Greetings from the Redwoods

Hey everyone,
I hope everything has been going great. I pray that God has been blessing each and every one of you. He's been doing awesome work over here. :)  I know it has been awhile since we wrote but it seems like the summer hours just fly by. We wake up at 7 am and before you know it's time to go to bed. I am noticing while writing this that the world can just suck the hours away. We can get so caught up in what is going on around us and all along we are missing God's blessings and His love. Wow,our God is so so so GREAT. I love how God just can reach out in the middle of the day and make us feel so loved.!!!

Each of these bales weigh about 50 lbs
Each truck load holds about 100 bales
Now times that by at least six loads.
This equals a few exhausting day.

So, what have we been up to? Other than working in the cranberry bogs ,we have been waist deep in harvesting hay for the past week. The experience has been awesome yet draining. I really don't know why we use workout videos like P90x and Insanity when all you really need to do is find a local farmer and ask to help out. This harvest is kinda kicking our butts but we love it. I guess not all of it, I mean we could live without breathing in all the dust. We are so blessed to have this opportunity. Not only to make money for His mission but to experience harvesting His blessings. Thank you to all of those people who make/produce quality local product with love. Random fact: Newton Meats has the number 1 bacon in all of Wisconsin. We won 1st at the Wisconsin State fair. OOOO YA)

And when we arn't working like crazy we are.....

Hanging out by the ocean!

Some other fun things that are going on in our lives are that on July 28th Peter is heading to a local Middle school christian summer camp for a week to be a counseler. If you could pray that the Lord just speaks truth to those youth through him that would be awesome. Also, he's in preparation for his trip out to New York in September to attend the Academy of Young Preachers conference. He'll giving his first sermon!!! Please pray that the Lord meets him in his prepartation and all the plans work out. God is so great. We always need more prayers for Africa. The date to leave is coming up sooner and sooner. Which is scary but awesome at the same time. God has been blessing us with amazing affirmations that Kenya is where He wants us. Just today while selling some hay we met an amazing couple who had experience over there. CJ and Kelly thanks again it truly was awesome meeting you. God shines through in awe inspiring ways. Thanks again for coming and reading what is going on in our lives and please let us know if there is any way that we can be praying for you. We'd love to hear what God is doing in your life too. Feel free to email me or call.

Much love,

Pete and Kels

Grace Verse:
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”Deuteronomy 31:6

Mission Oregon Trail a Success (BIG NEWS @ END of ENTRY)

Hey Everyone,
Sorry for the delay of this update. The past few weeks have been quite the adventure. We've been able to encounter God's beauty within the people and awesome natural beauty of this great state. It's been great getting aquainted/reacquainted with Oregon. Kelsey has been giving me the grand tour of her stomping grounds. With stops including fishing on the great pacific ocean to learning the cranberry business this trip has been one for the books. This one blog entry probably will not do the last few weeks justice but I'll try.

Camping on The Great Rogue River

When we left Wisconsin, Kelsey and I made it a point to challenge eachother to be out in nature more. What a better way to do this than to spend a few nights in the great Oregon outdoors. The trip was filled with an awesome 4 mile, I mean almost 7 mile, hike up the Rogue River Trail with no bear sightings. Thank God! The sights seen along the trail were breathtaking. We even stumbled upon this tree with an interesting image on it. What do you see?  We called it the Jesus tree or it could be an angel. Either way, it was an encouraging.

Fishing the deep blue Pacific Ocean

During the past few weeks of working bogs we were blessed with the opportunity to go out fishing in the ocean. I feel like even before Kelsey's father was done asking us if we wanted to go I had an automatic yes already being blerted out. The trip had a lot of firsts for both of us. It was both mine and Kelsey's first time out on the big water. Both of us approached the trip with alittle hestation with the whole concern of sea sickness on our minds but we faught our way through it all. "The ocean was perfect" at least that is what we were told. haha Even with that idea, we still found eachother turning white every now and then, while our bodies tried to find our sea legs. Fishing was a huge success. I caught a ling cod which was the biggest fish I've ever caught. Plus, our captian (Johnny O) even caught a halibut which put up quite the fight. Along the way we got to witness some sea lions on the reefs even a special appearence by a whale jumping a few hundred feet off the boat. God was definitely showing us the magnificance of his creation. Thanks Johnny O for putting up with us. It was definitely a great adventure.

 

 

Working the bogs

 

During our time here in Oregon we have been blessed with helping her parents in their cranberry bogs. This is a completely new experience for me and definitely a change up from the butchershop. It's been a great experience. I've been able to drive my first fertilizer spreader. For most of the days we are mending the bogs by cutting over growth around them. We've primarily been cutting down cedars and pine trees (I don't know if I am going to want a christmas tree this year).  I love the work and it's definitely nice being outside surrounded by the mountains.

 

New York in September

 

I (Peter) was recently blessed with a scholarship to attend a preaching festival in New York. As an attendent I will be presenting a sermon on the gospel. My mind has been filling with ideas. I'll keep you posted on that as it works itself out. GOD IS AMAZING!

