Watching, Waiting, Hoping, Waiting, Waiting... and did I mention Waiting?

Every time I try to start and write this blog, I get one sentence done and then never finish it. I guess it is because I feel like I keep writing the same thing over and over again. We are still waiting.........

Last week the cafe team met with the church board. We had a very long meeting discussing the building we found, how we all felt about the cafe work, and our understanding of the commitment of the ministry. It was a good conversation.  And we walked away with the church boards full support.

But, it is the district that has to find a way for us to have extra money. Since the down payment for this property is much higher then we originally planned. So, we are waiting. The District will give us an answer about the funds in 2 weeks.  It is a difficult situation because the churches on the District will take a big cut if they purchase this shop. So, they are discussing different options on how we can get the money needed.

And so we continue waiting and praying. Everyone is ready to go and ready to move forward. It is great to know that the church is behind us. But it is hard to have so many plans and to continue waiting.

Fundraising Time

Time has been ticking away and soon I will have to leave Denmark. My year contract might be up, but my work in Danmark is not finished yet! I know God has called me to see this cafe project through and so I will be returning for at least another year. So, that means I need to come up with some more funds! It cost me $1,400 a month to live in Danmark. That means I need to raise $16,800 for the entire year. There are a few different fundraisers and ideas I have to help me raise the funds-

My Running- It keeps me sane! No really, I love running and if I ever gave it up I would loose my ability to de-stress and process. So, I have 2 races coming up, both half marathons. I am going to run a back to back race over New Years with my brother and sister-in-law. That means I'm running a half on the 29th of Dec. and then another on the 1st of Jan. If you are interested in sponsoring me in these runs, all of it will go towards my work in Danmark and the benefit of me keeping my sanity.

Golf- In October there will be a golf tournament in Pittsburg, Ca. The tournament will go to helping raise funds for my work here. More details for this will follow. If you are interested in playing in the tournament, email me and I will put you in contact with the organizer for this event.

 Speaking- I will be home in the end of November until February. I would love to share in any type of services, small groups, Sunday school classes, any thing like that. Please email me and we can arrange a time.

I will be returning to California at the end of November and staying in the States until mid-February. Then it's back to Danmark to open a shop! If you are interested in more details or helping me in anyway, please email me at thrower_chic@yahoo.com or message me on Facebook. Thank You so much! Please Pray with me about my next year commitment to Danmark!

Movin Forward

We have found another property for the cafe. It has been checked out by the team. Yesterday some of the team members and church members went a prayed over the property. We are now on the next step of negotiating price and contract with the owner. I really like the property location and size. We will have to do some remodeling, but it won't be too bad. I'm excited for this new place.

I was unable to attend the prayer walk yesterday because I had another commitment. I ran a half marathon yesterday in a forest in Danmark. It was a great, painful, exciting, hard, learning time. I ran it alone. I was not trained to run such a hilly trail race, so it was a battle against my body the entire time. But, I'm glad I did it. There is something about being out in the forest running alone, at the end of your energy that gets you to the point of nothing left but to keep taking one step forward. At about mile 7 the trail was turning into another steep narrow hill and I heard footsteps approaching behind me. I slowed ad moved over to let this man pass me and he told me to keep going. We started up the steep part with him right behind me and he cried out "oh God" and started to walk it. And in my mind I thought, the exact same thing! There is a point where you push your body to exhaustion and you can do nothing but keep stumbling forward in hopes that someone will be there to catch you in the end. And in the end as I saw 4 friends standing there cheering me through the finish line, I knew I survived and conquered and wasn't so alone.

Through most of my time in Danmark I have felt very alone. At through these struggles with loosing a shop and group conflict I have felt like I am just stumbling forward trying to figure out if we will ever see this through. At this point I don't have an answer to that. But I know that if I keep pressing forward with this call from God there will be someone to catch me at the end. And hopefully the church here in Danmark will be better because of it. Just keep moving forward.

A Call To Prayer

It has felt like a really, really, really, slow summer in the ministry area. I am use to churches where summertime is ramped up event crazy time. But, in Denmark it is the opposite. It's holiday time and everyone disappears. The trouble with that is we have lost our momentum with the cafe. The past two weeks have been a struggle to bring it back. The pastor and church board have called for a time of prayer revival for the church. They want to add more prayer life as a church. I have taken that call both to the youth group and to the cafe team. We are wanting to grow deeper together and move forward together. The cafe teams really needs this time. We hit a low and a struggle when we loss the shop and we have not grown out of it. We have not moved forward. We have been stuck. I have challenged the team to rebuild. We viewed a property last week that we really liked. It is one we are going to make an offer on. But, this time we want to bathe this place and this decision in prayer. Sunday the church will be doing a prayer walk around the property. A few from the group will be fasting and praying from Monday until the regular cafe meeting Thursday. A time to pray. A time to seek out if this is really what we should be doing. A time to shake off the slump of the summer and move forward. Please join us in this time of prayer.

