We have been talking about doing an update for so long that the stakes for a really, really good one just kept getting higher and higher. I am going to leave it to Suz to come on in the next few days with one of her brilliant posts. I will just put some of the main things down here.

1. After leaving KC, we visited family and did some ministry in South Carolina.   The Lord opened some doors in new relationships and some future opportunities to bring the restored gospel to my parents church and friends.
2. After about a week in Walterboro, the Lord provided for us to do a short family vacation in Palm Coast, FL! Absolutely wonderful, the kids loved it.

Kids play in sand

3.  After the trip to Florida, we went back to SC, and got to spend some time with my brother’s family.  This was totally GREAT!  The kids had not seen these cousins for 2 years.

Kids and Cousins with Grandpa and Grandma

4.  We left South Carolina and went to Chicago for 10 days.  We helped Suzanna’s parents do multiple projects to help get their house ready to sell and on the market.  It was hard work, but we accomplished a lot.  After the house sells, Suz’s parents are moving down here to KC! HOORAY!!! While in Chicago, we also got chances to see a lot of old friends and minister freedom to them.

5.  We came back here to KC and stayed with Dr. Wendy and Suzy’s sister Amy for over a week before we found a new place to live.  We only planned on staying a few days but it took a while to find the right place and Amy and Wendy were very gracious in allowing us to stay extra long.  The children tried multiple times to wreck everything in the home (not a home well-prepared for 3 McDowell men), but only I actually succeeded in breaking something.  (Wendy, I still owe you a new top for that sauce pan. Sorry!)

6. The Lord led us to a great town home right on the border of Kansas and Missouri.  We live off of State Line Road.  It is a very strategic place to be for us.  We are closer to our church. We are closer to Center High School where Suzanna continues to lead a girl’s discipleship group which has now grown to 6 girls every Friday afternoon. I am still only a few miles away from the men’s discipleship and outreach group that I am leading on Wed nights on the Missouri side.

So we are still not completely moved in and out of boxes yet.  From the time we hit the ground here, we have picked up right where we left off in the lives God has given us to invest in.  Multiple discipleship meetings every week, strategy and prayer meetings over the way forward for Center High School, and we just did a Marriage Freedom Course this past weekend for 12 couples who had attended our prior freedom classes.  The time with these 12 amazing couples was absolutely spectacular.   We are seeing amazing marriage teams raised up in our midst to bring the power of the gospel and of freedom in Christ to the areas of influence that God has given them.

It is such a joy to see reproduction so quickly.  We hear new reports every week of people who have received freedom and ministry doing the same things in their homes.  Taking a friend or group of friends through the freedom book.  Couples sitting down and praying for their friends and relatives and hearing from the Lord powerfully to bring freedom.  Our next freedom course begins on the 23rd and we already have friends of friends of friends registering to come to our next class.

The trip to SC and Chicago was supposed to be a fundraising trip, but for the most part, it ended up being more of a ministry and family trip.  We know that God knows the right people who will be partnered with us long-term and will lead us to come together at the right time.  In the meantime, God has provided for us every step of the way in this journey and transition as many people in the family of God have been led to give us one-time gifts.  We have even had a few people commit to regular giving to this ministry.  Currently, we are at 25% of what would be considered “fully funded” as far as commitments for partnering.  So we do need prayer that God would continue to lead us to the right relationships for those who see the need for freedom, discipleship, and the restored gospel in the church and want to partner with this ministry.

We are so encouraged to be back in Kansas City, doing what we were made to do and actively encouraging the church in being who we all are called to be.  God’s masterpiece, filled up with the hope of glory, Christ himself, our all in all, in whom we live and move and have our being!  A church set apart for the purposes of God, a light set on a hill, boldly living and proclaiming the glorious message of the cross and continuing daily to glory in what Christ has done and accomplished.  Unashamed and filled with joy, living not with our eyes dimmed by the cares and worries of this life, but eyes and hearts set heavenward, gazing on our beautiful, majestic Creator, fully engaged in bringing the kingdom of God to a broken and sinful world.  Not asleep, but awake to the reality that all of eternity stretches out before us and God has given us this vapor of a life to cooperate with His eternal purposes.  What a joy!  What an honor!  Words can not describe the greatness of the God we serve and of the message that we carry inside.

Friends, I’m sorry!  This is so delayed, but here’s an update to catch you up! 

From the Netherlands, we went on to Herrnhut, Germany, where we spent two weeks.  This trip was really different from the others.  We were there to support a couple who for more than thirty years have been carrying the torch for the vision of young people taking the gospel into all the world.  Instead of leading the charge, we got to serve them by teaching and praying for the staff as they saw need.  This husband and wife were so easy to serve.  They were those rare breed who can weave in and out with folks 30 years younger (like us), and 40 years younger (like some of the young people on the base), without losing any authority.  They were so loving and comfortable they might as well have been college sophomores, but they walked in wisdom and stability like parents.  Their humility was astonishing.  The kind of humans who are the opposite of humankind…the greater their treasure trove of wisdom, the greater their hunger for more.  We were so blessed by them. 

