Immigration Interview

Thank you for praying for my immigration interview this morning. All went well; I passed and had all the needed documents on me. The questions were fairly simple and my reading and writing portion were the sentences "Where is the White House?" and "The White House is in Washington D.C." - hopefully manageable after attending College in the US! I had been concerned about not having had a certain form I was advised to bring to the meeting but my interviewer did not ask for it!

I am now waiting to receive my appointment for the naturalization ceremony, which will actually make me a citizen of the United States. We will keep you updated.
 
As I was leaving the building this morning, I was thinking that I will soon actually be done with dealing with Visa issues - until I realized we may have similar issues for Joel once we get to Germany! In the meantime, I am thankful for a smooth interview today and an end in sight for this part of the journey. It has been a long process of paperwork, fees, and often confusion.

We were also blessed to have Joel's mother and grandmother visiting today and they were kind enough to watch the kids while I took the train downtown for the interview - and actually enjoyed some kid free time by reading uninterruptedly. A wonderful blessing for me!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!

Welcoming Johanna Lorraine Hopkins

It has now been a week since we welcomed our little Johanna into this world. She is cuddly and loves to be held. Eliana is a wonderful big sister. We are so proud of her. She loves hugging and kissing Johanna and so far has not shown any signs of jealousy. I am recovering well and have made my first outings to the park and the apartment pool with two little ones. Joel's Mom joined us for most of this first week and was a huge help during this transition. Our church deaconesses are taking care of us also. We are truly blessed! Thank you for all of your prayers during this family transition. Pray we would seek and trust God's wisdom as we raise Eliana and Johanna.

In other news, together with the Millers, we are pursuing some potential teammates for Josiah Venture Germany. Would you pray for God's clear guidance for everyone involved in this process?!

Also, pray for Joel and I as we juggle family, ministry, and fundraising responsibilities this summer. Not wanting to neglect any of these, we need God's wisdom and discipline.

Transitions

We were silent on this blog while we sought God's direction for the coming school year. We have now been fundraising for about 2 years and find ourselves moving slowly at around 35% of support raised. We are still as certain as ever that God has led us to Eastern Germany and our latest trip to Leipzig with the Millers was only a confirmation. As the Millers have 80% of their support raised and plan on moving to Leipzig in the early fall of 2014 (after seeing their youngest son off to College), we are more eager than ever to make this our last year of fundraising in the US!

Over the last two years, we have especially focused on churches and friends around the Chicagoland area and are getting close to exhausting our resources here. Time and time again, we have considered moving up to Michigan for a while to become a part of Joel's former home church, First Baptist of St Johns. We love this church and have already experienced their support both financially and in various other encouraging ways. As we move up to Michigan to reacquaint ourselves with this church, we are asking them to consider becoming our home church as we move to Germany. The church leadership is welcoming us back and we are looking forward to God opening more doors for fundraising in MI.

Unfortunately, we are locked into our lease here until mid-October - and breaking it would be very pricey. We plan on staying in Illinois until that time, and Joel will continue on staff at Village Bible Church at least until the end of the summer.

We would appreciate your prayers as we seek to follow-up with potential supporters in Illinois while we still live here. Two churches are still on the fence and considering financially supporting us and we have made a list of individuals we would still like to ask to consider joining the support team.

Please, also pray for adequate housing to become available in or near St Johns, MI. We are especially hoping not to have to sign a full-year lease again. If you know anyone in the St Johns area who may be able to let us rent a property lease-free, we would appreciate a referral!

Finally, pray for us as we are expecting a new member of the family any day now. My due date is a week from Friday but baby girl may decide to come early. Pray for all members of our family as we transition to a household of four. We are very excited!

Faith in Leipzig - a pastor's testimony

Enjoy this video clip of Thomas Arleger, pastor of the FEG Leipzig (equivalent of the Evangelical Free Church). He talks about the spiritual state of Leipzig and the need for relational missionaries.

