other goings on

Here's our sweet Sammer-Jammer, sporting a new look.

During our staff team's planning and prep days, we went to Williamstown, MA. Williams College is the site of the historical Haystack Prayer Movement, viewed by many scholars as the seminal event for the development of Protestant missions in the subsequent decades and century. Five Williams College students gathered in a field to discuss the spiritual welfare of the people of Asia. Within four years of that gathering, some of its members established the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). In 1812 it sent forth its first missionaries to India. During the 19th century, it sent missionaries to China, Hawaii, and other nations in southeast Asia, establishing hospitals and schools at its mission stations. Many of its missionaries undertook translation of the Bible into native languages, and some created written languages where none had existed before. Thousands of missioners were sent to Asia, and they taught numerous indigenous peoples.

Here's most of our staff team - thinking, reflecting, and getting ready to pray in light of the fact that college students have historically been an influential population to help move the Kingdom of God forward.
Lucy and Samantha playing on the monument; it is fitting that it is a small, often overlooked, understated monument, even though it commemorates an eternally significant moment in time for American missions to the world.
Will - it pays to be baby #4. If there's anything I have learned about motherhood since Anna Kate was born, it's that babies aren't babies for long. It seems like such an obvious statement. But, with Anna Kate I was so excited about what the next development would be and how she was growing, that sometimes I think I didn't treasure the moment itself in the same way I do now. Anyways, one of the staff moms on our team snapped this picture for me - just to commemorate Will sleeping. (We did put the sleeping hood up, for those of you who are familiar with the Ergo. And if you are a young mom, I totally believe the Ergo is an investment worth making! I can still carry Samantha or Lucy in it!)