~from Stefanie~
So, a friend recently asked how she could keep abreast of what’s going on with us in regards to church planting. My initial response was “Read our blog!” but then I remembered that it hadn’t been updated in a very, very long time. Hm…
Chris is in the middle of his residency at Cedar Ridge Christian Church and is learning a lot from the leadership there. There’s not a lot of exciting “news” to blog about but maybe we should be updating on the less exciting things too. After all, if you are reading this then you probably care about us and might be interested in more than just the front page headlines.
So, here are some Borkert updates —
- Chris has preached twice now at Cedar Ridge and will preach a few more times during his residency there. The church was picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church on his very first day preaching! What a welcome! Haha… For more on that story, see this post on our family blog. He also just returned from a 4-day trip to Chicago with some cool guys. They attended a training session on something. Ha! Let’s see — something like “how to engage people on their first and second time visiting a church”?? Or something like that. Obviously I need to listen more closely.
- Flora started 2-day preschool in August. We went back and forth on whether or not we wanted to send her to preschool (is it really worth all the money??) but decided to go for it when North Oak Preschool (right across the street from our house!) generously offered us a half-price tuition rate. That discount coupled with “scholarship” money from some of Flora’s biggest fans made preschool possible. I’m glad it worked out because she LOVES preschool. I wasn’t sure how she would do but she is absolutely thriving in the school environment.
- Timber and I had an unplanned 5-day/4-night all-inclusive stay at Children’s Mercy Hospital in September. He had an abscess in his neck that had to be treated with IV antibiotics. Every night the doctors warned that they may have to do surgery the next day to drain the abscess but every morning it was a little bit smaller so they held off on surgery. That was an answer to prayer! Surgery would have meant a longer, more expensive stay at the hospital, a scar, and, well, SURGERY. Poor little guy had to spend his 2nd birthday in the hospital but the nurses provided cake and balloons and a really nice birthday gift! He’s 100% better now — back to his healthy, happy little self.
- Scout is crazy. He got his flu shot tonight and laughed when the nurse poked him with the needle. He also just read a Level 1 reader book to me. He’s endless energy. I love him….and he is definitely my biggest challenge.
- I have recently realized that I need a vacation. I don’t know what that looks like right now but my wheels are spinning trying to come up with a feasible, affordable “vacation.” I probably feel this way because the kids picked up a stomach flu bug while Chris was in Chicago. You never feel quite as alone as when you’re quarantined in your own house with no one to talk to over the age of 5. And that’s when I realized that we are kind of alone right now. Well, maybe not Chris — he’s made many new friends through Cedar Ridge and other connections — but since I’m only down in Lenexa once a week for church I haven’t really made any new friends there. And although my “old” church friends and I try to stay in touch it’s just not the same. There’s an awkward disconnectedness now. And I was prepared for that to happen. We were aware that some distance needed to be put between us and our Hope friends and that’s part of the reason we disappeared to South Dakota for two months. I guess I’m just looking forward to being out of the transition phase and settled into a new church family. I’ve been thinking about the famous Ecclesiastes passage lately — For everything there is a season,a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
Despite my need for vacation and lack of friends I’m really quite happy with my life. Haha….it came across as kind of depressing in that paragraph but I wanted to be more authentic than just saying, “I’m fine.” I am fine though. Really. 🙂
So, there you go. We’re still here. We’re happy, we’re healthy, we’re stumbling down this path God put us on, and we’re loving it. Please pray for us. We need it. 🙂
Church Plant Journey 