Looking Forward...

Soon, yes very soon our newsletter will come out. It's been quite a while since we've sent one out and I bet some of you are wondering what we've been up to and what our future plans are! Well we are still prayerfully headed towards joining MAF and becoming missionary aviators.

The past month or so we've been focusing on learning how to be parents to our little girl Jenna. We're now starting to learn how to multi-task while doing that. It's definitely a process and we are thankful for the people at Servant Wings for giving us the heads up to move our tech eval date so we can transition more smoothly. Our MAF tech eval is in April 2011. So it gives us plenty of time to figure out how to multi-task as parents, get more involved at church, and for Eric to continue his flight programs.

In our next newsletter we hope to give you a glimpse of our life right now and show you where we feel called to be in the future. We hope to show you how what Eric hopes to learn as a CFI can be utilized on the field and give you an opportunity to be part of that ministry. We hope to also explain more about Kristine's future varied role as a missionary wife and give you more information on countries that MAF serves in. In order for us to continue on this journey it's definitely important to have support and people that come alongside us to help support the mission. Because without people back home supporting those on the field, the work doesn't happen. Everyone is connected. :)

For now, we just wanted to post a quick update to let you know to really expect the newsletter sometime at the end of this month or in November. If you have any questions for us regarding our lives or our goals as missionary aviators please feel free to e-mail us at ericandkristinereed@gmail.com.

Blessings,

Eric, Kristine and Jenna Reed :)

Welcome Wednesday!

So for those of you who don't know. There are often "events" that blogs have to help gain readership. Today is one of those events, it's called Welcome Wednesday! Today it's being hosted by Take It From Me.

http://takeitfrom-me.blogspot.com/search/label/Welcome%20Wednesday

What you do is you go to their website, add them, add a few other people to your blogroll and then people can come to your website and choose to follow your blog!

We want to welcome those people who are here for the first time via Welcome Wednesday. This blog needs to be updated, but it's primarily focused on our journey to become mission aviators. Right now we are actively working towards becoming missionaries with Mission Aviation Fellowship. Eric is a pilot and I am a teacher. We have a daughter named Jennavieve that was just born this September! We are part of an organization called Servant Wings that helps people that want to become mission aviators by helping them gain the flight hours and experience working on the planes owned by the organization. They've been a great help for us to build the last few hours needed and the people involved have been great at mentoring us.

We encourage you to check out MAF and Servant Wings for more information. If you'd like to ask us any questions, please feel free! We'd love to chat with you. You can find us also on Facebook via "The Reeds Journey to Mission Aviation" page.

Blessings,
Eric, Kristine and Jennavieve Reed.

Licensed!

I forgot to update this, but I (Kristine) finally got my teaching licensed back and I am now up to date on everything and licensed to teach for another three years. I am not sure if I am going to teach in these three years, but I am legal and have the opportunity if we need it. I figure if we needed I could sub once in a while. We'll see! Praise God it all worked out though!

Blessings,
Kristine

Meet baby Jennavieve!

I knew I was forgetting to update this blog! Our little girl arrived on Sept 12 at 7:55am and her name is Jennavieve Elizabeth Reed. We've been busy the past couple of weeks on the learning curve of being parents as you can imagine. If you'd like to read more about daily life in the Reed household, check this blog:

http://littlelifeinmine.blogspot.com/

I (Kristine) mainly write on that blog site. We hope to get back on track starting in October with other commitments. Starting then, we'll go back to doing Bible Study Fellowship once a week, Eric will hopefully start to fly a little more and we'll get more of a routine established. We are thankful to the members of Servant Wings for giving us the heads up about moving our Tech Eval date to a later time. There's no way that Eric would have been able to focus on his studies and show all that he's learned to MAF with our little one still having sleeping issues. :)

I'll try to update this blog more often! Feel free to add us on Networked Blogs if you are on Facebook or add us on Google Friend Connect/Google Reader to keep up to date on the latest in the Reed household. :)

Blessings,

Kristine Reed

Mozambique

So I (Kristine) was changing the channels on the tv the other day and saw this travel show on the public broadcasting network. It was mostly over (which saddened me) and had this man going into villages getting to know the locals and learning about them. I wasn't sure at this where this country was, but I was overhearing them speak a language that I mostly recognized as Spanish with some french sounding words mixed in. I checked the channel guide and it said the man was in Mozambique, so I watched on.

