Dear Praying Friends,

Thank you so much for your ongoing prayers - and for the feedback last week from a variety of people talking about their Rule of Life. I enjoyed getting your emails!

Many of you know that Elissa and I were planning on coming home in September for another four-month Home Assignment. However, because of the long-standing Totalization Agreement (since 1979!) between the United States and Germany, we need to return for a full year instead of four months.

Our hope had been that we could find a way to give Alliance Workers in Germany an option for permanent residency (allowing them to use a Home Assignment model that does not interrupt the work on the field quite as drastically)—and we have discovered a few options. However, the time, cost, complexities, and potential penalties for staying (while we figure things out) make the timing difficult - and the change at this time, for our family, problematic.

This will allow us some extra time to visit churches and people. Our last 4-month Home Assignment did not allow us to visit as many people as we would have liked to.

The challenge, however, is that we have a LOT of details to arrange in a very short amount of time. These details impact almost every area of our lives, and sometimes our lives on multiple continents. Figuring out housing (here and there), time with our kids (here and there), work (here and there), vehicles (here and there - mostly figured out!), utilities and cell phones (here and there), and navigating the impacts on ministry, church, relationships, our Visa, etc. is pretty overwhelming right now.

Without giving a long list of prayer requests - can you pray for us? The biggest prayer request would be for clarity on the home and ministry front as we make good lists of the things that need to happen quickly. We also need some things to happen quickly in a system (here in Germany) that is not built for speed.

Thanks for your prayers!

Blessings,

mike