Hi Praying Friends!

Elissa and I have been in Columbus, Ohio, since Saturday evening. We attended Precouncil (I served on a Council committee), and are now attending the General Council of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a gathering of licensed workers and delegates from churches - which serves as the main decision making body for the Christian & Missionary Alliance.

There is always a lot of business that needs to take place, but it is also a great gathering of the Alliance family, and a good opportunity for us to reconnect with people.

Elissa and I recently went to see the St. John's Bible, a modern illuminated manuscript. The main calligrapher who developed the font/script for the Bible had a team of wonderful scribes, who all learned the script so the Bible would be consistently written. They found, that as they spent time apart writing, their script would start to show their own "hand", and that they had to come back together periodically to realign their script. Council also has that effect. The Alliance is not a uniform denomination, but we do long for increasing levels of unity and a solid alignment on Jesus. It is good to be here.

Please pray for us in the following ways this week:

1. This is a praise first! This week, we will have SIX new Alliance workers be commissioned for international ministry who have been to Envision Berlin, 5 of whom have served with us in some way. That will make 7 people in 2 years. Please continue to pray for Envision Berlin, that we can be part of preparing people for long-term ministry. That is why we chose to go to Envision 4 years ago!
2. Pray for our team as we see major readjustments this coming week. Our wonderful resident, Josh Stachowicz, will be finishing his residency. An intern, Cady Wieck, will also be returning (she has been great!!) Pray as the site adjusts to personnel change again.
3. Pray for our son, Josh, who had a root canal get infected. He is on antibiotics and seeing a dentist regularly this week as they wait for the swelling to come down. Then they will have to remove the tooth. Pray for that swelling to go down quickly, please! Poor guy had to take his final exams with a nasty swollen jaw (he did not want to wait 6 months for the rewrite.)
4. Pray for our travel - we will be flying back to the Twin Cities on Saturday, and will be in a church (Northfield!) on Sunday morning.

Thanks for your prayers!

mike

PS - If you are at Council, Elissa and I will be in the Envision booth tomorrow at 11:00 am and 6:15 pm. We would love to see you!