Home Assignment Highlights!

After a long blogging hiatus, we are back with some highlights from our summer in the US! It's been 3 years since we visiting friends, family and supporting churches here, and we're are packing it all in! Our summer itinerary has included visits to IL, MN, MI, WI, OH, CT, SC and GA! Many miles drive and many beds slept in. Although it's been tiring, we have already had many special highlights and made lots of great memories. Here are a few photos highlights!

4th of July in Wisconsin

Penny posing with her Great Grandmother Joyce

4th of July Fireworks!

Sharing an update at a MN church

Nate golfing with his brothers and dad

A fun day at the Mall of America!

Nana teaching Ellie and Maya to knit

Camp Shamineau!

Oma and Opa with their grandkids (one of whom was not excited to take this photo)

Sharing at another MN church

Many hours spent in the car like this!

Penny is ready to take the wheel!

A visit to Wheaton College (potential future college option!)

Seeing C.S. Lewis' wardrobe at the Wade Center in Wheaton

The girls posing at Stanwood Community Church in Navarre, Ohio

Nate preaching from Luke 7:1-17

Sharing a ministry update after a church service

Visiting the Peabody Museum with cousins Kylie and Tyler in CT

CT Beach Visit

Penny posing with Abraham Lincoln, a statue that was in Bethany's house growing up

Visits with friends in CT!

Grand Opening!

After 10 months in our new church building, we were finally done with nearly all renovations and ready to host a grand opening celebration. Although we'd been having church services there since early March, it still felt like a construction site for quite awhile. This fall, the timing was right to turn our focus outward and have a kick-off celebration, launching more outreach ministries and getting the word out more around the community about our new church. 

We kicked off the weekend with a VIP Program, inviting local and political leaders and sharing with them about the free church denomination and what our church is all about. It was very successful in making some important connections which could lead to some unique ministry opportunities in the future. Our goal of helping outsiders understand who we are and why we are there was definitely accomplished and the program was well-attended.

Immediately following the VIP Program, we had a 2-hour open house celebration. We had hoped to draw from the surrounding community for this event, but most visitors were those invited personally from someone in the church. This is typical for the culture here and something we understand. (We hope to try out other creative ideas in the future to make more local connections.) The event was still well-attended and we were very thankful for those who came and got to know us a bit better.

On Sunday morning, we had a celebratory church service. We invited local church leaders and other denominational guests, as well as friends and contacts in the area who might be interested in attending a church service (a different audience from Friday, for the most part). This was also very well attended and it was moving to look back on what God has done in the church since our launch 2 years ago and to celebrate has provided for us. We had a meal together afterwards and that was a wonderful community time. 

Overall, we continue to be astounded at what God has made possible at Crosslight and are feeling excited and encouraged about the future! It has certainly been a marathon rather than a sprint and will continue to be, but God is faithful to move and work!

New Worship Space

 Life has been pretty crazy the last few months with adjusting to having a baby at home again. Alongside that big change, there has been another big event taking place in the life of our church plant - we found and began renting our own space! It was an incredible provision from God, truly miraculous, and we are so incredibly thankful. Most church plants here can go years, even decades, without having their own worship space, so we were shocked to have this door open for us so soon. This "re-birth" of the church coincided with Penny's birth pretty closely, so we'll always know and remember when God answered this prayer! The rental agreement for the church building was signed the week Penny was born and in early January, we began paying rent and renovating the space.

Nate has been hard at work, along with other leaders and church members (including members of the Macedonian Church we'll be sharing the building with) to renovate the space. It's truly a total overhaul, including the following:

- New floors and trim 

- Turning a small empty room into a women's bathroom

- Adding a urinal and removing a shower from another bathroom (to create a men's room)

- Tearing down and rebuilding a wall

- Closing up a large window

- Adding electric blinds to several large windows on the sun-facing side of the building

- Adding in lots of wiring for lighting and sound, then spackling and painting the walls

It's been an exhausting process but so exciting to watch the space transform! Here is what the space looked like when we first saw it last October:

Main Room (previously a clothing shop and tailor)

Back bedroom (will now be the nursery)

Bathroom (now the men's bathroom)

Second bedroom (now a women's bathroom)

Here are some recent photos to show how the space has been transformed (final photos at the end of the process still to come!):

Nate preaching in the new space for the first time on March 12th

Electric blinds on the windows and fresh walls and floor

Walls being painted

A photo from yesterday of the main room

This will soon be the baby nursery (was a bedroom before)

Men's bathroom with shower removed and new urinal and tile

Once the renovations are complete, we look forward to planning some special events to invite people from the community and to celebrate with others being in the new space. Praise God! We eagerly await what God will do in this building!