Easton's vs. Summer

Summer in China is full of 100 degree weather, "special" smells, and lots of sunbrellas, but for us summer means volunteer teams. Which means summer is coming in 5 days! Yikes! This summer 46 people are coming in six teams to our city to work with university students. We have a team of high schoolers from our home town and a mixed ages team from Virgina, and the rest are students from Ames and Iowa City. The most effective people to reach college students are college students so we are really excited to see what the Father will do through them this summer. Most of the teams will be on the ground for 1-2 months. Each team will have a campus or two to focus on. They will live near campus, eat at the cafeteria, and meet friends with the hope of sharing their lives and some Good News.

Mike and I were both positively influenced by workers on the field in the past. We love hosting students and we consider it a big part of our decision to move overseas, but it's a lot of work. Finding hotels and rooms to meet in, making schedules, partnering with locals and casting vision to all those people on top of maintaining the groups that have already been started AND having a three month old kiddo is a recipe for one insane summer. We are up for the challenge, but we do ask that you keep us in mind as you are talking to the father.

Oh and I forgot to mention that we are moving back to America at the end of July (more on that later). For us that means that we'll also be trying to pack and debrief ourselves from our time abroad. And for the on going work it means that there are some very new student groups that only have a few more months left to learn to function on their own.

Here we are with the teams from last summer.
This year we'll have twice as many - I hope our couch can handle it!