While in Germany we prayed for pretty much the entire staff of the base, and then a few of the DTS students.  The flavor of this base was much different, raw and real, with something radical right through them.  The hallway that circles up the main stairwell had photos from the base leader’s (who was a professional photographer previous to getting saved) collection around the world, like pieces of DNA threading up a helix.  Blown up to poster size, they were impossible to ignore.  By the time you reach the top floor, without realizing it, one is gripped for the nations and the devastation of humanity apart from God.  I often had tears in my eyes and wordless prayer in my heart, just climbing up to our room.  To see a sampling of his photos, go to http://www.jan-schlegel.com/.  They’re photos of the people they’re trying to reach, actually bringing the gospel to.  This base yearns for the unreached, including the youngest generation of the west.  Their DTS is jam-packed with the real needs of this orphaned lot, raised on secular humanism, video games, and powerless churchianity.  We loved ministering at Herrnhut.  It felt like even when you were just sitting and chatting on the main floor or sleeping in your bed, you knew there was a furnace in the basement roaring with vision, that never stops blazing and doesn’t have a clock.  The spiritual battle was more real and intense there than any other experience we had.  We were constantly fighting spiritually, in the thick of it.  Prayer times were often raw and honest, and it felt like we were exposed to living history as we glimpsed the spiritual inheritances of Germans, Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Americans, and others in these short prophetic exchanges with their hearts. 

From there, we stumbled home to Seamill, exhausted.  It was almost the end of the tour.  Pete and Erin both headed home for the States, and we went back to our flat to recover from the bunk beds, heat, and pressing schedule.  It was victorious, but we were tired.  Once again, God’s provision of a place to be at Seamill was perfect.  We cleared the schedule for a few days, rented a car, and relaxed with the kids, visiting petting zoos, lakes, the nearby beach, and Cafe OJ.  OJ even got his sports fix with the UEFA tournament, drawing us all into the European football (soccer) scene with instinctive gusto that surpassed the natives.  Judah and Ariel are both great dribblers, and though Judah’s build is more suited to a linebacker, we’ve got high hopes for those early seeds planted in Scotland.  Hooray!  Right there in our flat, without having to reserve a room or board a plane, we had the best family vacation we’ve ever had.  The Lord’s reward is so much sweeter than anything we come up with ourselves. 

 After the short, restorative break, we collaborated with Seamill base leaders to minister there most effectively in our remaining time.  We finished up the marriage course with lots of prayer for those who attended, and stopped in to the DTS for some teaching and dynamic prayer times with every single DTS student.  That was a blast!  Also, we got to a chance to teach on unity in the staff meeting and move some hindrances out of the way.  After a couple of weeks of finishing up,  it was time to say goodbye.  We’d been in Europe and the UK for more than 3 months, Angel baby had enjoyed a whole 2nd trimester of growth overseas, and God had provided every step of the way.  Oftentimes I’ve found that when a transition comes, it’s either marked by temptation to fear concerning the next step and clinging to the old, or an impatience to finally be done and on to something new.  I have to say, this transition home to the USA was one of the most joyful, healthiest transitions I’ve ever experienced.  We were full up to the brim with the joy and victory of what the Lord had done, and had no negative impetus to hurry to the end, but we were no less excited to be back in the USA for it.  The whole trip, start to finish, was blessed.  Our little family has never been as healthy, happy, whole, and unified as during this time.  There were challenges and meltdowns (just the kids…yeah, right), but the promises the Lord made to us before we ever left on this trip, He kept.  Abundantly.  Financial provision always came just as we needed it, and often not before.  While there were times that we spent our strength right up to the last of it, refreshment always followed, leaving us fuller than before.  Even the pregnancy was covered with grace, my persistent nausea of the first trimester being curbed a little sooner than usual, and the discomfort and lethargy of the last trimester holding off until the end.  Our marriage experience was of being shepherded by the King into green pastures and still waters, and we found that we have never been more overcome by the glory of God in one another than in this full-on, active pursuit of God and His kingdom.  It was like God went overboard to specifically address every fear that might have occurred to us or anyone else.  Praise God!!!!  He is our portion, our exceedingly great reward, and this last taste of Him has been better than wine, better than life, better than anything.    

We have moved into a wonderful, furnished 2 bedroom flat that is perfect for our family.  The Lord provided a flat where the landlord was willing to waive the bulk of the deposit and not tie us into a long term lease.   Thanks for all your prayers. Pray that God would provide for us to pay for the place.  It costs almost 3 times what we were paying for our flat in Tacoma. 

 Things continue to move forward with opportunities to teach and minister.   Suzanna and Erin are leading a women’s teaching time on breaking through insignificance next week and Suzanna and I are teaching freedom to the married couples.

Now things are getting interesting, friends! If you’ve read any of the previous blogs, you’ve probably enjoyed the sense of harmony and peace that have marked the mission so far. But things are heating up! The scoop is that our trip was planned in response to an invitation to our church to put on a conference in England this summer. Initially, the main thrust of our trip here was to travel to European YWAM bases meeting missionaries, praying for them, and doing a little teaching as preparation for that conference in June. Graciously, the Lord has put the brakes on that particular plan, saying it’s not His time. However, we are already here.

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