The Oregon Trail

Dear Friends,

We just flew in from Portland Oregon and "boy are our arms tired"...hahahaha.

We had a great time with Ryan, Brad, Chase and the whole gang! We flew out to Oregon on Thursday. Friday was a day of rest and then Saturday was Ryan's graduation. What a great day! We were so proud to see her graduate. She and the other chemistry grads spelled out Chemistry on the top of their hats using the periodic table of elements. It was so cool!

You may be wondering why Chase is singing Indiana Jones...he has the game for his DS and it is his favorite. Chase is ALWAYS humming. I am telling you, he has perfect pitch. He should be in the Vienna Boys Choir! We really enjoyed hearing him hum, listening to him read and watching him play. :::Sigh::: he is growing so fast.

After the graduation we had a party at Ryan and Brad's new house. We loved the house. It is so comfortable and beautiful! On Sunday we went to church and then to downtown Portland. In Portland we went to Powell’s the biggest used bookstore in the state. It was so big you had to have a map to get around. WE LOVED IT!

At Powell’s, I got this great book by Steve Saint called “The Great Omission.” Really, a great book. I already finished it. Steve Saint is the son of Missionary Nate Saint who was martyred in Ecuador in 1956 along with 4 other men (Jim Elliott and others). It is a great book about missions and empowering indigenous people by providing them with opportunity to spread the Gospel to their own people group. Also Saint has started a company that gives access to modern technology to indigenous people groups. He has built a small "electric parachute" that can be flown very simply. This allows the native people to travel around the rain forest of the Amazon to reach others, to take in supplies, to fly people out to medical doctors and clinics. They have also engineered a portable dentist drill and chair that is small enough to wear as a back pack and weighs only 60lbs. Check out his website at http://www.itecusa.org/projects.html The programs that ITEC has are teaching the native people to minister and serve their own people. It is really amazing! In fact that is the whole idea of this business is to put modern technology in a usable way in the hands of native people. This technology has not been thrust upon them, rather they have asked "how can we learn these skills so that we can fix our own teeth? We want to learn to fly so we can easily get to our other tribes to minister to the sick and share the story of God.” This technology allows the native people to keep their autonomy and dignity by being self sufficient and not having to depend on missionaries or the "white-man".

Monday was Ron's birthday. Thank you all for your phone calls and Facebook notes. It really meant a lot that you remembered Ron on this day. This was another great day! :) Ron and Brad laid some trim for the wood floor Brad had put in. It really put the finishing touches on the house. It looks so good! Ryan made a really yummy lasagna for dinner. We all ate too much and laughed a lot.

Tuesday was a sad day...we had to leave. It was such a blessing to be able to travel to Oregon to be with Ryan and her family. Thank you all for your prayers, the trip was well worth it.

Sam was not able to go so he held down the fort in St. Louis finishing his school work for the year and taking care of Cocoa.

We are now in preparation mode. We are preparing to hit the open road for New Mexico. There is a lot of packing, praying and planning to be done.

Please continue to pray for the sale of our house. Please pray that God will use us to share His love everyday...right now, right here.

We will be sending out one more newsletter before we leave for Bolivia. If you would like to receive the newsletter by email, send us an email at info@lovelyfeet.org and type SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

God bless you all!
Ron, Rhonda and Sam

Dog Gone...

Dear friends...

Sorry we haven’t written for a while, we have not had much access to Internet.

It is a sad day. We have been struggling about what to do with our dog Figaro. At first we thought of course he would come to Bolivia with us...he is part of the family. But as we began our travels we found that he was having a hard time with it. He is a stay-at-home kind of dog. He likes to relax and sit on the couch. He likes lots of hugs and lots of petting and even some kisses. He was a not a very happy dog on the road. Also, he picked up this habit of barking that really was becoming a problem. Everywhere we traveled it seemed that he was in the way of our hosts. So after much prayer and buckets of tears, we took Figaro to Chicago to live with Ron’s mom. As you can see from the picture, Ma and Figaro are pretty happy about this new arrangement. However, we cried all the way back to St. Louis. We know this is best for Figaro, and good for Ma too, she needs the company.

Many of you have commented how hard it must be to give up our house, our stuff, our jobs...nope, not hard. Giving up our doggy...HARD. So please pray for us and for our little Figaro. He is a little depressed and not eating too well but he'll snap out of it. He really loves Ma!

This whole situation has made me consider the words of Jesus ""If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." When I have thought about this verse in the past I wasn’t really seeing the "deny himself" as active, as an action. The writer of Hebrews says that we must "throw off everything that hinders". I love Figaro, but he was becoming an obstacle to the work God has called us too. I want to follow Jesus, I do not always want to deny myself, and it is not pleasant sometimes throwing off things in our lives to walk the Jesus Way. But, this is what we are called to; this is what I am called to do. Figaro is a good little doggy. We will miss him so much. But we know that we have done the right thing, we know that God will bless him and Ma and us too.

Recently we had an awesome opportunity to visit with some college friends that I (Rhonda) haven’t seen in 23 years. It was such a great time catching up and seeing what everyone was doing now…how we have changed and how we haven’t. We had such a great time. I hope it doesn’t take 23 years for me to see them all again. We laughed and joked and ate. It was so fun. I thank God for the opportunity to see them all and share the afternoon.

We spent a great week in Nebraska with Nathan. We visited with him, we relaxed, we prayed, we studied Spanish and we played our guitars. WOW, it was a much needed break for all the rush rush rush. We have been so blessed by our pop-up camper. Ron Moore and the Moore family...YOU ROCK! Thanks for the blessing.

Our next stop is Oregon. Our daughter Ryan is graduating from College so we will be spending about 4 or 5 days with her, Brad and our grandson Chase. YIPEEE! We are so excited! After we return from Oregon we will be traveling to Gallup New Mexico to work with some missionary friends Mark & Bev Chandler.

PLEASE PRAY!!!
>The house needs to be sold!
>God's provision
>Safety as we travel
>for our faith to increase
>the enemy IS defeated in all his attacks against us

Please know we are praying for all of you as well. We miss you and we love you!

Ron, Rhonda and Sam