Hello Friends. Let me just tell you about the BEST FRIDAY EVER! Our weeks are just so turned upside down that we sometimes get to take Fridays away from campus. We have our staff team over to pray from 9 to 11 on Fridays and then we can rarely find students that are willing to meet up so we decided it was family date day. It kinda felt long overdue after a REALLY crazy last few weeks. So here are pictures from our GREAT family day:

We ate lunch at The Brick in downtown Kansas City. We have this goal life to eat at the places Guy Fieri has visited in his show, Diners Drive-ins and Dives. This place was yummy…totally a dive but thats ok!

We just thought we would share with you that our daughter loves ketchup so much.
She also loves her Dad. They have so much fun together. And I should add that Josh was in full on love his wife mode yesterday (he usually is). Let me give you an example. We got downtown at noon, a normal Josh lunchtime, but I wanted to go to the West Bottoms district to experience First Friday Antique Shopping. SO FUN. I think I had too much fun because, before I knew it, it was 3 and I was still going strong. oops. My man didn’t complain once. Just kept on shopping. 

Well, we have officially reported to campus! Last month, we reached 100% of our support goal!!! God has brought in each and every one of our ministry partners and we are SO thankful for each of you!

This means that our time is no longer divided between support raising and time with students. We are full time with students now. And by full time, I mean crazy – run around in circles – can’t breath – full time. Not in a bad way though, in a FUN way. Josh was in Lawrence last week working hard on details and planning for these first few weeks of school and I was in Springfield meeting this man….Some of our best friends, Cindi and Joe, had a little boy – Bennett Lee Gaunt. We love him.

So yesterday Josh and I switched. I got home with Ru girl and he took off for our friend Lauren and Trav’s wedding. Thanks to all our staff team and Josh’s hard prep work I got to go to a event fair last night and we got 400 contacts! Ruth stayed with a co-worker and super mom, Rebecca. (I came home to them sleeping together on the couch, because that is the only way Ruth would sleep). Many of the contacts we received indicated that they would be interested in being a part of a Bible Study this year. Others indicated that they were interested in talking more about God but were not Christians. Praise God, we will be able to follow up with each of them over the next few weeks!!

Tonight was a big night on campus again. My co-worker Katie and I loaded the babies in the wagon and traipsed around campus like pros! We got to visit with some Chinese students new to campus and meet up with our other co-workers. They were spending time on campus trying to get new contacts.

I am just so thankful that God has brought us through this journey and has us where he does. I was praying on the drive home the other day and just rejoicing that I am more confident of His love for me than I have ever been. That confidence gives me a trust in His timing and a love for His Word that I have been craving for a while.

Psalm 92:1-4 struck me the other day as each word just resonated with me:

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to his name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.”

We would sure appreciate your prayers this week! Thank you friends!

Love, Maddi

Ruth has had soo much fun this summer with her friends and her cousin Adelyn who just moved to Lee’s Summit so I thought I would share some pictures. I am so thankful for these babies…and their Momma’s are pretty great too : )

Kaylyn, Ruth, and Eirik

Cousin Adelyn gives Ruth the best hugs….and I can’t help but mentioning I sewed their skirts!

Ruth and Cooper have the same birthday!! Cooper likes her but clearly she is a little wild for him sometimes…

Cousin love

We had kiddo play dates this summer on Wednesdays and they were a blessing in our lives. It was the perfect day for us moms to visit and the babies to get out all their wildness!

We just got home from a visit in Springfield and our whole staff team came up for our Staff Retreat. With 11 people crashing at my parent’s house, Ruth and Paige got to take some baths together. They had fun of course!

Does this picture give you a good idea of what our past 10 days looked like? I hope so! I guess my estimate of 20,000 people was a bit off from the last post but there were about 10,00o staff and children there. What a blessing these last few days have been for us. The Lord was close to us and taught us so much. We would both agree that He gave us sweet time of repentance that impacted our whole 10 days. We were able to repent of days and weeks when He is not our first love. Ukkkk gross to see but glorious to lay at His feet. I was reminded of Romans 2:4 – His kindness lead us to repentance.

We had a conference full of DYNAMIC speakers and concerts! I will make a new blog post over the next few days with links to the speakers and their books so if anyone is interested you will have access to them too.

We had great time together as a family. I loved eating in the dining hall and not cooking for 10 days straight. Seriously, praise the Lord! Josh really loved interruption free days – no tv, not much computer time, tons of walking and talking!

On the way to Fort Collins, we stopped at DJ and Steph’s house for the night in Denver. It was so great to spend time with them because we love them so much! They even came up to campus one Saturday to join us!!

