On the Road Again

We recently spent four days in North Carolina with our team at the Acts 29 church planting conference. This time was not only beneficial for the wonderful speakers that we were able to hear (Ed Stetzer, JD Grear, Mark Driscoll, and other church planting experts), but for the time that we were able to spend brainstorming, planning, and encouraging each other with our team.

Joe and I left North Carolina to go to New York, but it's not quiet that simple! We had some extra time before we needed to be in New York, so we decided to say some good-byes on the way. We were able to spend the night with Carrie-Lynn, Joe's younger sister at Universtiy of Virginia. It was great to see Carrie-Lynn, meet some of her friends, and experience life at her college. She is doing well and is very involved with a campus ministry and with Portico Christian Church. We were able to visit Portico, which just so happens to be an Acts29 church.




After saying goodbye to Carrie-Lynn, we went to visit some friends near Washington D.C. We were able to stay with John and Kevin, friends that Joe grew up with and who were also in our wedding. We had a great time catching up and hanging out with John and Kevin. Joe and I were also able to spend about five hours in D.C. which was great for us. We realized once we were there how much we needed a day to ourselves! We ran around the city trying to see as much of it as we could in five hours.



The next day we continued to drive up north and stopped in Pennsylvania to visit Danny and Megan and their boys. Danny sang in our wedding and he and Joe grew up going to church camp together. Our stay with Danny and Megan was very encouraging and as you can see, their boys are adorable.


We had one last stop before we got 'home' to Joe's mom's house. We were able to stop in New York City to see our good friend Nick and his girlfriend Alaina. Nick was also in our wedding and Joe gives a lot of credit to Nick for helping to foster his spiritual life as he was growing up. We were able to get some of the best pizza in the world with Nick and Alaina at Grimaldi's, just under the Brooklyn Bridge. The pizza is so well known, we had to wait in line to get in!





We finally reached our destination, Joe's mom's house, about 1:30 Thursday morning. After traveling so much we couldn't wait to get a good night's sleep…in a bed. Though the traveling can be tiring, we are thankful for the many good friends that we have in our lives. We learned about good 'goodbyes' while in Colorado at Mission Training International and we are beginning to understand the importance of them! It was hard saying goodbye to each of these people knowing that it will be a couple of years before we see them again. We are thankful for their love and encouragement as we embark on this new journey. It meant so much to us that they have chosen to take part in this crazy time in our lives that we call flammertime.

Giants

I think every once in a while, God raises up giants. If you read one of my favorite books, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, you will read about 2,000 years of these heros in missions. Today, I think I saw another one. There is this guy named Mark. He likes to share that he comes "from a long line of alcoholics and wife beaters." He likes to drink beer and curse, or as my Midwestern friends would say, "cuss", although I think he has really toned that down lately. I heard him speak in January of 2005, and I had a hard time with him. The guy is just brash and outspoken, and I used to think he was also arrogant and rude, which he would probably say are true. In the past couple of months I have had some discussions about him and read one of his books, Confessions of a Reformission Rev. and I started to get some more respect for him. Lately I have been wondering if he is arrogant and rude, or just bold and correct.
This week I heard Mark speak a few times. He seems whimsical, wise, and humble. He formed an organization called the Acts 29 Network, which empowers church planting churches and plants new churches. I think that Mark has a strength of being a straight shooter and addressing issues in a way that they probably need to be addressed. In all honesty, I have to admit that I have a hard time taking a super hard stance on anything, and when someone else does, it rubs me the wrong way, so I am glad Mark Driscoll can do that.
Today Driscoll spoke about what he sees as some trends and some dangers among evangelicals. It scared me. I believe very strongly that God created the world, since then it has become messed up by sin, or our failure to live up to God's standards. I believe that God has a plan to restore His creation to what He created it to be like, and central to that is Jesus. Now, I think that the people who follow Christ are the best shot this world has of restoration. We need people like Mark Driscoll to lead us and make sure that we stay the coarse of God's work.
I don't think that I am one of these giants, and honestly, there is nothing too special about me, I am a pretty mediocre person. A weak person. But one of the reoccurring themes of the Bible is that God, who is infinitely strong and wise and good, uses people who are mediocre and weak to do His work. For reference on this, read the story of Gideon, (one of my favorites, found in Judges 7) or 1 Corinthians 1:26-31, or 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. This is one of my favorite themes in scripture and it encourages me every time I see it and I thank God for including me and Amy in His plan.
And thank you. Thank you for encouraging us, believing in us, and praying for us in spite of our weaknesses. Keep it FlammerTime.

Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

We were given a great opportunity today to be guests in the fifth grade classrooms at Cornerstone Christian Academy in Bloomington, IL. My brother and his wife are both teachers at Cornerstone. My sister-in-law, Abby Huette, is a fifth grade teacher. Every Wednesday morning they have a "Missions Moment" where Abby usually chooses a country from Operation World (a prayer guide for each country of the world). She will inform the students about the country and also about the spiritual needs of the country, then they will take time as a class to pray for that country. This week, she asked if Joe and I could come into the class and give the students a live "Missions Moment." We were able to spend 45 minutes with both fifth grade classrooms and teach them about New Zealand and share with them why we are going. We had so much fun with these students! They were very attentive and were great with participating in the activities that we did with them. We have a quiz that we like to give to students to help them learn things about New Zealand like what language they speak, what the people of New Zealand look like, and other interesting facts about New Zealand. We also told the students how less than 10% of the population is in church on Sunday and showed them what that would look like. We had the 26 students stand in one part of the classroom, all of the students represented the four million people of New Zealand. Then we took less than 10% of those students, 2 students, and had them stand by themselves in another part of the classroom. We talked to the kids about how this represented the amount if people that were not going to church and asked them for ideas to get more people in church. It was a lot of fun for us, and hopefully for the kids too! When we were done, some of the students volunteered to pray for us. Four fifth grade students lifted us up in prayer and it was awesome! They prayer for our health, our ministry, the people of New Zealand, the people that would someday join our church, financial 'precision' (we think he meant provision), and for our friends and family. We were so blessed by the fifth graders today!

Visa Miracle?

We are in the middle of our Visa process. We must have our Visas back before we are able to leave the country. The process, once it is mailed in, can take weeks and even months. We have been working on getting our application ready since May. It took all summer to get everything done that we needed to get done and it was a very intense process. There were over 50 pages of letters and documents that we had to include. There were a few times when we did not get tests back in time or needed a document that we were unable to get our hands on immidiately due to our traveling. Last Tuesday, we were finally able to send in our entire packet. We were so nervous that we had done something wrong or that we had not included everything, we went over the completed ap so many times! Today, I opened the front door to go outside and there at the doorstep was a package from the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC. Our Visas had been returned. Before I opened the package I was convinced that something had gone wrong so they had sent them back without even looking at them. We opened them up to find that we were granted work visas!! We started screaming! God continues to provide for us and take care of us. We feel like this was a miracle, it took only 6 days to send them to DC, have the applications reviewed, have the Visas granted, and then sent back to Bloomington to us! I guess we need to continue to learn the lesson that it's not always in flammertime, thankfully, it's in God's time.

An International Lunch…In Central Illinois?