Singing Children
My brain is a little cloudy right now due to being nine months pregnant, but I remember him going into villages and learning about what food they typically eat. I think he mentioned that there weren't many roads here and I saw airplanes taking off and landing in the show. Towards the end, the part I remember the clearest was when he went into a local school. The teacher was teaching in this familiar language and the kids were listening. They sang the tv show guy a song in the language and his guide sang it too. It was very sweet to see those kids singing, made me want to be there! The show soon ended and I decided to check to see what the language was.

Portugese
I checked the language and it was Portugese! My dream language pretty much because I LOVE how it sounds and have always wanted to learn it. I listen to Joao Gilberto's (He's from Brazil) bossa nova music frequently and the language is beautiful even though I don't understand it. When I was at WWU taking a Jazz class a professor who knew this man personally and played with him, translated one of the songs...it really was beautiful. Who knew there was an African country that spoke Portugese? I didn't!

MAF in Mozambique?
I decided to check to see if MAF had an operational base in that country, just to see if they were there. To my surprise, they are in fact in Mozambique! Here's the link: http://www.maf.org/mozambique I looked at it and they've been there for a little while and have a few families stationed there. If you'd like, you can go to their website and check out the families and also see their personal newsletters. I do this all the time to see what's going on in-country that isn't typically mentioned in the overview on the website. Plus it helps me connect with the people in that country more. Turns out they work with many New Tribes Mission missionaries and even Wycliffe missionaries there among the other groups.

Openings in Mozambique?
I decided to take my search a little further to see if Mozambique had any openings. To my surprise, they have a Pilot/IT opening right now. That's exactly what Eric's going for. What a shock really. Was this coincidence that I happened to go to that channel on that day... I think not. I think God was allowing me to see the other opportunities there are for ministry in other countries and encouraging me to encourage us to continue to pray and seek where God would have us in ministry. Being open to an African country was never something I had considered. However the prospect of learning and speaking and teaching in Portugese is very tempting to me. I showed Eric what I had found and he seemed really interested too. Would I survive the climate though? I don't know...but it's something to think about!

Excited for potential ministry with MAF
What's most exciting about this is not learning that Mozambique has Portugese as one of their languages, but it was the spark that ignited in me when I was looking again at the tv show and realizing just how much I'd love living as a missionary in another country. I watched MAF's AOTW Haiti episode and just continued to fall in love with the ministry. It's so easy to become so set in your ways, to think, "Oh, I am going to have a baby soon. We could just live in the US with our house, work our jobs and help at church and not worry about this mission stuff".

Life often times gets in the way of calling. Somehow I don't feel satisfied with the status quo. I don't feel like staying in the US long-term is what Eric and I are called to do. The more I read and watch about MAF the more I can really see Eric and I helping out there and making a difference in the world. Our children will get a rich experience no one can take from them and learn a different set of values than they would if we just lived our mundane lives. I could see the benefits of living a life for Christ that are more rewarding than possessions. In all the trips I've taken, I feel more at home in other countries often times than I do my own. I love learning about other people's ways of life. Eric and I often watch survival shows and travel shows with great intrigue because it fascinates us. We'd love to instill that same fascination and love for other people in our children too.

We'll see what the next year has in store for us. God can change things in an instant. For right now, we are encouraged to keep pressing on towards ministry with MAF until God changes our direction elsewhere.

Small Video Clip About MAF

Getting Closer!

Hello! We've been a bit neglectful of this blog, but will work harder to keep it more up to date. In two days Kristine will be due with our baby! She's trying everything she can think of that's safe to help encourage the baby to come out, but the little one kinda likes it in there. We both are really ready for the baby to come out. We have the house pretty much clean, the baby room done, car seat in the car, our bags (and baby's bag) packed for the hospital and grandparents are on stand by in Oregon and Washington. :) Eric's had to work extra hours at work because of a work project, so he's ready for a break too!

Ministry at Church
Lately both of us have been thinking more about ministry and getting involved more at church once the baby is born. We know this sounds silly to some of you, but we really enjoy helping out at church, especially in the Children's ministry. Because things were so up in the air with when we were going to do the tech eval for MAF and the baby coming, we didn't want to make commitments we couldn't fully keep. With the baby we feel more "grounded" and ready to make longer ministry commitments while we are here in Oregon. Plus we really enjoy the Children's ministry at our church, it's got great women and men serving in it.

BSF Starts up Again!
We both are excited that BSF is starting up soon, so we can start studying Isaiah with our groups. Kristine will most likely go during the day so that she can take baby with her. The day BSF class will allow the baby to be with her until it's mobile and then it'll go into the nursery there. Eric will most likely go to the Monday night men's group again. We both love the teaching that we get with BSF and it helps us to be able to train ourselves to study the bible individually using just the bible! We both are working harder at creating a better devotional life for ourselves to help strengthen our walks. BSF is a great place to help that to happen.

