Our Prayer Card photo is above.  Sally and I, David & Abby are getting packed and ready to go to Black Forest Academy.  Our good friend and neighbor, Ben, let us use his ripe wheat field to take this pic.  Our good friend Brook took the shot......  Thanks Ben and Brook.

  

The Big Auction....... Dateline:  Elkhorn, Wisconsin, July 28th, 2012

Well, we did it.  We sold our "stuff" to this big crowd above.  Folkers Auction Service did a GREAT job getting everything done.  It took over 3 hours, and lots of packing up afterwards, but the big auction is done!

We could not have done it without the help of our friends at Calvary Community Church.  So many folks came to help pack the "flats" and toss out the junk.  And did we have a lot of both.  Many neighbors commented that they did not realize we had so much.......  nor did we!

Thanks again everyone for your support and prayers.   One step closer to Germany !!

Preparing for the auction.  Here Charlie Cervenka, a good friend from Calvary Community Church, and our Son, David in orange, sort lumber for the auction line.  Zach Dempsey is in green and helping by our shed.  Thank you Charlie and Zach.

And here Pastor Dave Cousens from Calvary Community Church helps toss out junk from our "pile" out back.  It was bulk garbage day in our township, and Pastor Dave is assisted by Zach Dempsey.  We were able to get rid of a lot of stuff that had been sorted out in June by our good friends, John & Josiah Ferraro, who were up from Jacksonville, IL.  Dan Finet also helped in June   Unfortunately, I didn't think to get pictures of the Ferraros or the Finets in action.

Thanks everyone for your help.  We so sincerely appreciate it !

Hannah & Jordan came over tonight to help.......  More sorting of boxes and passing out of the memories.  Here is one of my favorites.  This is our Beka from what we think was her 1998 Sunday School Class at Calvary Community Church, Williams Bay, Wisconsin.  She and those wonderful ladies made this Christmas Tree Ornament for Mom & Dad.  Beka was, and still is, one precious child !  More packing tomorrow.  Our auction is next Saturday, July 28th. It is supposed to rain Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so it may be a mad scramble on Friday!!  Need your prayers!

Happy Birthday Beka !!!    Our middle Daughter, Rebekah, celebrated a birthday recently.  It is a longstanding tradition with these three "Girlies" to snap a photo doing their "smile" for the camera.  When they were little, they always seemed to have their eyes closed for pictures, so they made a practice of doing this whenever we have photo time.

Here they are at Hannah's Wedding last September, 2011.

Packing boxes tonight in preparation to go to BFA in 26 days.  Sally and Beka are going thru all the family "Stuff" that has collected over the past 22 years.  Tonight's mission:  the photo album bookshelf.  Low and behold, Private First Class Butch Eucker, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Divsion, Fort Lewis, Washington showed up for duty.  Hey, it was payday Khaki Inspection sometime in the Spring of 1978.  What do you think?

Sunday, July 8th, 2012:  Pastor Doug Anderson formally presents our calling to the congregation during Calvary Community Church's annual business meeting.  Pastor Doug is so excited for us to go to Black Forest Academy to minister to TCK's (Third Culture Kids).  Pastor Doug is a TCK himself, having grown up in Haiti where his parents were serving.  Also introduced were Pat Embling and Tess Cervenka (pictured with Pastor Doug).