Thursday, July 14, 2011

Could things have turned out more different than we expected?

Dear friends,
     Thanks for taking time to keep up with our story. It is turning out to be an interesting story to follow! All went as planned and we had a wonderful time camping with our friends and family. Then we celebrated Father's Day with Greg before Allison, Jenni and I headed for Seattle. I wondered how many times we would be traveling that road in the process of moving to Seattle in the next few months.

Kidzana
The girls dropped me off where I met up with the others going to the Kidzana training on Whidbey Island for the week. We ferried across and stayed at the amazing and beautiful home of a lady who shares it with groups like Kidzana for retreats like ours. We worked hard all week. We "tested" 24 curriculum lessons by reviewing and teaching the lessons to each other. We were looking at content, transitions, how well we could imagine them working overseas, etc. We also had wonderful fellowship and enjoyed some walks on the beach of Useless Bay. When the tide is out it the bay empties.

I am very excited about the opportunity I have with Kidzana. What a great fit for me! One thing that came out during our planning times, is that Sylvia (the founder and president to Kidzana) feels that my gift of networking is something unique I can bring to the ministry. She asked me to pray about going to a conference in Singapore in September focused on the 4/14 Window.

4 and 14 are the ages between which children are the most open to accepting the Gospel. Reaching them during those years is an opportunity to take advantage of. There are ministries from all over the world gathering at this conference for training, strategy and sharing vision about reaching the children of the world for Christ. I would be going to meet and network there, since personal relationships are often ultimately what brings ministries together to cooperate and get the job done. My connections with Partners International's partner ministries in the 10/40 Window, opens doors for relationships, training opportunities and reaching and discipling children.  I am already planning to go to Asia in October for 2 weeks of training. Then in January-February for Greg and me to go 2 other countries in East Asia to do other training.

Wedding plans!
Allison and I spent the weekend working on wedding plans. We found a venue (the Rose Hill Community Center in Mulkeltio), bride's maids dresses, decorations and figured out invitations. We were busy! On Monday I went with Allison to her nanny job. She does an amazing job! The boys, 18 and 3 months, are adorable. I had fun helping out but understand why she is tired at night! Greg and I went from there to our time with visionSynergy.

A job...or maybe not
Greg and I met with the visionSynergy staff on the 28th as planned. We loved connecting with the staff, sharing ideas and exploring the possibility of Greg joining them. That evening Greg received an invitation to come on staff. We were all very excited. He stayed for 2 more days of meetings while I came home. We even found a house we were interested in. On Friday Greg was told that due to a reference that had come the day before, they wanted to rethink the job offer. He was told they would let him know in a week.

At the end of the week the decision was made to discontinue the idea of Greg working for them. They discovered that they are looking for someone with a different skill set from Greg's. We believe in vS's ministry and are very grateful that they discerned that Greg was not the person for the job BEFORE we uprooted and moved across the state. We are actually excited that if the Lord shut that door, He wll open another. How clear He was in communicating that He has a different plan for us. We need to move back to a total support based model immediately and we have set up a ministry account with Allegro Solutions in TX. The Lord is good and will take care of us. We are in a position of complete trust financially and as we discern just what our next steps are to be. We thought the job issue was all figured out. We were 100% sure! But it wasn't. Isn't this exciting??!! What a ride this life of faith is!

Stay tuned as we figure out next steps. We have 26 empty spots in the town houses we own for Moody Bible Institute students. 10 are filled. School starts in a month. Financial ruin lurks around the corner, but do you know what? GOD IS BIG AND HE LOVES US! He has never let us down before, and we have no choice but to trust Him. Let's see what He does.

Mom and High School
I leave in the morning for northern NJ and then upstate NY. First my 35th high school reunion. I have never been to one before. A real adventure. I was planning to go to my 30th, but had chemo instead. Then to see my mom for the week. Greg and Adjua will hold down the fort without me this week. Thank you to Adjua who let me use her computer since mine is in the repair shop for 14 days so far!

 I hope you can enjoy the ride with us! Nancy Fritz  nancyfritz@aol.com gregoryfritz116@gmail.com 509-990-8465.

P.S. Let us know if you'd like to join our ministy as a financial and/or prayer partner!