Talking points:
- Many churches in Eastern Germany only have 10 to 15 members.
- Leipzig has a population of 500.000 but only .5-1% attend a worship service on Sunday morning.
- 99% of the population are not connected to a church and possibly not even a Christian.
- Young adults say they would never go to a worship service without a close friend.

Become a part of the hope for Leipzig by supporting us financially. Thank you!

Breakfast with a Mission

This past Saturday, we were invited to Donny's house for breakfast - along with a number of his friends, who came to hear us talk about our passion for young people in Eastern Germany. Donny served a German inspired breakfast with yummy breads and rolls, cold cuts and even some sausages, Nutella, and lots of fruit and other sides. We were blessed by all the effort he put into this breakfast but even more by the opportunity to tell a new group of believers about our plans.

We always enjoy meeting new people and telling them about what God has called us to do. A breakfast like this gives us a chance to expand our support base beyond the people who are already in our lives. This is a great way of helping us in the fundraising process!

So, if you eat breakfast and have friends, why not imitate this idea and allow us to share our plans with another group of mission-minded believers.

If you don't eat breakfast, we'll come for lunch or dinner, too...

And if you don't have friends, let us know and we'll invite you to the next breakfast to have you meet some new people :-)

Please, contact us if you would like to arrange a similar gathering with your friends. We are willing to travel for this also!

Contact Joel at jhopkins@josiahventure.com
or me at ehopkins@josiahventure.com

Thank you!

A Chance to Share

After a few days of recovery, we entered back into our normal routines here in Carol Stream. For all of you who have asked about my well-being: I am doing just fine and so is the baby. We needed a few days to relax but are back to normal. Thank you for your concern.

This past Sunday, we had a chance to share our mission plans with the congregation of Village Church of Oak Park. Donny, a former co-worker, attends this church and made the connection for us. We were given a few minutes during the worship service, which mainly served as a teaser and invite to a missions-focused breakfast at Donny's house this Saturday. We'd appreciate your prayers that this breakfast gathering would be well attended and that God would stir in the hearts of those He would like to add to our financial support team. On Sunday alone, we were able to hand out 12 support letters as a follow-up to conversations after the service. Please, pray for fruit here as well.

Would your church allow us to speak to your congregation for a few minutes on a Sunday morning? We would really appreciate this chance to broaden our reach to a new group of believers who may be as passionate as we are to see young people in Eastern Germany come to know Christ. And we really enjoy hearing about your church's heart and passion for your community at the same time!

Below a picture of the JV Eastern Germany Team with Dave Patty at the youth hostel in Leipzig. Anyone eager to join us?

Leaving Encouraged

Our time in Germany is coming to a close as we spend one last evening visiting with my sister in my home town and leave for Chicago tomorrow. Our stay in Leipzig was refreshing, encouraging, and continued to confirm our calling to this area of the world. 

Since our last update, we met with a few more churches and organizations who all gave us a similar report: their heart is for evangelism among young people but they struggle to know how to reach them and how to train effective youth leaders. We are looking forward to joining their vision in the future and begin to help with new ideas that worked in similar cultures across Eastern Europe and to provide much needed manpower and leadership equipping.

On Saturday morning, we met with a group of University students who are a part of a missional Christian organization on campus. Our time with them was so fun and refreshing for both us and the Millers and we hope to see some of them again, granted we are able to make the big move before they graduate.

In the evening, we had the privilege of meeting an American family who is working at an International School about 1 1/2 hours outside of Leipzig. We (and I am sure they) would appreciate your prayers as we ask God if He would have us work together in the future.

We will leave tomorrow much encouraged and excited about the ministry potential in our future. Please, pray for smooth travel back home. My cold is only slowly getting better and I experienced what we believe to have been Braxton-hicks contractions  yesterday. While our spirits have been rejuvenated, it seems my pregnant body is under a lot of stress. 

Please, pray for us as we get back into our routine at home, fight jet lag once again, and seek to juggle ministry and fundraising as usual. Pray for God to provide the needed monthly financial support in His perfect timing and give us peace about it. The need here is great and we believe we can help, so we are returning home more eager than ever to leave for the mission field long-term.