Evie looks out the front door

                                           The view from our living room windows

                                                  Trail to the dog kennel out the back door

It's nearing the end of March and while temperatures are still well below zero at night, we've got mid-thirties in the daytime temps and the snow has begun to get a little wet. This has caused several roof cave-ins in our area and most people are shoveling their roofs off. So Justin and my brother Isaac took to our roof yesterday to clear it off. This is great, since I will now sleep much more peacefully instead of worrying about the roof falling on us...however, all the snow that was on our roof is now at the base of our house. It feels like winter has started all over again since the snow outside our house has effectively doubled!!
We are still taking advantage of the snow here though, as the high school and young adult group at out church is planning a nerf night in the snow maze at Calvary. It should  be interesting!
We're heading to Anchorage next weekend for a hockey tournament and to spend some time having fun as a family. We hope the roads aren't too scary. We are realizing lately, especially in view of this winter, how unique Alaska is with all its challenges. This winter's weather has been extra crazy, even for here. I am just going to keep reminding myself how much I love this state that is our home, and trust that perhaps by July the snow will be mostly melted. ;) Then we'll only have to worry about flooding.

The maze I built behind my church.  Some 15 hours of shoveling.  12 1/2 by me and 2 1/2 by my brother in law.  You can get a better overall picture of it by the video at the bottom.

Spring?

In many other places right now, the trees are beginning to bud and you can see early springtime flowers starting to bloom...here in Alaska, we've got below zero temperatures (in the middle of the day while the sun is shining!) and we were awakened this morning with a loud cracking sound from our roof--it is groaning under the weight of the several feet of snow piled on top! So this is our springtime!
We went up to Victory Bible Camp last weekend for the junior high Winter Blitz. Our whole family got to enjoy tubing, broom hockey on the lake, and the amazing snowy mountain views! Justin helped here and there with the retreat and we got to touch base with many of the staff up at camp. After our visit at Victory, we headed back down the mountain to the valley. We went to Willow to watch the official start of the Iditarod. It was a beautiful sunny day but not an altogether pleasant time since Norah was very cold and cried the whole time! Poor baby! We also got to stay a day with our good friends the Engles. They have kids around the same ages as ours and they always have fun playing together (not to mention, mommy and daddy have fun too. :). While in Palmer, we met with the missions board of Lazy Mountain Bible Church- our first church meeting to talk about missionary support. We are continuing in the process and a lot of the support raising work right now is just talking to people. We are enjoying the knowledge that God is building our faith as we push through the feelings of uncertainty and not always knowing where to go or what to do next. We are also enjoying forming new relationships and building ones that we already have with people.
Justin went to Alyeska Ski Resort for the day with a group from our church on Saturday. He had a great time and definitely got a good workout! He is enjoying spring break right now and so are the rest of us. It's great to get rested and refreshed and refocus our perspective as the year moves on and we realize we only have 11 weeks left before our intended moving date!
We are at 30% of our support raising goal. We know that's a long way to go in 11 weeks but we are not afraid!

                                                   At the start of the Iditarod

                                              
The new improved support ticker!



Ways you can pray for us at the moment:
-That our support base will continue to build as God leads people to invest in Victory Ministries and our family
-That we will have servants' hearts in everything we do and keep our focus- to make Christ known
-That sickness will stay away from our house. It seems every week either Evie or Norah is sick with something new! :(
Thanks for reading!!

It appears that Kenai is having a false spring breakup. We've had temperatures in the 40s and lots of sunshine lately, but I can't help but feel it's all a trick! However, the nice weather is great for outdoor activities!
Justin attended the Father & Son Fishin' Mission that our church puts on every spring. It's an overnight ice fishing derby on Nest Lake in Sterling. Of course, Justin had to adopt a few "sons" to take with him (consisting of two of the high school wrestlers and one of my brothers) since we have only been blessed with little girls so far! ;)
We have been focusing lately on making mailing lists for an e-mail newsletter which we'll send out with mini-updates every so often. If you are interested in having updates on our ministry sent to your email, go to http://eepurl.com/jcBPX. Enter your name & email and you'll be on the list!
We are planning another visit up to camp at the beginning of March during Victory's junior high winter retreat.
Some ways you can pray for us right now:

-Boldness in reaching out to potential supporters. Sometimes it can feel awkward when approaching people and churches about supporting our ministry, but we know it's what we are supposed to be doing right now! Pray for wisdom and confidence from God.
-Health for our family-We had another bout with the stomach flu this week. We simply can't seem to stay well in this house! Pray against the crud!

Snow and Germs, Oh my!

