31 January, 2013

Hey everyone,

Quite a bit has happened in the last couple months.  The big thing was our trip to the States.  We hadn’t celebrated Christmas in California since 1997!  It was great to see family and enjoy Christy’s family tradition of making tamale’s…well, she made them.  I ate em!!  We spent a few days in snowy Big Bear, did a bit of shopping, surfing, eating, went to the Missions Conference at the Calvary Conference Center in Murrieta.  The whole trip was refreshing and encouraging!

Though Christy and the kids didn’t go with me I stopped in Maui for a few days, shared with the church in Central Maui on Sunday and Wednesday night.  I’m so proud of our Maui Ohana, the church is doing great and God is definitely working in and through the body.  It was a tremendous blessing to see everyone!!  Got some great waves too!

We’ve only been back a short time and we’ve returned to a bunch of changes:  The kids have started a new school year (Jesse in year 10 and Nina in year 7.  Malena we’ve left in California to attend the Calvary Bible College in Murrieta, she starts 4 February and will be living on campus).  Jesse and Nina have signed up for the new soccer season and have jumped right in to the new year.

I’ve started my new role at Covenant Christian School (my kids’ school)…which is still being defined.  Last week I taught devotions for the staff & faculty of the school in preparation for the new year.  It went really well. This week I found out that I’ll be taking high school students to the beach on Thursdays for surf lessons…pretty cool!  I’ll be doing some graphic design for various marketing projects and I’m meeting with head teachers to discuss teaching biblical studies to years 7-12.  I’ll be doing evangelistic training for a couple teams going to an Aboriginal Community in Yarrabah (far north), and going with a group of students to the Outback.  We’re also discussing outreach ideas to parents and students of the school.  Aside from Covenant I’ll still be serving as the college chaplain at ICMS (former employer).  They’ve asked me to teach bible studies on the campus and consider starting a service for the students…praying about this!  I’ll be on the campus two days a week.  Christy is still working in the maintenance department at Covenant two days a week.

Jumped back in to Christian Surfers and my new role as Northern Beaches Coordinator.  Met with the Manly Beach crew on Monday, really excited about what’s happening in Manly and looking forward to serving the crew.  Will be meeting with the other missions soon to make myself available to them.  We have a regional leaders meeting on 16 February, will be good to touch base with everyone.  We’re praying about offering the Inductive Bible Study course to the NB missions and looking for ways to link the missions together for fellowship.

We just heard today that we’ve got to move out of our house by mid-April…our landlord wants his son to move in.  We’re bummed because we were just getting used to this place and we’re tired of moving (this will be our 6^th move in 2.5 years).  In light of all these things I feel our adversary, the devil, has ramped it up a bit with confusion and discouragement.  But we know God is on the throne and He’s equipped us to stand against the wiles of the devil.

We really appreciate your prayers and value your partnership immensely.  So stoked we’re not on this journey alone.

May God bless you richly as you seek His face.

Love,

The Halls