Golf Tournament Fundraiser

Fundraising Time

I have committed to working in Denmark another year. So, that means I need to come up with some more funds! It cost me $1,400 a month to live in Denmark. That means I need to raise $16,800 for the entire year. There are few different fundraisers and ideas I have to help me raise the funds-

My Running- It keeps me sane! No really, I love running and if I ever gave it up I would loose my ability to de-stress and process. So, I have 3 races coming up, all half marathons. I am running my first trail half marathon in Danmark on Sept. 2nd. Then I am going to run a back to back race over New Years with my brother and sister-in-law. That means I'm running a half on the 29th of Dec. and then another on the 1st of Jan. If you are interested in sponsoring me in these runs, all of it will go towards my work in Danmark and the benefit of me keeping my sanity.

Others Running- This Saturday (August 4th) a Women's small group from my home church  (and some of their kids) are running, jogging, or walking a 5k to support me. They are asking people to sponsor them and all the proceeds will go towards my work in Danmark. If you are interested in sponsoring one of them email me. The line up of runners include-
Andie Fitch (yes, my mom has signed up to do it!!)
Sara Allen (my big sister!)
Joshua Allen (my nephew!!!! he's only 7)
Diane Kennedy
Laurel Jacobs
Kristin Calidine
Lillian Caulderon
Katelyn & Caleb (more kids that want to join their Moms in helping support me)
I am feeling so blessed that they are doing this for me! I wish I could join the run with them!

Golf- In October there will be a golf tournament in Pittsburg, Ca. The tournament will go to helping raise funds for my work here. More details for this will follow. If you are interested in playing in the tournament, email me and I will put you in contact with the organizer for this event.

 Speaking- I will be home in the end of November until February. I would love to share in any type of services, small groups, Sunday school classes, any thing like that. Please email me and we can arrange a time.

Thank You so much! Please Pray with me about my next year commitment to Danmark!

Fast Forward Through July

I looked at the date and realized that July is almost over. And I realized that I have spent the past 3 days feeling like I am on vacation. It has been a good reminder why I love living in Danmark. It has been a crazy month, so I really needed these few days of vacation.

The month started out with a week of camp. It was church camp, most similar to a family camp. I was really stressed heading into camp, over all the cafe stuff that I knew was going on while I was gone and as soon as I got back. I was feeling overwhelmed and feeling like I was just hanging on to make it. Camp was fun and the speaker was really good. The focus was on Encountering God in Everything. And during one of the evening services, I finally felt God speaking again. And God said wait, it will come, not exactly the answer I wanted, but an answer. And so during the services I felt encouraged that God knows what our cafe team is dealing with and we will find another place. The other side of camp was sports and hanging out. I got to play volleyball, not sure how long it has been since the last time I played, but a lot of my training came back to me. I also got to learn how to play handball! Finally! I have been watching this sport and hearing about this sport since I moved here and finally I was taught how to play. Of course I spent the whole game trying to figure out what was going on, but still I played! Camp was good, but very tiring. As camp came to a close I had to leave early to make it home before the next adventure arrived.

3 hours after I arrived home from camp (those hours were spent cleaning the church and making lunch) a work team from West Virgina arrived. They came to work on the shop, but since we didn't have a shop they did work around the church and the white house. Also, that night my parents arrived to work with the team and see what I was up to. It was a great 10 days. We did different projects such as painting and yard work. And the most exciting one for me was that we finished the bonus room in the white house!!!! It was great to have the team around. They were an encouragement to the cafe team and a big help to the church.

It was nice to have my parents here. It was an interesting set up because they stayed with me in the house and they got to see how things go in the house. As always when I have them in the country I am serving in, it's just weird. It is weird to combine both worlds. But, a joy to try and share my life with them. We got to do a lot of touring and there were a lot of places I have not seen that I got to see with them. It was also nice to be spoiled. But, Tuesday I had to drop them off at the airport and go home to an empty house and try to figure out what to do next.

When I got home, I crashed. Too many weeks of craziness and not enough sleep. I spent the next 3 days enjoying the sun and enjoying being here. I went to the beach and actually swam in the water! It finally got warm enough to do that. We also took a really long bike ride where we enjoyed seeing the beach and harbors. I also took a trip to Tivoli and then enjoyed being shown different types of architecture around Copenhagen. And all this got me to a point where I fell back in love with Denmark and I feel refreshed and ready to go back to work.

Today we had a cafe meeting where we discussed our next steps. We are still looking for a place. We will try to go a visit shops this week. Hopefully we will find a place soon. We had to readjust our start date goals. That was disappointing. We also discussed my contract ending and when I will return for another year. So, we are picking up the pieces and moving forward, which is all we can do.