September 2007

Continuing to find her niche

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We are thankful for:

~ Celebrating 8 years of marriage on September 11th
~ Cheering on some “travelling” friends from Fort Worth in a marathon…of course, getting to see them was the best part.
~ Thad obtained his visa to travel to India
~ A recent ‘switch-over’ of our email provider in the office had very few problems
 

We are praying for:

~ the heart’s of Europeans to be open.
~ Thad began a year-long commitment on the Office Leadership Team this month, so pray for him as he learns to balance his current and new responsibilities.
~ Thad travels to India from October 4th through 13th
~ the needed web-design software to arrive soon, so that we can begin the techy stuff.
 

Brainstorming in the Office

At the beginning of September, Jana organized and facilitated a brainstorming session to garner ideas for reworking the Agape Europe website. It turned out to be a very fruitful time both for gathering ideas, and also introducing new types of brainstorming to fellow staff. About a year and a half ago, Jana attended a Creativity Summit in Los Angeles where she met several other Creatives and also learned about a technique for brainstorming. It was fun for her to see how the Lord is using skills from that conference to help with her job today.

Agape staff in the community and office were invited to participate. One of the secondary goals was to show that everyone could be involved in the brainstorming, even without specific web or design skills. Also, by asking people who are not limited by technical or design parameters, the Lord brought to light fresh ideas that could have initially been glossed over.

Since the first session, the multitude of post-it notes have been sorted and organized into categories and themes. The Lord continues to bring ideas at all times of day- one late night while Thad was catching up on American Football, Jana (who had already turned in for the night) came running into the living room asking for pen and paper. 3 pages of thoughts later, she went back to bed!

Outside the Office

Jana’s German/English Bible study recently began meeting again for the year. She also volunteered with the local youth ministry to help with a class on American Baking—Chocolate Chip Cookies and Brownies...a mere bonus of course, was that she brought several home for sampling. Another exciting bit of news is that she connected with a Singaporean lady in our German church (that sounds very multi-cultural!!) about an adult Ballet class in a neighboring town. Last week, she went for a ‘probieren classe’ (that literally means ‘sampling class’), and while she was rather worn out after going, it seems to be a good fit. There are about 20 ladies in the class, with ages ranging from mid-20’s to late-40’s.

We continue to praise God for your ongoing support both in prayer and financially. Your involvement not only aids us in the Lord’s work, but also relieves us of carrying our burdens on our own. Thank you for lifting us up.

Sincerely
Thad and Jana