Dear Family and Friends,

I must be getting older as time sure is ticking away right before my very eyes!  Happy Labor Day weekend to everyone!  Our new country actually celebrated a holiday as well this week on the 29th of August. The holiday is called the Slovak National Uprising as Slovakia sent in over 60,000 rebel troops to fight against German occupying forces in 1944. 

It has been a hot August in Europe and we have welcomed the cooler temperatures and rain today…especially since we have no air-conditioning!  We continue to camp out with our patio furniture, but we do have a bed that Trey did an excellent job putting together!  We have a new name for Ikea after Trey had to put together our wardrobe, patio furniture bed and shoe cabinet…”I kill you!” 

We have applied for our visa and that went very smoothly.  Thanks so much for praying!  We sent a bunch of documents to our moving company in Croatia and the customs clearance company in Bratislava yesterday and just learned in the past hour that our truck should make it to Bratislava by Monday, September 10.  Please pray it makes it safely and that we find favor as it goes through customs.  Yay!! 

We are finding our way around our new city and really like it!  The people have been very friendly and helpful!  Many do not speak English and we have learned that Slovak is definitely a different language than Croatian!  Thankfully, there are similarities in grammar, sentence structure and words.  We have been greeted very well both by our team and the two churches that we have attended. 

We traveled to Budapest this week and visited with the Hungarian Baptist Union, our boss, our colleagues on Team Budapest and some special friends from our days in Zagreb.  It was a good trip!

We trust that you are ready to jump into all of the fall activities and will take the time to pray for our family’s requests as well:  

  •     Pray that the Lord would grant us favor and enable us to get our visas for Slovakia. 
  •     Pray for wisdom as we schedule visits to our teams for the rest of the year.
  •     Ask for supernatural wisdom for these over 50 brains as we learn a new language.
  •     Pray for God’s guidance and wisdom as we seek where to plug into ministry in Slovakia.
  •     Pray for Elise as she goes to Germany for training to become a Grip-Birkman Blueprint  coach September 22-26.  Ask that she would be would be prepared as she goes and that God would use this training for His glory.
  •     Pray that Bret would have a great and injury free Basketball season and fulfilling school year.  He has some big news coming out about their first opponent of the season.
  •     Pray that God’s will would be done in whether Ryan gets an internship with the American Embassy in Zagreb this fall and, if not, that he would easily be able to take some classes this fall.

Thanks so much for your love, care and support!
 
With Our Love,
Elise and Trey