Facebook Page
We have started Facebook group for those interested in following us on there. It's called "The Reeds Journey to Mission Aviation". On that page we'll try to keep people updated via Facebook on where we are at in the process. It's great because when we type something in there it gets sent to all the group members. This blog is actually on networked blogs on Facebook too. If you are on Facebook and want to get updated when we post new stuff on this blog click here. From there you should be able to join networked blogs and get updated every time we post via your Facebook page. Saves you from having to remember our blog address and checking all the time!

Newsletter
Once the baby is born after a few weeks we hope to have the new newsletter available for you to view. These past few months so much has happened and since it's been so long since we're written a letter we figured we might as well wait until the baby comes to introduce you to our little one. :) We am sure you'd want to meet him/her too! We are still debating about how many pictures to post on this website. We might post a few and direct you to our family website depending. We also might make that website password protected in the future so that only family, friends and supporters can view images of our baby for it's protection. We'll see though! One thing at a time!

Thanks so much for being faithful and following us! We appreciate your love, prayers and support! We'd also love to talk with you abourt our passion and our call in life. So feel free to contact us at ericandkristinereed@gmail.com and let us know if you have questions! Or find us on Facebook!

Blessings,
Eric and Kristine Reed

New Changes coming to "Taking off with the Reeds"

Upon the advice of a friend, we're going to start posting some of the baby related posts on here as well as: http://littlelifeinmine.blogspot.com/ Eventually we might merge the two blogs into one as we get nearer to the mission field. :)

This Saturday from 11-3pm we'll be at the All Church Picnic in Vancouver at the Pearson Air Museum. http://www.allchurchpicnic.com/ If you are in the area you should come by and visit us! Eric and Will G. will be flying people around in Servant Wings planes for a donation. If you'd like to check out Servant Wings and get to ride in an airplane check out this event! We had several flights last year and people had a blast! Bring your cameras!

Soon we'll have our newsletter out. We might wait until baby reed is born to put out the next newsletter. But in the mean time keep checking out this blog for new updates and photos! :) As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us!

Blessings,

Kristine Reed

July 23, 2010 Update

Wow, it's been a while since we've posted. We were hoping to get a newsletter done....but we've been super busy lately. Here's what's new with the Reeds:

New Tech Eval Date

Perhaps the most significant change with us is that we've changed our tech eval date from October 2010 to April 18-29, 2011. We did this for many reasons, here are a few:

1) The baby is due Sept 4, right in the middle of the training schedule Servant Wings had set for Eric to prep for the tech eval.

2) Our baby is due! As new parents we'll still be adjusting to the new lack of sleep schedule. For the tech eval it's super important for Eric to be on top of his game so that they get an accurate picture of his skills. With a tiny baby around, it would be hard for him to focus because of the lack of sleep.

3) Did I mention our baby? We are new parents and need time to be able to learn how to be effective parents. By waiting a little longer and rescheduling the tech eval, we'll have a few months under our belt to get used to the lack of sleep and to develop routines. By April we should have things figured out to be able to put our best foot forward as a family.

There are other reasons....but those are the main reasons!

Eric Update

Since moving the tech eval date Eric's had more time to focus on finishing up the repairs on his hiperbipe and hopes to fly it soon! He also now plans on proceeding towards earning his CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) certificate between now and April. This is something he's wanted to do for a while, so this extra time will allow him to do that!

Kristine Update

The pregnancy has been going well with Kristine. It's really been a blessing so far. Every day she feels our baby move and kick and we are thankful every day we have with this little one. The weeks are counting down until the birth of the baby! She's been organizing the house and figuring out which baby things we still need. She's also been trying hard to visit with friends while she can drive.

Most of the pregnancy updates are found on our baby blog : http://littlelifeinmine.blogspot.com/ if you'd like more info on that, please feel free to check it out! She keeps it updated pretty regularly.

Financial and Prayer Update

We are looking for people to partner with us financially and through prayer in ministry. There's no way that we can make it to the field without the support of wonderful people like you! If you are interested in helping us out towards training costs or praying for us, please feel free to e-mail us at ericandkristinereed@gmail.com . We'd love to chat with you!

New Newsletter and Following Us!

The new newsletter will probably come out either in late August once the baby prep is done, or after our baby is born to show you a picture of our little one! We encourage you to choose a method to the right of following us. There are a few options:

1) Networked Blogs: Our blog is on Facebook's Networked blogs. When we update and you have a Facebook account, you'll automatically get updates.

