Friends and family, we’ve all made it through another year! Cheers to that! 2022 was a tough one for us, to be quite honest. We’ve been pretty open about the challenges we’ve faced with our recurring pregnancy losses. We’ve been so grateful for all of the prayer and emotional support we’ve received from so many of you. We’ve seen and felt the Lords faithful and loving kindness to us as we’ve navigated through various kinds of loss, uprooting, and replanting. We sold more than half of our belongings, packed our life into a 5’x8’ trailer, and loaded our little family into our mini van to move nearly 1,300 miles away to a tiny midwest town.
We’ve been so grateful to be settling into our little home we’re renting here in town and no longer be living out of suitcases like we were for almost 4 months! Feels a little more like home when your clothes are in a dresser, right? This was our first Christmas away from familiarity which was tough for sure, but it was also a huge blessing to create new memories as our own little family.
Our precious Theodore Jaxx will be TWO YEARS OLD this March and I think we’ll be trying to wrap our minds around that fact for the next year. He is currently obsessed with “AIHPWAYS" (airplanes), babies, elephants, and puppies. He loves to give hugs and blow kisses and is pure joy to our family with his curiosity for life and eagerness to learn anything and everything possible. It’s such a gift watching this boy learn and grow and we constantly pray for wisdom and guidance in how to raise him to know and love Jesus with his whole heart.
Through much prayer and hard conversations, we’ve made the decision to stay here in Minnesota to serve with Proclaim Aviation until God makes it clear for us to be elsewhere. Worthington was not on our radar even a year ago, and we’ve been overwhelmed with the Lord's peace in this decision. It has become clear that this is an amazing opportunity for our family to use our unique gifts and skills to help further missionary aviation while remaining stateside. This is a place of new beginnings, healing, and beautiful relationships and we are so expectant of how He will continue to guide our family as we seek to serve Him with what He’s given us.
Zach has been busy working at the airport and helping develop the Proclaim program here in Worthington. One project we are quite excited about is called Compassion 3518. Using Proclaim’s Cessna 310, we will be partnering with Angel Flight Central and Lifeline Pilots who coordinate free flights for patients with medical treatments far from home. Compassion 3518 will be the callsign for our aircraft and refers to Luke 5:18 - “Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus.” This is an incredible opportunity with a two-fold benefit: 1. Sharing the gospel in a creative way with those in need, and 2. Giving missionary pilots direct experience with the type of flying they will be experiencing in other overseas and stateside ministries.
Kayla spends her days keeping our home and hanging out with our tiny bestie boy. It’s been her dream to be a stay at home mama since she was not more than 5 years old and it’s a blessing she doesn’t take for granted to be living that dream now. Kayla is also involved with MOPS at our Church, helping out in the worship and nursery ministries, and doing whatever she can to come alongside Zach at the hangar. It’s been a big adjustment for our whole family, but especially Kayla and Theo, living in such a small town with a much slower pace of life. There’s much we miss about the PNW and our dear Spokane, but we are finding ways to stay creative in our activities. These cold and snowy winter months have been especially challenging with a busy toddler, but we are truly loving getting to experience our first “real winter” with more snow days than not. We are loving the bits of warmer temps (sadly meaning 30 degrees) and sunshine that do a world of good for the soul!
In order to serve long term in aviation ministry here in Worthington, we live on monthly financial support. By God’s grace and the generosity of our incredible financial partners, we are at 60% of our current monthly needs. This support covers all of our living expenses, insurances, retirement, travel costs for ministry trips, continued flight training for Zach, and emergency funds. Would you consider joining our support team to help us reach 100% this year? We are reminded of the importance of interdependence and community within the body of Christ, and how one part of the body cannot function without the other. If you. are interested in joining our support team, click the "Partner" button at the top of the page!
Coming out of 2022, we can say we’ve felt the peace of the Lord's direction more than ever before even amidst many trials, and we look forward to all He has in 2023.
Serving Him together, Zach, Kayla, and little T