Hi praying friends,

In the last week we've read books, worked on some sewing projects, we visited my parents and helped with some projects, we attended a niece's open house, I've gone swimmimg a couple of times, I have played a lot of guitar, I've watched parts of a couple of NBA finals games, I watched King Lear (wow!), I have developed a really wonky tool to pull song lyrics from classic English works of fiction for a music project I am working on.

We're taking some vacation time!

In the business of the last year, we have not had a lot of downtime - and over the next several months we are trying to be intentional about slowing down and giving our souls some rest time so we can return with a good level of enegery for the sprint that is waiting for us as we land in Berlin.

Here are some prayer requests and some updates:

1. Joshua had his tooth pulled, things are healing up well. He will see the dentist again to make decisions about what to do with the hole.
2. The car is running great! Thanks for praying.
3. We have two more church visits over the next two weekends. This Sunday we are at Rosehill Alliance. On the 29th we will be in Baxter at Pointway Church.
4. The C&MA financial year ends on June 30th. Several things here:
5. if you have been thinking about supporting the work the C&MA does around the world by giving to the Great Commission Fund (which also supports us - this general giving covers many of our expenses) or by giving to the Picconatto support (which supports us directly) - this is a great time to do that as the fiscal year closes!
6. several months ago I told you that our giving needs would be increasing in the coming fiscal year. Some of you have responded by starting to give or increasing your giving, and we are so grateful! To finish closing the gap with monthly giving (which helps us month after month and year after year, we need 2 households who could give 100 a month (or 4 to give 50, or 8 to give 25, or people to just give whatever God puts on their hearts, He always works it out!) Pray and ask God if that might be something for you.
7. Our books for the C&MA will close next week, which always means a big week of bookkeeping for me. Since we have been on vacation, it is likely to need several long days of catching up on entries. Please pray that it goes well!

Whew - that got longer than I thought it would. Thanks for your prayers!

Blessings,

mike