We ran from winter, but winter still found us!

Top of Paris Mt. One of the most beautiful
places to watch the sunset here!

While another weekend has past and Greenville is officially an ice box, at least for the last three days! :) It was 18 degrees last night! There was a big winter storm that came through the region this past weekend and we got a lot of sleet, mixed with freezing rain and little bit of snow. At even the thought of snow down here everybody goes to the store and buys milk and bread, which is really funny to me! :) I do have to say that a little bit of snow can be really bad. For one, they don't have very many snow trucks or salt, so the roads get really bad really fast, and then on top of that you have people from the south that don't know how to drive! ;)

Some of the bushes that are covered in ice!

Late Friday night we lost power but it came back on before morning. Then again Saturday morning about 9, we lost power until sometime in the afternoon. With out power we have no heat so our rooms got pretty cold. I was also working on my commentary on Philippians when the power went off, so it was a race to get it done before my computer ran out of battery. I got it done and then tried to clean our two dorm rooms to stay warm, now that was fun! ;) Kenny was actually gone Friday night and Saturday morning at a Men's Retreat at Brushy Creek Baptist Church. It was kind of funny on Saturday, all the guys from school that want to the Men's Retreat on Friday night decided not to go because of the weather except Kenny who was the only one that went with Surresh (he is from India), when they got back I ask him how the roads were and he said "not a problem", yay! Good old northern driving!

We usually play volley ball when there is nothing to do,

but looking at the courts that wasn't an option!
We did fined a local church that was warm and had power
so we played for 3 hours on Sat. afternoon! :)

Silas and Brian making lunch out side since there is no electricity!
They're making hash browns, I think!

Next week we are going to have International week, I am so excited! Each international has a day in which they are going to cook dinner for us! It has been so good and challenging living in the midst of so many different cultures. It is truly a unique place and a blessing!


On a more serous note.....
God is teaching me so much about trusting Him this past month. I tend to be a worrier and realizing that when I worry I'm not trusting in my Heavenly Father. This verse in Philippians 4:6 " Do not be anxious (worry) about anything" is a verse that I have said to myself so many times. But you know what I realized, right before that verse Paul say "Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice!" It hit me, if I am rejoicing in the Lord always, then I cannot be worrying, but if I'm worrying there is no room for me to be rejoicing in the Lord! I can't have both worry and rejoicing going on at the same time. Something that I've learned here is three things I need to do each and every day. "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" 1 Thess. 5:16-18 If I am doing all three of these then there is no room for me to worry! It is so much easier said then done, but the Lord is giving me opportunities each and every day to try to get better at it and by His grace I will!

First Christmas with our little nephew

Christmas Break

Christmas with the Coblentz family.

Hello, we took a little break and I'm not sure why after the holidays. But we are hoping to keep things updated once again. So anyways things have been going well after the break. Right now we have some big assignments that we are working on. One of them includes an in depth commentary on a passage of scripture. That has been really fun to dive into, it is a tedious job but I have been really enjoying it. I'm doing my research on the life of Peter and a passage in his second epistle. I'll let Janelle give you her details, that is so she then has reasons to post as well. Another study that we started just before going on Christmas break was a book study in our church on Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. We have both really enjoyed this class. Its been funny how as we sit in the class and they are explaining how different men and women react to things Janelle and I snicker because something of the likeness has usually just happened to us. This has happened several times. I'll share some with you. Now granted these things are general for men and women so I am not saying all men act this one way or all women act this one way. But how Emerson describes it is men give and receive infomation through a blue tube while women give and recieve information through a pink tube. When one is speaking in pink you can't hear it in blue and correctly assess the problem. As men we need to understand how when women speak to us using the pink tube to interpret what they say through a pink receiver. Most men are problem solvers women normally aren't, so Janelle came to me with a situation and I thought to myself well this one's easy to solve so I began to give her a solution. Well if you haven't learned yet guys, women are pretty smart and usually when they bring up a problem they have an idea how to fix it but they simply want someone to sympathize with them. So anyways, I began to share what I thought was a pretty good solution to the problem Janelle had brought up and after a little while of listening to me ramble she said, I just need you to listen to me. Oh ok, well I can do that then, and so I listened and gave her a hug and things ended up going well. Well you know it takes a while for guys to learn things sometimes and so another situation came up that Janelle was sharing to me. Forgetting what I had learned in the first situation and not using my pink receiver I immediately went right back to what I know how to do, solve problems. Guys big mistake but if you do this here is what you can say. A little into my rambling I understood what I was doing again and immediately began to proceed with these words "You know darling, I really understand how you must feel. It will all be ok! Followed by a big hug. So it has become an ongoing joke if I find myself interpreting the situation wrong to resort back to this familiar line. I'm not an expert by any means but just having fun learning and thought I'd share it with you all.

