Prayer List

I've been asked by several people recently if we have any specific prayer requests, and the answer is that yes, we do. So when and if we come to mind, here are some specific things that you can join us in praying for:

1. I am hoping to teach piano lessons while we're here, but the biggest problem I've encountered so far is finding a place to teach.  We don't have any sort of keyboard or piano at our apartment, so I am hoping to find a school, community center, church, etc. that has an extra room that I can use.  Once I find a place,  I can advertise and hopefully get a few students going, and I honestly feel like that part won't be too difficult.  If you want to get really bold in your prayers (and I hope that you do), you could pray that we could come across a piano/keyboard that we could put in our home to use for lessons (that would cost nothing or something very reasonable).  That would be the ideal situation!

2. On the "work" topic, employment in general is another big request.  Both of us are hoping to work as much as we can without having an "official" job (since it's illegal for us to have work visas as a student/spouse).  We would love to tutor English, do radio work (Zach), teach music, babysit, etc.  For now, I'm even walking dogs twice a week to make what little income I can. We're also hoping to secure more hours for the summer months (July, August, September) since Zach will be off from school during that time.

3. We are really craving a church community, and unlike the States, Christian churches here aren't on every corner. We've visited one already and are probably going to another this Sunday, but after having an incredible church community in Oregon, we certainly feel the void! We're meeting people gradually (classmates, neighbors, people from church), but it's certainly a process in a big city where we don't speak the native language and where we're in the huge religious minority.  I know Charis, too, would love to see more people as she is becoming quite the social little girl when she gets the chance. :)

4. I'm hoping this doesn't need too much prayer, but we have our visa appointment on March 13.  As some of you may know, we've literally been working on trying to get our visas for about the past 8 or 9 months, and it has not been a simple process (to say the least).  At this point, we have everything we need and just need to show up to get the visas with the correct documentation, and I'm hoping it will just be that easy. It will be a huge blessing once that is behind us.

5. As a more general prayer, you can just pray that Zach and I continue to love each other well and that we continue to love Charis well, too.  Ultimately, that's the most important thing, right?

Thank you in advance for your prayers... we will let you know when and how God answers them!

Playing with a kipa, fittingly