 

Finally the BIG BIG BIG BIG NEWS

 

 

WE'VE BOUGHT OUR TICKETS TO AFRICA!!!!!!!!!

 

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

 

Thank you all again for your continue support. Please let us know if there is any prayer requests.

 

With much love and praying God blesses each of you in amazing ways,

 

Peter and Kelsey

 

Grace Verse: " Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you for the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him."

 



Rainy Day Wisconsin

Hey Party People,

It's our second to the last Friday in the great state of cheese and milk. To say that we are excited to see God's plans continue to unravel themselves is an understatement. This week we have made some awesome head-way on a few awesome missions. Our first mission was to clean out the attic.. CHECK! and then we were very blessed by my family which is allowing us to have a rummage sale next weekend. AWESOME RIGHT!? A huge blessing from that is that all the money earned through it will go to God's mission for us in Africa which is amazing! Now all that is left is to sell my truck! (That's proving not to be an easy task) 

 

Currently in Wisconsin, we have are sitting at a blistering 44 degrees with a nice cold drizzle. I really do think God is preparing me for the rainy state of Oregon. We are so pumped for that next step tho. It'll be another step forward in His mission for us. So...what could get us down? And then it hits us...we have to buy plane tickets for Africa, we have shots to get, we have people to catch up with, we have to sell a truck and finish a rummage sale, we have packing for Oregon, and the list goes on and on. This world can pile on the responsibilities and failures to get things done each and everyday. I love the verse from Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus says " Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.(29) Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.(30) For my yoke is easy and my burden is light"(NIV). I've really been struggling with keeping the eyes of thanking God for every blessing because I get so overwhelmed by the world.  I am not sure where the world is putting you and what stresses come with that but put your faith in Him and take His yoke for He has amazing plans for each of us. 

Grace verse: Thus says the Lord: "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him form far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." (Jeremiah 31:2-3)

Wishing many blessings. 

Peter and Kelsey

Hey Party People,

Just getting started digging into history

Hope God has been blessing y'all (guess we still have a little Kentucky in us) like crazy.  We've been here in good ole' Wisconsin among the cheese the milk watching for God to lead us to our next step. Since we have been home my family (Peter) has blessed us with the opportunity to have a rummage sale with our old stuff. It's crazy digging through all of those old toys, journals, and what not's. It seems that each thing we pull out I can find some random story or random Peter plot that went along with it.

Reminiscing :)

Wow it's weird growing up. Haha Among our adventures in the attic we stumbled upon a poem that was given to me. We've been praying a lot lately just for peace in His plans and that He continues to show us where he wants us. God granted us some awesome encouragement through this piece. I am not sure who it's by but I think they definitely know how to write and to encourage.

Here it is:

Think Different

To the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The trouble makers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them,

quote them,

disbelieve them,

glorify them or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?

Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels/

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

And it's the people who are crazy enough 

to think they can change the world,

who actually do.

This poem really spoke volumes to our hearts. We pray that He continues to work in all of our lives. Lord thank you so much for your divine leadership in our lives. Each and every day may we remember to look up and look for your north star to lead us to where you want us. Thanks for stopping back and reading. May God bless the rest of your week and until next time. Also, feel free to send us prayer requests, we'd love to pray for you! If everyone could please keep my grandmother and kelsey's grandmother in prayers that would be much appreciated too. Thanks so much.

 Much love and God bless!

Oh and we didn't forget:

Grace verse:

 "But God- so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us, (5) Even when we were dead by shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ; It was by grace that you are saved." Ephesians 2:4-5(AMP)

Welcome everyone to our blog!! Thanks for checking it out. Our goal for this blog is to keep everyone up to date with all the latest happenings. We have a strong feeling that God is going to do some amazing things in the next few months and years and we'd like you to come along for the ride. ALL ABOARD!!! If your just catching up or stumbling upon our blog we are twenty somethings really letting God just take control of our lives. We both just got done serving in the Appalachian Region (where we actually met). Kelsey swung a mean hammer of love, building ramps/porches for the elderly. While, I helped organize and worked Disaster Relief. Our adventure together has truly just started and His visions are becoming more and more apparent each day.  First of all, we really want to say a big THANK YOU to Christian Appalachian Project. This past year has been filled with awesome revelations, found love and new friendships. We truly feel blessed to have been called into the wild woods of Kentucky. Those mountains and the people will always be in our hearts and on our backpacks (see badge below).

So what's next after this Grand adventure of Kentucky?  Right now, we are currently taking some much needed rest and relaxation time. Our plan is to go hang out in both of our states. Our tour's first stop is starting in the home of milk and cheese. Yep that's right! Wisconsin.. BOOM and then will eventually go to Oregon to taste some amazing home grown cranberries. After all of that we plan on heading off to AFRICA. There is so much more we could say and explain but we feel it will become more apparent as continue this blog.  Keep watching and keep walking along this journey with us.
Your verse of Grace for this blog is:

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Romans 5:1-2