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