In the words of Ice Cube, “Today I had a good day.” This morning started out early for us as we rolled out of bed at 5:30am . We were able to share with the people of Mt. Pulaski Christian Church about what God is doing in New Zealand. It was great to meet some of the leaders from the church and see some old friends. Mt. Pulaski is the church that blessed me tremendously in my senior year at LCC by awarding me with the Intercultural Studies Scholarship and it was great to let them know that it made a difference.
The hours following church were also a great experience. Mt. Pulaski Christian Church is where Mike Nichols, our professor, colleague from South Fork, mentor, and friend, serves as an elder, so he and his family were at church today. His daughter and future son-in-law are good friends of ours and were on the praise team. After church, Mike & Julie invited me, Amy, Shannon Robinson (who is preparing to do ministry in Africa), and one other couple to eat lunch with his family. The other couple, Rodney & Linda, are currently missionaries in residence at Lincoln Christian College and are on furlough from Mexico. They are a godly and wise couple that inspired us as young missionaries. Rodney & Linda have served in Mexico for 27 years. That kind of longevity on the mission field is a rare accomplishment and gives us something to emulate. Spending the afternoon with old friends and new friends who share the same passion as we do was so refreshing. We felt like we were with family.
Some advice that Rodney and Linda gave us was to make sure that our own spiritual life was in check. They reminded us that in order to have a successful ministry, we need to constantly be spending time with God. Amy has felt like this is a theme that we have been reminded of often. In fact just last night she was thinking about how much we need to rely on God and decided to read John 15. Between reading John 15 and hearing Rodney and Linda, we keep hearing God remind us… “apart from me you can do nothing…” (John 15:5) We are reminded to remain in Christ and to remain in His love in John 15. Why do we try to do things on our own when we know we just need to be in God’s care and wait for his timing? Thanks for reminding us of our priorities Rodney and Linda!

Feels Like Home to Me….

Last week got better as time went on, and so did Amy. As you may have read, Amy was pretty sick for most of last week, alternating her time between the bed and the bathroom. She fought a fever, cold, and stomach flu from about Saturday to Wednesday evening. Eventually, she was able to get, and keep, some vittles (that means food) in her system and made a speedy recovery after that.
The remainder of the week was just what the doctor ordered. After Amy spent the week sick, and I spent the week trying to figure out some basic accounting software called QuickBooks, we left on Thursday evening to meet some of our friends in Springfield. On Thursday night, while Amy and our friend Abby went to a movie, me and BIGGIE were busy playing cards with some of the guys. Let’s just say Big Slick was good to me that night. Sorry Dewey.
The next morning we were able to visit the school where I used to work and see several of my old students and teachers that I worked with. We were a good team, and I miss the lot of them. We also had lunch with Bob & Phyllis, a couple that we love dearly and have become like adopted grandparents to us. After lunch we saw our friends Josh (the preacher at South Fork), Mindy (his wife), and their new baby, Phillip. We also visited Family Christian Bookstore, where one of the elder’s from South Fork is the manager. We were also able to meet some friends, who are also moving away from the Springfield area, for dinner to say goodbye.
In addition to getting to see all of these friends, we have been so blessed to be able to spend time this summer with family. Spending time with Amy’s brother and sister-in-law, Andy & Abby Huette, has been splendid. We have a lot in common, namely: all four of us are teachers, Andy & I are both youth ministers, and we all like ice-cream. These two are not only family, but they are great friends. They have made a point to spend as much time as they can with us before we leave. With Andy and Abby we have done dinners, had sleepovers, walked to the ice cream store, and just been encouraged by their zeal to do God’s will in their life. They have been a constant encouragement and support to us. On Saturday night they took some time to just pray for us and our ministry. That means a lot.
We are so thankful for great family and great friends who are such a huge part of our lives. It is going to be one of the most difficult things to leave these people, but we cannot even imagine what God has in store. Although none of these people can be replaced, we take hope in the words of Jesus in Mark 10:29-30. We just have to remember that it will all happen in God’s time, not necessarily Flammer time.