Good to be home!

Wow, praise the Lord for safe travel this holiday season! There was a big snow storm coming so we were actually dismissed early from school by a day. Although we were dismissed on Thursday we didn't leave until Sunday morning. The Indian couple from school were coming with us up to Ohio and they actually had some appointments both Friday and Saturday causing us not to be able to come home right away. So we were chilling at school for a few days, it was actually very refreshing. Although the electric went out for about 6 hours on Friday we made due with what we had and tried to stay warm in our cold rooms. During this time we actually went to an Indian social Christmas party which was definitely different from what I have ever been too, but it was really great. We enjoyed lots of spicy Indian food. I was really glad that we waited until Sunday to come home, the roads were all clear and great to travel on. We did drive through some snow but let me tell you driving through all the mountains in NC and VA was amazingly beautiful with all the snow that dumped down on Friday!! We have a few pictures that we will post but pictures don't due justice to how beautiful it looked. There were places where there was at least 6-8 inches of snow on the tree limbs. Coming up to OH, we dropped Suresh and Seelah out at Cambridge where some relatives picked them up and took them to IN. It feels so good to be home though and excited to see family and friends.

Hey if you want to listen to some of the sermons
from the teachers here at EI here is a link where you can find them.
Listen to Sermons!

Also I would highly recommend the book "How to Worship Jesus Christ" by Joseph S. Carroll. He is the founder of the school that we are attending. Click the following link to buy a copy,
Buy Book.

Hey we made it home.

Hey we made it home. We are home for the funeral of my 2 yr old cousin Trinnen.

Alumni Conference

This past week has been really busy, but an amazing blessing too. We went to hear Dr. David Jeremiah, he was at the Bi-Lo center here in Greenville. It was really good! He spoke on Rom 13:11-14 He said Christians need to wake up and quit having one foot in the world and one foot in the church. Live for Christ' return and put everything else aside.

Bi-Lo Center! It was a full house and amazing to hear everyone sing too!

For the first time at EI they had an alumni conference! It was so awesome having students here in almost every class that has ever been through EI, including someone from Holland and Poland, about 90 former students! My favorite time was talking with all the former students and hearing testimonies of what they had gone through here at EI, everything they had gone through is still what students are going through today! Everyone here has similar experiences, we all died at EI. They are going to be building a prayer chapel here and one of the alumni said they need to have a jar full of little tomb stones there as well for all the students that have died here! It was so funny all the things that the students this year complain about are the same things that the alumni had complaints about, but through the thing that they didn't like, that's how God worked, it was very encouraging!

We had so many people in a little tiny dining room! We had dish crew this night with four other people and it took us 1 hour and 15min to get it done!

Here are some random pictures we took at EI. We have some of the most beautiful sunsets!

Noah, Zach and Marc.

Yes, we play volleyball ran or shine, recently it's just been rain!

Hey looking forward to a

Hey looking forward to a full weekend. Please pray we are having a big alumni conference here at school this weekend.

Alleluia Frog!

I thought you guys would enjoy some of these random pictures and my Alleluia Frog! We were playing around the other day around campus and I was able to take this picture. Now I assure you this is a real frog and nothing was wrong with it. It jumped away from us when one of the girls said that she would kiss it to see if he turned into a prince. It might be better that he jumped away when he did, LOL!

"Alleluia, I'm so glad God created me!" ~Frog~

I love God's creation, it all reflects the Majesty of who He is. He has created all things, big and small! And you know God has a sense of humor as well and loves to place things in our lives that cause us to stop and say, ha God you are so good!
I encourage you, look around you today and find something that you don't notice everyday and give God praise for it, He deserves all our praise!

Come on baby ... I just want to give you a hug!

