Hi Everyone,

Long time no see, or write! I am sorry, I have had the hardest time getting on to my account. Mainly because I did not have the time to sit down and jump through all the hoops after I was (accidently) logged out of my account and I had no clue where I placed all my passwords for it. AAAANNNDDDD, I am not exactly computer savvy. To say the least (insert winking emoji!)

We have run into some of you at different events lately and you have asked about some updates. Thanks for encouraging me to do that, writing it all down is such a good reminder on paper, or screen, of evidences of God's Grace. Something our kids and us can look back at and be thankful for, especially when we walk through hard or just mundane seasons.

Where do I begin? It has been a year and a half since my last update. In my last post I told about the scary ordeal of Gracie in the hospital and ultimately being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. We are now pretty settled in to a routine of consistent doctors appointments, blood checking several times a day and either giving shots,or giving sugar, depending where her levels are at. It's an all day affair. She has only been hospitalized once since she was released last August and her A1C is 1 point away of our goal. (For those of you who know anything about diabetes you will know what I am talking about.) She is a champ at it all, her math skills are definitely beyond her age because of this, and I am thankful for the attitude she has adopted through it. Aside from a little embarrassment, she is overall doing very well.

Also, we had another baby, who will be 1 tomorrow. Paisley Belle was born last January 27th and like all the other kids is a joy to have. She is healthy and happy, and has lots and lots of curly hair. So often when we are out and about we will have people say "wow, look at that hair!"

The rest of the kids are of course growing. We have an adult child (eeek). Jordan turned 18 this last September, Taylor is 16 and will have her license soon. They both work at the local coffee shop and have a lot of fun with the friends they have made through that. Gracie is 9, Ethan 8, Christian 7, Simeon 4, Jubilee (alomost) 3, and Paisley 1. Oh, and two of our dogs died last year so we figured we did not have enough on our plate so we should add to our family with a puppy. Oscar joined us last July and is a happy and annoying Golden Doodle. Ethan and Christian are now wrestlers and I went to my first meet the other day to watch. The boys didn't wrestle but I kept thinking that when they do I am not sure I will be able to sit calmly on the bench. Not only because I don't like to see any boys doing what they were doing to each other (have you ever seen some of those wrestling positions?) on those mats, but also because there are some pretty disgusting things that happen during wrestling!

When we started the blog a few years back it was intended to keep those near and far updated as to how we are doing in our family and ministry. (Hopefully now that I am back in this cyber world I will get to express more often so I wont have to overload you with too much information in one sitting, I can be too good at that at times!) While ministry itself  does not ultimately define us, it does help describe us, and I hope to share some of our experiences with you on here. Our church is our place of worship, it is also our mission and it is also what sustains our family materially as well as spiritually. Whether I like it or not it all mixes and mingles and overflows into each other at times. Sometimes that is a Joy and sometimes it is a little less than joyful.

As many of you know whether you are in ministry vocationally or not you know that living with other people in this world can be challenging and painful to say the least. If you put one sinner with another sinner they do not cancel each other out and make zero sinners, it means you now have two sinners. Sometimes that goes along very smoothly and life with other people works harmoniously. But sometimes harmony just doesn't happen and things get broken. Specifically relationships. That, in short, is what happened to our church over the course of the last few years. I will share more details on it as I feel like it is appropriate and I will try and protect things as I feel appropriate, but for now I will just give a few details of where we are at in real time as a church body.

Last year Lifespring Church in Crosby (where we ministering at) went through a church split. If any of you have ever been through a church split, an unsuspecting divorce, or anything like it, you will be able to identify with this. IT IS PAINFUL. I have read much over the last few months about how long it takes to not hurt from something like this and from all we can tell, it takes a lot of time and a lot of Gospel! Thankfully we are a church where the Gospel has been restated over and over and we do have a sure foundation. We have have been so blessed to have the support from several other churches near and far who have gone to bat for us and encouraged our dis-heartened hearts many times over when it would have been so much easier to walk away. We have walked through the gospels with Jesus and known that he does truly carry us in all our humanity and can relate to our pain when we have been slandered, gossiped against, misrepresented and betrayed. He has been there, walked that road, yet he did not sin! I have asked him many times how emotionally he bore up under it. Thankfully we have His word to lead, guide, correct, and train us in righteousness and as we actively wait we can anticipate much fruit to come from it. For those of you who have ever gone through it I think the hardest part is watching the pain in our kids, thankfully God has done much work in their hearts through it all and someday we will look back and praise him for all He did behind the scenes when it didn't seem like there was any movement on His part at all.

The division left our church in a financial crisis and an identity crossroads. We were originally a part of the Evangelical Free Church of America where Eric has grown up in most of his life and ministered in his whole ministry career. Through the prompting of people within our church (outside of ourselves, even though it had crossed our minds a time or two) to reconsider our association with the EFCA (they witnessed how conflict was dealt with and shared the same concerns we did) we did end up voting unanimously to officially not join.(We were still in plant status and had to make a decision to join or not join since we were a 7 year old church.) Based on several meetings and discussions with the leadership of the EFCA over the course of several previous years, and seeing where we could not violate our own conscience (I will share more on this in other posts) on what we believe ministry is, the church is, leadership is and so on, we chose to associate with another association that is more like minded, FIRE (Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals). Don't worry it is not like it sounds, its normal and you can go to their website and see!! We also have had to view this season in Lifespring's history as a restart of sorts. Financially we did not have enough to sustain us long term and through the counsel of many other pastors we decided to fundraise as if we were just starting out. Eric sent out a fundraising letter last month and we are trusting the Lord to provide in whatever way He chooses through that. By the way, this is not a hint, hint, just an update!

Now that I have shared some of the more painful experiences we have walked through recently in ministry, I will share some times that have made our hearts glad and encouraged us in dark times to keep going even when it seems like the road is too hard and too long.

We have had the pastor of Jubilee Fellowship in the cities come up, preach, and help to install our 3rd Elder. This Elder came from Jubilee church in Minneapolis as well as Bethlehem Bible College and Seminary. I am going to name drop here only because it will hopefully give a little context as to why this was so encouraging for our little church in rural Minnesota. If any of you recognize the name John Piper that is who The Jubilee pastor ministered under and with as a youth Pastor as well as John Piper being the one who Started the college and seminary. All that to say to have someone up in our neck of the woods who was like minded was such an uplifting and hopeful grace for us. (Not to be negative Nelly, but rural church planting is a whole different ball game when it comes to ministry and the challenges are much different than suburban or inner city missions. I am not saying they are harder, they are just different. One of differences being you generally don't have people moving in and out up here as often and usually not someone who has been trained in a seminary for the purpose of ministry like this Elder was..but more on this in a different post).  Through the course of very much "aloneness" for many years at our church, Eric found a group of older men and men his age who are involved in ministry and have been for over 30 plus years. They all live and minister a couple hours from each other but drive and meet in the middle often. This group has grown so much they have their own name and have had a conference as well as one in the making. We have combined Sunday night services once a quarter with their churches, and they have been a huge support and encouragement to Eric and our church. One of them is a biblical counselor who has walked with our church through the healing process after this painful season. We have had Elder training from a well known organization called 9 marks. We have had the privilege to host some funerals and minister to hurting families. Lord willing we will be paying off the church building next month. We have had to press into scripture, grow in discernment, and allow our own hearts to grow in faith, hope and love. All great things we can attribute only to God and his grace in our lives.

Whew, I think that is all I will write for now. For those of you who are still reading anyway,thanks for hanging in there. Here are some most recent pictures of our family.

Love,
Miriam