2) Google Reader/Friend Connect: If you add this an update will be sent to your Google Reader Account.

3) Blogger: Many people that have blogs can add a particular blog to "follow".

I am sure there are other methods...but those are the main ones. If you need help please contact us and we'll hook you up with a method to follow our website! We'll try to update this with new pictures soon!

Blessings,

Eric and Kristine Reed

MAF Applications SENT!

Today we officially e-mailed our applications to MAF. We didn't know that we could do that until Perry mentioned it last night at the Servant Wings meeting and our friend Nan (who also applied to MAF) confirmed it. :) So this first step is now complete! Next we wait for them to review the application, check references and then potentially send us more materials to complete for the next step in the process.

Quick update on where we are at:

Kristine:

• She has her last day of tutoring with Sylvan today. After this she'll officially be unemployed unless she can get a few sub jobs. We knew that this day would come, so we aren't worried. We are just budgeting a bit more these days. :)
• She is continuing to take classes at WOU to renew her license in August. She's almost done with her ESOL linguistics class. In June she'll take a "Making Music with Digital Tools" and "Digital Storytelling" class.

Eric:

• Figured out his magnetic compass problem (Part of the plane is magnetized) for his airplane! He just had to move it two feet in a different direction and it's pretty dead on now. He will get it inspected in June and hopefully not have too many things to fix so he can get up flying in it again!
• He hopes to soon fly the 206 again with Servant Wings to build those last few hours for MAF before October. (If you are interested in helping contribute to the cost of this training, let us know!)

Baby Reed:

• We still don't have a definite gender yet, but they really think the baby's going to be a girl. So we're going with that and if it proves true, her name will be Jennavieve.
• Baby is right on track with growth and looks great in all areas. We go in for an ultrasound on Tuesday so that the techs can hopefully get the pictures of the heart they need. Prayer for this would be great! :)

So there's a small update. We hope to get the newsletter out soon! It might take a back seat to Kristine's school work in the next week, but it WILL come out. :)

Blessings,

Eric and Kristine Reed

MAF Application

We received our MAF application via e-mail a few days ago! It's exciting to finally be at this point in the process. We plan on filling it out and seeing if we make it to the next steps in the process. We aren't sure yet if Eric will have all of the necessary IT requirements, but if he doesn't he'll just take more courses until he does!

Kristine is just tutoring right now but continues to apply for and interview for different jobs in the school district. It's her hope to get a job that she can work at until the end of June.

Right now the baby stuff is going well. Next week on April 16th we find out the gender of our baby. We are excited to start calling our little one by name. So far we have a crib and a changing table that we got for deals at random places. It's an exciting time. :)

That's the update for now....but getting an application is huge thing!

Update!

In hopes of keeping you all up to date, we are going to update this blog fairly often, well as often as we can!

We want to remind you that most of the family news and baby news right now will be posted on our other blog: http://littlelifeinmine.blogspot.com/ There fairly regularly you can go and read what's happening regarding the baby. :) We'll keep it updated with pictures as we get them and every week we'll post an update on where the baby is (or could be at) in development and an illustration of that.

Right now I (Kristine) am looking for another job. The temp position at the Christian school ended, which is a good thing because it means the person I was taking over for has recovered enough to teach again Praise God! I knew there'd be an ending sometime so I am only sad that I'll miss the school and the kids. But it was great experience for me and helped me know about a great school! I am still tutoring with Sylvan Learning Center a couple hours a week, so I am still involved with kids. Even though tutoring is proving harder and more frustrating at times.

Starting March 31st I am taking an ESOL class with WOU (Western Oregon University). I need to take 4.5 credits to keep my teaching degree. From what I hear, it's better to try to maintain and keep your degree than to let it go and try to get it back again. It does mean that we have to pay out of pocket for my education right now since I am not employed in a district. That's kind of a hard thing to take, but you gotta do what you gotta do!

Eric is hoping to take a break after this current quarter (Winter) so he can work on the house stuff and focus on airplanes more. We think this will work out better for us so we can finally get the house into a sell-able state. Yay! Then we can figure out life from there. In October we have the tech eval and that will help us and MAF know whether we are ready for candidacy or not.

So big things this year! We are excited about the journey!

It's been a while...

As I sit here reading other blogs, I realized that we haven't blogged in quite a while! Here's a small update:

Eric is still working on his tech classes at PCC. Hopefully this spring he'll get up in an airplane to get more flight hours. He still needs around 10 more hours to meet MAF requirements.

I have been working as a temp teacher for math and historyat the Christian School since Jan 25th and it's been great. It's a 5-7th grade class and I've learned a lot about planning for multiple grades. I also realized that I really do like teaching math. History is interesting, but I am not the best at it. I try my hardest though!