It's finally February! I have to confess I couldn't wait for January to be over because it seems like it was just full of sickness. I know it's that time of year, but colds, coughs, ear infections, stomach flu, and pinkeye! All in one month, for everyone in the family! I think that's an awful new record for us. We spent the last week and a half of January in quarantine. We did NOT want to share anything with anyone else! So as we stayed home and looked out the windows, we saw our view gain about a foot and a half of snow in the last 10 days! I believe this may be the snowiest winter I have seen in a long time...and it just keeps coming!
Through it all, we celebrated Norah's 1st birthday on January 30th. She wasn't feeling too great, but she was feeling well enough to destroy a cupcake...which we all know is the best part of birthday #1!
Wrestling season ended with slightly less than a bang for the Kenai wrestling team...unexpected sickness and some unexpected losses in matches at State made the final tournament less than exhilarating for the Kenai wrestlers. But they held their heads high and they did receive an Academic Award for the tournament!
We are heading to the church tonight to take part in the Junior High installment of Calvary Baptist's Nerf Night...which is exactly what it sounds like! I will most likely be making a bunker in one of the classrooms and hiding out with the girls to escape the foam dart warfare. :)
On Saturday, the youth of Calvary will be hosting a Valentine Banquet for couples and serving as wait staff and dishwashers. It may sound like drudgery, but last year we had a blast and we think it's a great opportunity for the youth to practice joyful servanthood! (And enjoy some good food ourselves!)
We are continuing on in our support raising...the clock is really ticking now and we are getting ready!
Something to encourage you: I posted this as a facebook status the other day but for those of you who didn't see it or don't have facebook, it is a great quote and an encouragement to keep hungering for and reading God's word, and the powerful way He will use it to work in us:

...Never grow weary of the slow, steady, growth that comes from the daily, disciplined, increasing, love affair with reading the Bible. Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise, and are most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced.
-John Piper & J.C Ryle

Two Trips

I just returned from a weeklong trip to North Carolina to visit my dear friend Melissa and her family. It was refreshing and relaxing, not to mention a treat to get away from -20 temperatures and enjoy some winter sunshine in the lower 48! We shopped, took our little ones to the playground, visited Melissa's sister in Raleigh, and went to the Billy Graham library in Charlotte (which I would highly recommend visiting!). Overall it was a great treat!
Justin is gearing up for the regions tournament for wrestling, to be held in Kodiak. He leaves tomorrow. They will fly straight from Kenai to Kodiak and be gone for 4 days. After this weekend, there is only one more wrestling tournament, the State Tournament, and then the season is over. I am pretty sure that both of us underestimated how time-consuming this coaching job would be for Justin, but I know that we have both enjoyed being a part of the wrestling season this year!
Our process of contacting churches is continuing. We are asking churches to take a look at our information packet and decide whether they'd like to hear a presentation from us. We feel like things are moving slowly, but the level of support we are raising is slowly but surely rising! I don't know why we're surprised at God's provision! He is so faithful. We'll show a ticker on each new post that lets you know what level of support we're at, so you can be in the know...I'm still figuring out blogging (I am NOT computer savvy!) so it may appear in a strange spot on the blog!
WE ARE CURRENTLY AT ABOUT 18.5 PERCENT!

Back to work!

The sunset on Christmas day, from Kenai bluff
Merry Christmas!
A moose in our backyard!


So far I have been posting about once a month; here's to hoping that it will be more like every other week from now on! It's marked on my calendar: UPDATE BLOG, and you all know that if it's on the calendar, it's going to happen. :)
We had an awesome Christmas! We spent Christmas morning together as a family and our friend Scott got to come and spend the weekend with us too. After church we headed over to my parent's house. For those of you who don't know the Mese family, there are 12 of us, and it makes for quite a crowd when we get together! We spent the day eating and playing boardgames that got very exciting at points! Ha. I love spending time with family.
Over Christmas break we spent a lot of time on support raising projects. Finally mailing out our support letter, (what's the word for procrastination in conjunction with honest to goodness busyness?) contacting churches through phone calls and email, and putting packets together to mail out to familiarize people with Victory were just a few of the things we did. On Sunday, the 8th, Justin presented our ministry to the congregation at Calvary Baptist church, our home church. We are planning to hopefully travel to several churches around the state and share our ministry with them as well.
We know that we've got an uphill climb, financially speaking, to reach our goal by the end of May, but we also know that God is in control. I hope you realize that I don't say that in a cavalier kind of way. It is rather a scary thing that we're doing, it is quite uncomfortable at times, and there are moments when Justin and I look at each other and think "what are we doing?" But we know exactly what we're doing because it's exactly what we are certain God wants us to do. It's actually quite comforting to know that at the end of the day, if we have worked our hardest at what we know to be the work that is cut out for us, we can then relax in God's capable hands and let him do the REAL work. It thrills us to anticipate the exciting ways that God will move our lives toward this ministry at Victory.
We had the awesome chance to drive up to Victory and the Valley a couple of weekends ago and visit some of our friends at camp, admire the beautiful winter look of Victory peak and surrounding areas, and celebrate the new year's coming with the youth group at Glacier View, the church in Victory's community. We also stayed a night with our friends the Engles and had a little too much fun playing Fruit Ninja on the Kinect. :)
Not long after we came home, Norah came down with a nasty double ear infection. She fought it for a few days with a fever that just wouldn't let up and when we finally got her on antibiotics, she had bad reactions to both kinds we tried. I am so thankful that she's now feeling better and back to playing and running around again!
So far, January has been either very cold (-20 degrees or so), or very snowy, but thankfully not both of those at once. I'll see if I can get some good pictures that will show you just how much snow we've gotten around here!