Hello Friends and Family!
We hope you have been enjoying your summer (for all you American and Canadians), and are soaking in those last, hot August days. Over here, we are just finishing winter (which is still pretty warm to be honest), and September will be the beginning of our spring. It has been a wonderful last month, very busy but with good things. After some eventful delays, missed flights, and long travel hours, Karis’ dad, mum, sister Jacquelyn, brother in law Taylor, and baby niece Violet--who Karis had not yet met--arrived August 4th (they left the states August 1st). It was such an incredible time! Karis finally got to meet her niece and of course it was love at first sight. We had an amazing two weeks sharing our community with our family, showing them some of our favorite places, exploring the area, and best of all just being able to BE with each other. It’s funny how you can not see someone for a long time, but right when you see them all falls into line, almost as if you were never apart. We think this is God’s grace on display-- even though there has been physical distance, the sweet bond and love seems even stronger than before. This time was such an incredible blessing. We of course missed Karis’ oldest sister Kelsey, brother in law Jon, and nephew Ezra, but hope they will be coming for a visit this next year!
After some not so easy goodbye’s we hopped right back into work. We really worked hard to be able to put aside work while Family was here, but that meant there was a lot waiting for us. We jumped into a week of staff training with the staff team for this September school. This was a really good time, not only going through practical and logistical things but really digging into the heart of why we are DTS staff as well as seeking God’s heart and word for each of us as staff in this season. We felt so encouraged and challenged after each day and we really loved that. We were then able to head to a macadamia nut farm a very kind man named Bob lets us use from time to time to have a short staff retreat. We were able to slow down a little, spend extended time in God’s presence together and alone, spend time in prayer for the students, rest and have fun together as a staff team. This is now our last week before our 46 students arrive on Sunday and their DTS officially begins, so lots of last minute details to get together, things to be organized, and places to be cleaned.
As we have said previously, we will be leading this next school. The school is made up of five different tracks: worship focus, youth ministry focused, reach the unreached focused, Justice and Mercy focused, and sports focused. As this is our first time leading a school, we have been on a really steep learning curve! In the last weeks, we have definitely been stretched to split our focus between the details/administrative tasks and the big picture vision that we want to see achieved. Throughout the process, God has been really faithful to us and so have our friends and mentors here on the Coast. We have been humbled by the whole process—and not always in an outwardly beautiful way!
As we come closer and closer to the start of the school, we are comforted that we share vision with the King of Kings and that His vision goes far beyond ours. Since we started praying for this school, God has been laying a few specific things on our hearts, which have really been a reflection or product of what He has been doing in us. We can see that this school is going to have a “Sam and Karis” flavour to it! We’d love to bring all of you in on some of the specifics that God has been speaking to us regarding the “heart” of the school. One of the first things that God said is that He wants His kids to be in “missions” no matter where they are or what they are doing—everywhere is the mission field whether it is at work, at home, or in other nations. We have often seen students leave with the idea that they might like to go into missions, but our passion is leading students into the mindset that they are called to missions no matter who they are! We are praying that the students will learn what it means to lay down their life for Jesus, and then do it each day!
Another core part of the school that we felt God has laid on our hearts has to do with joy. There is no doubt in our minds that the laying down of our lives as Christians isn’t always easy, fun, logical, or cheap. In the past months, up to now, God has been building in us the foundation of His joy. We have not always found this joy light hearted, but it has always reminded us that His burden is light. We are praying and believing that God will continue building this same foundation in the hearts of the students. We desire them to be released from us in January having counted the cost of following Jesus and joyfully accepting the call to do so. Please pray with us for a school full of transformed young people who are willing to joyfully follow Jesus wherever they are called!
As a staff team, we have also been praying into what God wants the culture of the school to be like. We felt that it was reasonable to do three things really well, and that by being faithful in these three things, many other positive aspects of the Kingdom culture would follow. The three values we settled on as a team were faithfulness, encouragement, and worship. We will be looking deeper into each of these three things personally and corporately to know how we can practically outwork them in the school!
As a whole, we see this school as an absolute privilege. More than we have in the past, we feel humbled that God would entrust His kids to our stewardship. Please pray for us, that we would be filled with wisdom, love, patience, and fear of the Lord as we walk through this school. We are brimming with excitement, but doing our best to never go anywhere that He is not leading us!
Lastly, something we recognize in this past month is that we have not been able to keep our normal routines with quality time together, so this week we talked about setting boundaries and creating a schedule for this next season as we know it will be tempting to keep running and not stop. The last couple months our logistical role in the June school gave us more time for a consistency, but now it’s time to excitedly hop back into the chaos, trusting God will give us wisdom and strength. We love that what we do is always going, there isn’t really on and off hours during a school, and what we do requires all parts of us: emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual. We are still growing and learning to live in this fully while also listening to God telling us to rest and let go of certain pressures or stresses we do not need to carry. We are so grateful for this season in our life of being challenged and growing, while also having the privilege of walking with students as they do the same, always remembering to not point them towards us but to their heavenly Father.
Thank you all for your love and support, we miss you dearly and think of you often!
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