Ruth gave us about a million kisses. Hmmm usually Josh doesn’t open his mouth for the kisses but I think he was just feeling a little silly!

Our president, Steve Douglass talked to us about the name change we recently made from Campus Crusade for Christ to CRU. Read more about our name change here. Even more importantly, he talked to us about the call the Lord has on our lives and the lives of every Believer to make our life about eternal significance and showing people Jesus.

Overall, we are so thankful for our time in Fort Collins. More than anything else, God renewed our vision for reaching KU students and Lawrence, KS for Christ! We are more excited than ever for the upcoming school year and serving Jesus!

We are happy to announce we have arrived at CSU in Fort Collins, Co. We are here for national Campus Crusade for Christ Staff Conference. We are thrilled to be here and excited to get fresh vision from the Lord for the school year ahead! Tonight was a Fair for the 8,000 or so staff members and their families here at CSU. They brought in rides and food and fun! We were excited to see new and old friends and watch our daughter have a BLAST!!! Tomorrow morning starts off our sessions and we get to hear from Francis Chan!!! We are sooo excited to hear what the Lord has laid on his heart to share with us. What a honor it is for us to work for Campus Crusade for Christ and spend a week with thousands of missionaries from around the world.

Here are some prayer requests we have for the week too: Pray that Ruth would be patient with Maddi as I try to take her to as many sessions as possible – Momma needs to learn too : ) And pray for us, our friends and our co-laborers here, that we would be refreshed and encouraged as we seek the Lord together for the next 8 days!!!

Here are some great shots from the rest of the night….

And yes, I went bungee jumping….kind of. I am pretty much an acrobat now!

I have spent the day recovering from a great weekend away. We went to Springfield to spend time with my family for the fourth. It was a GREAT trip and felt like some much needed time off. On the long stretch of 71 highway Josh and I spent some time talking about God’s kindness to us. We are so close to finishing our support team and He is continuing to bring people into our lives who we can share with about our ministry.

I tend to get this skewed view of God in that he withholds from me or wants everything to be hard. He has been shattering the lies I believe about Him over the last few weeks. He is just so good to us. I will try to take some time soon to blog a fun story about specific times He has showed his character to me and helped me to know Him more. Let me just say this – the more I see of Him the more I can say – He is beautiful.

Here are some pictures from our fourth of July weekend…

We got to spend time with my grandparents and my Great Grandma Sally. She is Ruth’s GREAT GREAT GRANDMA. What a privilege for us. She is dear in about a million ways. One of them is that she plays with my girl and loves her sooo much.

We spent time July 4th morning at the pool with Papa Rick and JuJu. Ruth loves them and we do too.

This picture is in my grandparent’s beautiful garden. Joshua, I must say, you look smokin hot.

And the show stopper. Rick bought out a Cabana at White Water for the 5 of us on Saturday and we had a BLAST!!! After hours of playing in the water, Ruth was wiped. So I took off her diaper (to avoid diaper rash), she peed on me, then fell asleep. Nice. I moved her to a lounge chair by herself and rinsed off in the pool. She napped with her sweet little bum in the air for two hours.

Hope you all had a great fourth of July weekend also.

We are celebrating tonight BECAUSE we are at 97% of our monthly support goal! Some friends joined our team as a surprise last night at dinner – HOW THANKFUL WE ARE FOR THEM!!!!  The end is in sight and we are just thankful that the Lord has provided so much for us. We are anticipating being done this summer so we can start working with students full time when school starts this fall at KU! Would you keep us in your prayers and ask God to help us finish quickly?

I realize that I am not doing such a good job keeping up my blog posts so I thought I would give a quick family update:

We have a sweet one year old girl who is sassier than ever and precious to us. She says please in sign language now and has quickly learned that it melts our hearts so she can get pretty much everything. She likes to talk on the phone and loves to throw things away (helpful when it is dirty diapers -not helpful when it is my sunglasses, pan lids, or phones). Here is a picture from her at her SUPER fun first birthday party.

Next up for us is another month of support raising and hopefully finishing!! After that we will head to Ft. Collins, CO in July for our summer staff conference. There will be 5,000 Campus Crusade staff members there. We are looking forward to it because we are in need of refreshment and direction from the Lord as we look to starting ministry on campus in the fall. We look forward to hearing from Francis Chan (or as I like to call him FranChan) and worship lead by David Crowder. A concert from Tenth Avenue North is also planned for our time at the conference! So fun – especially since our dorm room will have air conditioning : )

In the meantime, I will try to update our blog with stories and happenings from our summer. We hope and pray that you (whoever you are) are enjoying the Lord’s presence this summer and experiencing His love.