Pic-a-boo Squirrel

Have you ever seen a hairy spider, spinning up its food.
This is how you package food that last up to a month later, lol.

Weekend in Greenville with the family!

Wow, it was good to get out and eat some good old steak over the weekend. : ) One thing that you need to know is that at EI, steak and potatoes is a rarity. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining but simply stating the blessings of eating some good red meat over the weekend. We had a very relaxing time walking downtown and enjoying the Reedy Falls Park with the family. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

New Arrivals from India!

Another answered prayer! An Indian couple that has been trying to come to school here in Greenville since 2006 got their visa's approved and arrived on Monday of last week. It has been a blessing to have them here and begin to get to know them. Something very interesting, they still have arranged marriages and even within the Christian families. They actually had an arranged marriage and most arranged marriages don't even speak with each other before they get engaged. They spoke once before their marriage and got married 3-4 months later. Most of the times Indian couple also still pay a dowry in order to get married. Meaning pay a price for their bride or groom. When i was in Africa the men paid a dowry for the women but in India its the other way around, the bride pays a dowry for the groom. Isn't it fascinating how different cultures deal with situations that many people face completely differently, like marriages.


Oh and by the way, you thought American guitars are pretty cool instruments. You haven't seen anything yet. Check out this 18 string Indian guitar, made from pumpkins.

God answers prayer!

God is faithful! We have been busy and have limited time to get on the internet with homework and everything but I just wanted to thank everyone for praying for us as we traveled home last weekend. It was so good to see so many of our family and friends in the short time that we were home. A praise report that I want to boast about my Lord about, is for our safe travel back to school. We were traveling 77 and had stopped to fill up with gas and when we went to start off again a warning sign came up on the car. We have a Toyota prius, so its a hybrid and mostly electronic. The warning that came on after reading the manual was a total hybrid system malfunction and the manual said to stop the car and call a Toyota dealer. So it was a major warning, being in Virgina right in the middle of no where close to home both ways we didn't know what to do. We went through the self diagnostic to clear all warnings if they were faulty and that didn't change anything. We did what you do when you have a computer problem and don't know how to solve it, shut down and reboot hoping that it would reset itself but still the same warning came up.
The last several weeks we have been learning a lot about specific praying (not general praying) and we all stopped and prayed that the Lord would specifically clear the system and allow the car to run smoothly, because the facts were we needed to get back to school on time and had class the following day. Also that He would give us wisdom to know what to do in this situation because we were completely helpless and relying on Him alone to get us out of this situation. A last prayer was that we would get back before it was to late because there were some things that we still had to do when we got back to school. After having the car shut down for about 15 min. us guys (Dan Baker went with us home) went around checking all the batteries and fluids making it look as if we knew what we were doing, lol. We got back into the car and started it up. Praise the Lord! None of the warning signals came up again and we had a smooth ride the rest of about 4 hrs back to school. And we got to school at a great time where we still had time to finish up on some things for Monday class. All praise be to God, our supply and help in time of need!

Also please continue to pray for my cousin Trinnen. We had a chance to stop and visit while we were home last weekend and he isn't doing well. For all that don't know about a month ago he was diagnosed with a tumor at the stem of his brain that is non operational. He is 2 years old and the only son of my cousins Carrie and Jr. They also have a daughter that is 4. It is a very difficult time for the entire family. When he was diagnosed he was only given 1-2 months to live, so everything has been hurled upon the family all at once. Please pray for baby Trinnen and the family during this time.

Day at the Farm!

Here are some videos and pictures that we wanted to post about a month ago and didn't get to it. It was right before we move to SC. They are precious. We were involved with a ministry in Canton, OH teaching inner city kids and Janelle and I really got attached to a family. So we took a Saturday and went and picked them up at their Nana's (grandma) house and took them for one of the first times out of the city to a farm to see and pet animals. We also went on a buggy ride, oh man they had a ton of fun. We got some weird looks though, a young white couple with four little black kids aged 6, 5, 4, and 3. It was a priceless experience.

Wow, its hard to believe that my little sister is in the 7th grade already!
She is getting to be a young lady.

Almost home! Looking forward to

Almost home! Looking forward to seeing the family this weekend! Got about an hour to go. Praise the Lord for safe traveling!