Reflecting on FPO

Well its been a week now so I thought this would be a good time to write about my impressions of FPO.  First lets talk about the reason we were there - to get trained.  Overall the training was great but like anything that lasts 8 weeks there were parts I could have done without - the brain has a tendency to zone.  The best part of the training was by far the time with Elbert.  He was our leader and all our time with him was in the Word.  It was refreshing.  We enjoyed our living situation.  We lived with two other families and a pair of single ladies.  In our Quad there were 6 kids with our girls being the oldest.  The kids got along great and loved spending there afternoons coloring and playing on the playgrounds.  Worship was a totally new situation for most of us at FPO.  We spent 4 weekday mornings plus Sunday in small group worship.  It started out rough because the kids were there and involved.  In our small group we had 8 kids and 9 adults.  Once the kids got used to it we had a great time.  We were blessed with a great group that bonded well.  We learned from one another as well as shared and carried each others burdens.  On Sunday nights we had cultural worship.  This was always interesting  because church would be in a foreign language.  The preaching, worship, customs, all of it.  It was a good experience but I am looking forward to a couple of worship opportunities at LPC. 
Like I've said in earlier posts Friendship was the best part of FPO.  We made super friends and I look forward to those friendships growing over the next few years.  Overall we loved FPO.  It was intense in the learning but we will always remember our time there fondly.

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Friendship at Light Speed

Friendship is a funny thing - some people are in your life for a season (think highs school folks), some forever because you live near each other for a long period of time, and some friends are in your life regardless of time and distance.  But the process of moving around the world has introduced friendship in a whole new way - I call it friendship at light speed.  You take a bunch of people from all over the country throw them together for four days and see who clicks.  After that you email a little bit, get another four day weekend several months later and some more email.  Then the biggie - 8 weeks living together in the compound called FPO and see if you really are friends.  For Jen and I we were blessed.  At Candidate conference we met 3 couples and clicked.  We had lots in common, kids etc. But the biggest thing we shared was a call to missions - it bonded us in a supernatrual way.  After this time at FPO we have become great friends who will now be flung to the four corners of the earth, but distance will not dampen these friendships because they were made in the pursuit of the call.  There are few people who will experince what lies ahead for each of these families, and because of that we will have an insight to bare one anothers burdens and rejoice in each others success.  We will forever be linked to a time in a place - a spiritual marker - when we sold everything in pursuit of the King.  We started this journey togehter and God willing many years down the road we will come together again.  The B's, T's and W's are as fine a group of friends anyone could ask for.  To the men of this group I say thank you.  Thank you for encouraging me, teaching me, holding me accountable and most of all for being my frined.  I love you all.  God speed and may you everyday be the embodiement of the living God.

For those of you who haven't experienced this I pray that God will give you an experience such as this with friends like these. 

Washington D.C. Trip

Black friday was not typical for the Stevens Family - instead of waking at the crack of dawn to shop and find the best deals - we woke at the crack of dawn to head to our nations capitol.  This was not a sight seeing trip (although we did see some sites :).  This trip was an assignment for us to learn to interact cross culturaly.  We had several things to do - interact with internationals, have a spiritual conversation with internationals, ride the metro and a few other things.

We teamed up with another family heading to our part of the world and from Union Station with 4 kids (Kyleigh and Mac were the oldest), we headed out to D.C.  First we rode the Metro to Dupont Circle to eat at an ethnic restraunt.  After exiting the subway we met a man name Kenneth.  He had just lost his job and was having car trouble.  We could not fix his car but we did pray for him and got him contact info with a local church that could help him out.  We then set out to find our restraunt.  After trying 7 ethnic restraunts (all closed the day after Thanksgiving) we setteled on a pizzaria (Pizza is Italian - so it was ethnic right?)  We enjoyed lunch then headed to Krispy Kreme for hot dessert.

We then headed to the Mall - saw the monuments, peaked into the Smithsonian so the girls could see the 1st Ladies dresses and the ruby slippers.  We were able to meet some Asian students and our teamates were able to engage the in a spiritual conversation.