SICK or TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

So the title of today's blog is in honor of the wonderfully talented musician, Sufjan Stevens, who often has several titles to one song. I am starting to understand how sometimes one simple title is too simple to summarize our feelings.
After I got back from church on Sunday (notice the use of the singular rather than the plural pronoun - more about that later) Amy's parents, me, and Amy, all piled into the car and drove to the town where Amy's parents grew up - Forest. Family of Amy's came in from as near as a mile away and as far as North Carolina and Florida for a short family reunion. It was a sort of going away party for us and we ate some good fried chicken and played a lot of bean-bags, a.k.a. corn-hole, a.k.a. corn-hole-bean-bag. In an 8 team, double elimination tournament, Joe & Amy Flammer won the Velda Huette Corn-hole Tourney. Amy played several amazing games and reminded me of The Great One, Michael Jordan, when he dropped 54 points on my beloved New York Knicks while running a fever in game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 1993. Amy was quite sick.
For much of last week I (Joe) had a cough and was more congested than the Long Island Expressway at rush hour. I am still feeling it, but most of my sickness has been passed on to Amy. As I write this, she is lying in bed with a stomach flu, running a fever, and within arms reach of "the bucket." She has been sick since Saturday morning and could hardly enjoy her own going away party yesterday (even though she still pulled out the "W" in bean-bags) or the Labor Day get together today (BTW, she didn't bring the A game today).
We are worn out. We have loved traveling around to see friends, family, and prepare for New Zealand, but we are worn out. I think in this case that too much of a good thing can be bad. While traveling, even vacationing, is awesome, we are worn out. Since May 25th, we have been nomads living out of suitcases. It takes its toll on you. Amy pointed out that this is the first week since May that we are not supposed to visit a church or give a presentation and her body is sub-consciously breaking down. My sister, who was a psychology major in college and is now a social worker, said that change brings on stress, and we have basically been living in constant change for over 3 months. We are ready to get to New Zealand and try to settle in.
At this time several things come to mind. I realize that this is just the life we live. As missionaries we ride on the wave of transition. I spent alot of time swimming in the Atlantic Ocean as a kid, and one thing I learned is that you can't fight the waves, you need to embrace them and ride them or they will tumble you and pull you out to sea. We are still learning to live on the wave of transition. We still have a long way to go before we can settle in. Please pray that as we go through these changes, that we will get wiser and grow, rather than be tumbled and pushed out to sea. Also, please pray for Amy's physical healing.
Also, I can't help but think about all of those missionaries that I read about at LCC in Biblical and Historical Foundations of Missions with Mike Nichols. These giants of faith set out on ships for lands that they had never visited and where they couldn't just call or email friends and family. If I remember correctly, at one point nearly 1 out of 3 missionaries to go to India died before they got off of the boat. I don't even understand the implications of why I am thinking about that fact, but I am amazed by their resolve.
So, right now, thanks. Thanks for being the kind of people who read the blog and keep us in your thoughts, and more importantly, prayers, in the good times and the not so good times. We appreciate you more than you know, for being here for good times and bad times, and always... flammertime.

McBlessings!
Today we arrived back in Bloomington after our six week tour in the east. We spent the last week with our team at a cabin in Indiana. It was very refreshing to be together as a team as we begin to count down the days until we leave…and it is now official that we are leaving! We bought plane tickets for Saturday November 3rd. This was a huge but exciting step for us. With each passing month we are amazed with the ways that God is brining us closer to our goals that we need to get to New Zealand.

As you can imagine, after being gone for six weeks we came home to a lot of mail. We had a package from Robert O’Brien, a high school student from the South Fork youth group, the church that we used to serve at. He had sent us a letter on behalf of the youth group explaining the gift that was in the package. The South Fork youth group recently went to CIY (Christ in Youth conference) in southern Illinois. At this conference there is a student center where the kids eat for the week. They have an allotted amount of money on a meal card and it does not carry over. Something we started doing a few years ago was buying McDonalds gift cards with our left-over money each day. Robert wrote us a note telling us that they were thinking of us while they were at CIY:
“On Monday night of CIY, I thought about it, and I remembered what we did last year. So after every night, I took all of our cards and went to McDonalds. We definitely had a lot of fun and everyone agrees that you will really like it. Enclosed with this letter is $83 worth of McDonald’s gift cards!”
Wow! $83 of McDonalds gift cards. This was such a blessing to us for a couple of reasons. First of all, as you know, we have been traveling around the country this summer and we are not done yet. These gift cards will be awesome to have while we are on the road and stop for food. That’s worth, like, 83 McChickens! Also, we were so blessed that the kids were thinking about us every day! Their understanding of partnership amazes us! We were so encouraged by the thoughtfulness of the kids. We are continually reminded of the blessing that South Fork was to us and thankful for the blessing that it still is!