Hey all!

Just a quickie: I've turned in ALL my moolah for our trip to Turkey this June! Many, many thanks to all who gave and all who are praying! Our team is pruned to six: Mark Balderson (team leader), Larry and Judy Anderson, Beatrice Gonzales, Randi Hamm and me! All of us except Randi went last year. I haven't met her yet, but I should meet Randi tonight at our planning meeting. I hear she's very cool. :)

Our International Conference is August 5-9 in Kerrville, TX. I'm paying our fees in steadily; it's about $365 for me and Hannah to go. The directors believe that God will provide $45,000 for all us missionaries from around the world to come! That money would cover all the missionaries' hotel rooms and lunch for all 4 days, including their children. I'm tentatively scheduled to teach two workshops, one on newsletters and a general one on "How to Present Your Ministry." If you donors and pray-ers and friends want to give me any opinions on what YOU think missionaries could do to improve their communication or presentation of ministry, please email me! I am grateful for input.

Grace Spell is putting together a mission trip to Spain and Morocco for September. I'm interested in going, and would like to take Hannah with me. She'll be nearly 13 (gasp!) and is bugging me to take her on a trip. It's been over 2 years since she went to China. I imagine the cost will be around $2500 per person.

It'd be great for me to go because I only know one of the three missionary families we have there, and I haven't worked with any of them. Plus, one of the families has a great desire to work with Muslims, and that's sort of become my field of interest, too. And it'd be nice to go with a team from New Covenant! I'll let you know what develops...

That's it for now. Our birdies in the petunia basket are growing FAST. Max came over Sunday afternoon and was fascinated. He did REALLY well for a 3-year-old; he never tried to touch them. Aleiah does NOT like birds. She cries whenever she sees Izzy, but Max thinks he's the coolest thing.