Prayers for March

—Kate’s health. She’s been battling with a sinus infection for 6 weeks and has trouble breathing

—Baby’s continued health and development

—Wisdom with a few ministry ideas/directions

—New open doors, networking, people of peace

I, Kate, have been freelance writing for Bounty.co.nz since January, as one of their three bloggers. I am writing the “Mum2Be” blog. Bounty is a national company that distributes “bounty packs” (free pregnancy and child related information, samples and coupons) to all new mums. It’s been a great side project to be connected with a NZ company that’s based out of Christchurch and connect with other mums around NZ. We are grateful for the little bit of side cash it brings in as well. I also just started working with an editing/writing company based in Colorado. Just had my first assignment and look forward to more!

We’ve been accepted to stay in NZ another two years. Hooray, praise God, boom! We were thrilled to learn the news rather quickly after submitting our applications. They processed them so quickly compared to last time. We didn’t even have time to worry! Not everyone always gets accepted, so it’s not a given that one is allowed in NZ. We are very thankful that there were no hiccups or errors… so that we can be here for this time, around pregnancy and people visiting from the States, without having to worry about leaving the country last minute during reapplication processing if something were to have gone wrong. Yay! Thanks for your prayers!

Last night we attended a city-wide gathering of Christians from various church communities. It was breathtaking to witness the coming together of so many from different denominations. We were there with one purpose. To worship God. It wasn’t about one church, one pastor, one ministry. It was about crying out together, praying for the city together, celebrating the joy of God together. When we were preparing to move to Christchurch the word “unity” was on our hearts often for this city. We felt God gave us that word early on and asked us to continually pray for it. It’s been so amazing to see something like this happen, after literally two years of spreading a message of unity and praying for the Christians to be unified as one. This city is to be known for it’s unity, love, perseverance. God is going to do great things in this city that truly is “the ends of the earth”.

We had two sets of guests this month. An American, x-Ywamer from the north island who was here for several days on business, and a team from YWAM Brisbane, Australia. They stayed overnight as they traveled through.

Biggest Prayer Request at the Moment

I’ll make this brief! Our two-year work visa is up MARCH 31. We are about to re-apply for another two years and waiting on some paperwork to get returned so we can submit our applications. We’d appreciate your prayers for FAVOR from the immigration offices as they review our application in the coming weeks. Please pray protection over us and that nothing would hinder us from staying.. and that there are no complications with our papers (and no mistakes on our end, so that we get accepted the first time! Some of you may recall we were rejected the first time we applied in 2009 because of a tiny error on our end).

We are not expecting any problems, but prayer doesn’t hurt! We know God has us here and will make everything work out as it should. Every time you think of us in the coming weeks please pray over this issue! We should have an answer by mid March! THANKS sooo sooo much!

The other morning while flipping pancakes I got to thinking about “the star”. You know, the one that hung over the manger where “little-baby-Jesus” was born? I was struck by the fact that a band of Iranian magician-astrologers were lead to Jesus by tracking a mass of burning gas in outer space.

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2011 Ministry Highlights

—Partnering with community initiatives for earthquake recovery and cleanup

—Hosting families, teams and individuals

—English tutoring and school volunteering

—Participating in/sometimes facilitating prayer gatherings

—First nation-wide organic church gathering, held in Waikanae in April

—Helping start a university aged missional community

—Helping plan and facilitate organic church forums/training gatherings

—Helping to organize several corporate worship and teaching events

—Teaching at YWAM Oxford

—Organizing a YWAM National Gathering prayer tour of Christchurch

—Volunteering and donating to the Grace Vineyard New Brighton food distribution center

—Meeting and networking with some of Christchurch’s finest

2011 Personal Highlights

—Receiving love and encouragement from friends and partners here

—Receiving words and revelations from God and witnessing His faithfulness

—Seeing new places on the South Island

—Adopting Indie! (our cat)

—Being snowed in not once, but twice (unheard of in Christchurch)

—Witnessing the joy that the ALL BLACKS brought to the country with their championship win

—Meeting new friends and building relationships

—Transitioning from employee to freelance graphic artist (Noah)

—Witnessing our friend’s newborn son enter the world

—Surviving four earthquakes between 5.9 and 6.3 magnitude (not including the 7.1 in 2010)

—Sponge baths and using a chemical toilet for 3 months (stinky on both accounts)

—Getting pregnant, hearing heartbeat, feeling baby move!

We recently hosted this all-Korean team from YWAM Sydney. It was fun to have them! And we enjoyed their cooking on the last day when they showed us how to eat some rice wraps! They left this morning and I recorded their singing from my computer.
Korean Team Song by KateCrem

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) We have this scripture up on our fridge.

I just have to give some props to the Lord for being stunning, and thank Him for being faithful to His word He spoke so long ago.

We live in this ministry house. We’ve put a lot of work into this place from massive cleaning projects to redecorating, refurbishing, etc., to get it nice for not only ourselves but incoming teams. We’ve spent many hours praying here and praising God. Many people have come through our doors and prayed for this city, have worshiped God in these rooms. We have asked God to dwell in this place, to make His presence felt in this house. And I just want to praise Him for doing just that.

We have had several people over the last 20 months tell us about how they can feel peace when they come into this house, and that it feels restful and they can connect with God. It is so wonderful to hear that. God is beautiful, and He does make His home with us when we serve Him and invite Him to be a part of our lives.

Tonight a young lady dropped by who is uni student we meet with. She was amazing to look after our place while we were gone, along with a few others. She mentioned that they had a wonderful time and that they could sense God’s peace in this place and that it felt so safe. It makes me so happy to hear that. We want that. We want everyone who walks through our doors to feel the presence, peace and love of God. When she mentioned that tonight, it reminded me of something I wanted to share a few months back.

When we were housing a girl from the street for a few weeks, she had also mentioned that when she was in our house she didn’t have nightmares or see demonic visions that she usually experiences. God is so good. She actually slept well and felt safe. I am so thankful to our faithful God! He is HOLY! His presence can be with us if we ask, if we love Him, if we serve Him!

I am amazed. It is nothing we can do. We are imperfect, sinful creatures. We mess up all the time! It is His beautiful mercy that amazes me. Despite our junk, He dwells among us when we are willing to love and serve Him!