Howdy folks,

Our travels brought us to Trinity Lutheran Church in St Joseph Michigan where Rich preached and we introduced our ministry with Lutheran Bible Translators in our first preaching stop for partnership development with LBT.

We said goodbye to our families in southwest Michigan and moved on to Hudson Michigan, about 30 miles south of Jackson, to visit with the folks at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church for New Year's Eve, including our good friends Rev. Troy and Stephanie Neujahr (pronounced 'new year') and their eight children.  So we had quite a houseful and had a lot of fun.   Members of the congregation gathered at church for games including Euchre and Bible Trivia, and starting at 10 minutes to midnight we gathered around the altar and prayed in the beginning of the New Year. 

We had originally planned to go on to Dayton Ohio on 1/1 along with a stop at my sister's in Plymouth, MI - but with a couple members of the crew not feeling so great, we decided to go on to St Louis instead on 1/1.  As we got ready for bed after the New Year's prayer service, Troy accidentally cut himself with his pocketknife and required a trip to the ER in nearby Adrian.  It was snowing quite a bit and took a lot of time to get him there.  We got there about 2:15am and didn't get home until after 7am.  Needless to say, we didn't feel much like travelling, so we stayed in Hudson an extra day, which gave the kids the chance to play out in the huge amount of heavy white snow that has fallen in the last 24 hours.  Rich took some time to catch up on a little sleep and then used Troy's office and resources to work on his message for Sunday down in Tulsa.  We are hoping to depart tomorrow morning for St Louis and Sandau Haus to rest and reorganize before heading further south and west.