign, we only need to recall the verse of the month that Ellie received at that same church service, which couldn't be more timely or relevant.

Yes, Lord.  We will trust in You.  Help us to do so!

Please continue to pray for us in this very exciting and very challenging time.

Love,
-Noah