I had a great time with Kyleigh - she was really interested in learning and seeing important things in
D. C.  Most importantly she was very sensitive to Spirit filled things and allowing us to talk with folks about these things.   

We learned a ton on our trip.  Our biggest lesson was with 4 kids in tow you don't get a ton done in a day in an urban setting.  The Metro was good and I enjoyed my family in our team.  I hope on our first STAS when the girls are older we will be able to spend some time in D.C. learning about our nations history

A long week Over :)

Well this week was contingency week.  That's a real strange way of saying security.  I can't give many details but suffice to say we spent Monday - Wednesday in very stressful situations.  It was great training and I hope we never use it.  To add to the high stress, class was 2 hours longer everyday.  That may not sound like much but over the course of the week it added up and by Friday we were exhausted.  All that said, we did have some great things happen this week.  Thursday morning we had two hours for our second Personal Spiritual Retreat.  This was a great time for both Jen and I to relax and spend some solid time in the word.  It was very refreshing after the stress earlier in the week just to connect with our God and be in his word.  Friday afternoon we were able to leave campus as an affinity group and meet with the senior leadership of our orginization.  It was just a time of fellowship for us and a great time of prayer.  It was a relaxing end to a crazy week.  This weekend is post-modern worship and it will be in English.  We are excited to use our Heart Language to praise the Father this weekend.

Half Marathon

Today I did something that I thought I would never do.  I ran a half-marathon, thats 13.1 miles.  It was insane but it was a great feeling when I crossed the finish line.  This all started in July.  I needed to lose some weight and get in better shape so we could answer God's call to Eastern Europe.  The first day that I "ran" was awful, i went about 1/4 mile, and then walked.  I knew I had to keep working at it and eventually i was running 1 mile, then three.  I really thought 3 miles a day would be enough, but when we got to ILC I started running with my buddy Doug.  Well things got out of hand and we ran four miles every weekday with long runs on the weekend.   We decided to run an 8K and then one of us, I don't know who, decided we could do the half.  Well we did it and it rocked.  It's a great spiritual marker for me as my diiscipline to God resulted in this accomplishment.  Philippiand 4:13

Why the Name Change?

Some of you may be wondering whay a new blog and a new name.  First of all there are some practical reasons.  Due to security issues we needed a blog that was less descriptive about our job.  We also wanted to start fresh as we officially begin this adventure, so LOVE GOES was created. 
Now that you know that, I'm sure you are wondering why LOVE GOES.  Honestly we stole the name from one of our trainers, Derek, but we chose it because in two simple words it sums up why we are doing what we are doing. 
Christ left the right hand of the Father and came to earth because LOVE GOES.
Christ accepted the most horrendous death as a sacrafice for you and me because LOVE GOES.
God's love has came to us and as followers of Christ we model his example and our LOVE GOES.
We hope over the next three + years that our love will be a conduit for the love of Christ to fill the hearts of Eastern Europeans.

Prayer Warriors

Jen and I had no idea what to expect when we got here at FPO.  We kinda knew what the food would be like and the Quad living but other then that it was the unknown (I think thats part of the idea with the training).  We have loved being here but it has been hard at times.  One thing that continues to amaze and impress me are the prayer teams.  They come in every Thursday from churches all over the south to live on campus for four days and prayer walk.  They do this at their own expense and it just amazes me to know that we are being covered in prayer.  It has been a tremendous blessing to the Stevens family.  So from the bottom of my heart, I truly thank all the prayer warriors out there that are giving of their time to cover us in prayer. 

starting a blog

i don't know about anyone else... but i totally agonize of the naming of a blog... it seems like such a big committment to me.  then you have the issue of everyone wondering, "how'd they come up with that name?" and then if they know how you came up with it, they judge whether it's actually cool or not.  maybe all of this is evidence of how i judge the name of your blog.

all that being said, here's our new blog address.  hope you enjoy getting to read about our family and it's adventures, or misadventures as the case may be.  people tell us we're wildly entertaining.  we are open books, so you may find some disturbing but real portrayals.

guess we'll get some pictures and such up soon, kyle tells me he's working on a video project.  scary!  :)