~Maddi

So let me just start off by telling you a bit about how broken I am. I know, and I am so thankful for the Gospel tonight as I write this – that Jesus paid the price for my sin and rebellion by dying for me. And that death couldn’t keep Him in its grips – He is risen and today He has been reminding me that he hears me in my brokenness and redeems me.

Why the mini devotional you ask?

Let me just tell you. Today I was ready to throw in the towel. I asked Josh if we could quit. No, I totally don’t want to quit. I just hit a bump in the road. Raising our support this summer and not being done yet has me flat out weary. I feel like I need more time in my day, more time with the Lord, and maybe a little less Lifetime movie watching when I am in a crabby mood already. So I broke down and laid out all my frustrations to Joshua. Then to God. And I was handled with such grace. Josh decided He would show me a good time and see if I still felt so sad after a swim in our new kiddy pool and a steak dinner.

Here are some pictures of him taking care of Ruth and I. But you should keep reading at the bottom because it is a special story tonight.

Yum. He was right. I was feeling better – then came time for Josh to make support calls. We have a list of people that we don’t know but they live in our area and have supported Crusade missionaries in the past. So we have been trying to get ahold of them for the past two weeks. Josh admitted that even he was feeling pretty unmotivated and maybe a little defeated. Don’t get me wrong – God has provided SO much for us and through YOU! We are so thankful – we just were having one of those nights where we just wanted to have our team of supporters completed so bad so we can do ministry every night instead. Anyways, we prayed. We asked God to just provide one new monthly partner before this holiday weekend. And we confessed how sinful and unthankful we are and asked God to just refresh us.

So Josh got ahold of a man he had never met before, and they joined our team. No meeting, no nothing. Just the Lord’s glorious hand at work using this available man and his wife to remind us that God is God. I cried. Josh tackled me in excitement. It is a good night. Praise God with us tonight. We are at 94%. God sees our troubles and we are not ignored. He isn’t weary and I am so thankful that the Everlasting God of Jacob is Jesus.

My stepmom shared this scripture with me and it is more than appropriate – Isaiah 40:21-31

²¹ Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand?
Are you deaf to the words of God—
the words he gave before the world began?
Are you so ignorant?
²² God sits above the circle of the earth.
The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!
He spreads out the heavens like a curtain
and makes his tent from them.
²³ He judges the great people of the world
and brings them all to nothing.
²⁴ They hardly get started, barely taking root,
when he blows on them and they wither.
The wind carries them off like chaff.

²⁵ “To whom will you compare me?
Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One.

²⁶ Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.
²⁷ O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
²⁸ Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
²⁹ He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
³¹ But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.

One thing we have prayed for Ruth since moving to Lawrence is that God will bless her with friends in all stages of life. We asked the Lord to give her baby friends to grow up with. Well, of course God has answered our prayers in abundant ways and with friendships we just really thank Him for.

Here are some pics…

Ruth loves Kaelyn. Recently, she got to hang with Ruth and I for the whole day! It was a blast.  Thankfully, she taught Ruth to enjoy her crib! They jumped up and down in that thing for half an hour at least. We even got to go up the street to her Momma’s school and eat lunch together! Amy (her momma) is pretty darn fun too!

And here is Paige and Ruth together celebrating their 1^st Birthdays. Our staff team here in Lawrence got together and so sweetly let us celebrate the girls with a cookout and some cake balls – yum and yum!

The girls even got to open presents!!! Rebecca and Jeff brought them the COOLEST BOOKS EVER. These things are baby proof: you cant tear them if you try, you can slober on the pages, and when they get dirty don’t worry just throw them in the washer and dryer. I don’t know the brand but if you are interested, leave a comment and I will totally figure it out : )

The week before last was oh so busy. One of my favorite people in the whole world got engaged to a GREAT man. Debbie and Justin live in Stillwater, OK. So, while Josh worked hard here in Lawrence, he packed Ruth and I into the car and we made our first Momma-Daughter roadtrip. Highlights of the driving portion of our trip included many many renditions of ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider” which Ruth has learned the handmotions to. Also, a scary trip to a McDonalds roadstop filled with many many many male truckers who stared a little bit at the only lady there – me. THATS OK – we made it safe there and back Praise the Lord!

So here are our pics from the quick trip. Ruth woke up her honorary Aunties at 7 am with a nice dance party. She has recently learned to raise the roof. Oh joy : )

Look at that ROCK! Congrats Deb and Justin. Ash made the trip too and it was such a blessing to be together and talk about what God is doing in our lives and how we are more and more in love with Him lately. I am honored to be a bridesmaid on Oct 15!! And Ruth is beyond excited to be one of the flower girls!!!! I bought her a purse so she can get used to carrying things around and be a pro by the time October rolls around.