I've also been tutoring with Sylvan Learning Center. I thought this would be the easier job, but man was I wrong! I've had to deal with difficult students and lots of other issues. At least it's only three days a week for an hour. I can make it through that!

Eric and I have been going to BSF classes on Monday nights and really enjoying it. It's been nice to have a structured bible study to go to. We still love and enjoy our Saturday night group because we can go together and the people are great. BSF has been good because it's looking at a bible in a different way than we have before. It will also count towards our bible credits! Yay!

Baby is doing well. He/She is due Sept 4, 2010. The pregnancy is still a dream to me. Other than waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and my abdomen growing, it's been hard to tell that I am pregnant. Praise God! :)

On a continued note, as I've been looking at blogs and reading up about what's happening in the world and it really has solidified the call I continued to feel to serve overseas. I can picture my husband working in an MAF hangar with tech equipment and flying people and supplies to where they need to go. I can picture myself going out into the community to teach and reach the lost as well as raising our kids with Eric to care for others, live for Christ, and appreciate different cultures.

The amazing thing to think about is, in October is our tech eval. If we do well there and they think we are ready, we could be invited to candidacy in January 2011 or July 2012. If they accept us, we'll be well on our way to being missionaries with MAF.

We plan on sending out a newsletter in April when we find out the gender of our baby and have an updated photo. Those of you who haven't gotten a Christmas card, most likely will get an update of our newsletter in the "Christmas" card. :) Please keep us in prayer!

We are PREGNANT again!!!

Praise the Lord! We are pregnant again and due Sept 4, 2010. We are still using our other blog to talk about pregnancy and children stuff so you can check it out for more information. It is at: http://littlelifeinmine.blogspot.com/

Jobs and the future

Here's a quick update on where we are at in the whole missions process. :)

Kristine just got a temporary teaching job with a local private Christian school. This job is teaching 5-7 grade students math and history. It's a small school, and all five kids (two fifth graders, two sixth graders and one seventh) are in the same room. She is not sure how long this job will last as it's for a person who has to have surgery. It's only a couple of hours a day, but she feels this will be great experience to use later on the mission field either with our own kids, with the mission or national kids. She still has a dream of helping somehow with an orphanage and helping those children become more educated and adoptable/find good homes.

Kristine also got another job. This is working at Sylvan Learning Center. Yes, we mentioned before that she turned down this job initially. She wasn't quite sure about the three hours a week thing. But, with the other job being two hours a day in the middle of the day, she felt adding this job would be good experience too. Right now she is just training, but hopefully sometime she will start going out to the schools and tutoring children in math. Yes....math seems to be the subject God wants her to teach everyone this year! She's boldy stepping out and doing it, even though she's kinda afraid to! But this is what following God is in this instance, going out and trusting that since you've been equipped with the education that God is going to allow you to REMEMBER that education and build bonds and relationships for that education to be put into action.

Eric has started two new IT courses at PCC. They are proving to be a little more difficult, but he's able to finish them. We've been pretty busy the past couple of weeks, so he's had to find time to finish his homework in the midst of meetings and gatherings. He's still working full-time at Garmin AT too.

We both started BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) class on Monday night. We are excited to finally have a good way to start a daily devotional habit. This is something we've wanted for a long time. This will be excellent practice for us for the future when we are out on the field and have to study the bible for ourselves with no extra groups other than other missionaries or nationals.


So all these things are also things to pray about! We'd love for you to join us in prayer that we be able to continue to trust in God throughout this process. We hope to complete all the requirements to apply to MAF by January 2011. This means finishing up a bible credit each, Eric needs 10 more flight hours in a high performance plane, tech evals and a few other things.

It's amazing to know that we are less than a year away from applying. Before this seemed like a distant dream, and not it's becoming more and more real. We are following MAF blogs and reading about what they are doing in other countries. We can envision ourselves there doing the same thing. We think about what we would do if we had a sudden disaster where we were at or how we'd serve the Lord no matter what. It's actually encouraging to think about.

We pray that as this year goes along that God can continue this vision in us and that we can share it with all of you. Because honestly, if the Lord allows us to go out into missionary service....yes we are the ones on the field, but you are vitally important in this vision. It's you who are the arms reach out for us the hands to do the work. Without your prayers and support, the work on the field could not be done. Lives would be lost. People would NOT know about the Lord. So please, keep following and sharing in our vision...maybe God will allow you to see how it can become yours as well. :)

Blessings,
Eric and Kristine Reed