Merry Christmas and Merry Moving

Family and Friends,

It's finished! Our belongings are all in a total of 6 crates and they have been successfully delivered to Des Moines, Iowa where they will stay for about a year. I'm not saying it was all fun or easy, but it is done thanks to some brave family and friends who heaved the crates onto and off of a truck as well as down a long flight of stairs.

Our Christmas began at the Great Wolf Lodge in North Kansas City where we spent the night. This hotel has an indoor waterpark, so we all enjoyed the slides and pools. That was our Christmas for this year since there is no sense is opening gifts that can't be taken with us to Guatemala.

We are now in Iowa and have had a great time seeing Shelley's side of the family. We'll leave for the southern part of the state on Tuesday morning and spend a few days with David's family before our final trek to the Kansas City airport on January 2nd. Our flight leaves at 1:02 pm and we'll arrive in Guatemala City at 8:15pm. Guatemala is on central time zone, so jet lag will not be a problem.

This is our final blog from the U.S. - well, at least for awhile. We'll do our best to keep up this site as our internet connection and time allows in Guatemala.

Enjoy the rest of your Christmas holiday and have a great 2006!

Love from our family to yours,
David and Shelley
Joshua and Kayley

Thank God for Snow!

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow! Just when we needed a little time to get the packing done, God sent a snowstorm that cancelled our classes and meetings. Those 12" allowed us to work for a day and a half. Much was accomplished and it looks like we'll actually get it all done. The kids had a great week since school was cancelled both Thursday and Friday. You can see they enjoyed the snow. It wasn't a good snow for packing or building snow forts, but they still managed to make some snow walls to hide behind.

This is finals week, so the parents will be completing their exams, with the last one on Thursday morning. Then they will pick up the Budget truck that evening, with plans to load and move it up to Iowa on Friday. The six crates of stuff will stay in Des Moines until next year sometime when it will somehow, someway, meet up with us in Mexico City.

We enjoyed our time at College Church in Olathe this weekend. The Sunday School classes were excited to have us and made us feel very welcome. We are pleased to be finished with our deputation for this time around, but we'll be back for some more of the same in 2009.

We hope your week will go well as you make final preparations for Christmas. It's a busy time, but let's remember what it's all about. It's called CHRISTmas for a reason!

Love,
The Webbs

Weekend in Oklahoma

Family and Friends,

We spent our final travel deputation weekend in Oklahoma, spending time with our friends and mentors, the Gunters. They were our first pastors. That was 15 years ago! Time flies! As we drove across the state line into OK, we realized we had never been there before. Not even to drive through, as far as we can remember! So, it was a weekend of firsts.

The Gunters, shown in the picture, pastor at Tulsa Regency Park. It was great to catch up with them and see how their ministry is flourishing there in Tulsa. The kids (and parents) enjoyed their home, which was beautifully decorated for the holidays. There was even a train under the Christmas tree. (I think they wore out the batteries!) They were wonderful hosts and treated us like royalty. Joshua and Kayley were troopers on the trip. They helped us to set up and they never grumbled even when arriving home at midnight in the cold.

On Sunday morning we traveled to Bristow, OK. We took the "long way" around but still managed to get to the church on time. The congregation was more than gracious to us and we enjoyed spending time talking with people at the potluck after the service. Good things are happening there and I'm sure will continue to as the church keeps growing.

This week is devoted to finals studying and crate packing. Ten days and we move the furniture out of our house - along with the crates. Much to do! It is hard to believe that the time has arrived. We do have one final deputation service at a Sunday School class at College Church in Olathe on Sunday, but that 15 minute drive is nothing compared to what we are used to. I'm not sure I should even count it!

Thanks for your continued prayers. God has been good to help us through this fall. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel and believe it's the warm sun of Guatemala getting closer.

God bless your week,
The Webbs

Crates and Packing

Dear Friends and Family,

It is the last day of November! EEEEK! Time is getting away from us and we had better get busy making the final preparations for moving.

It was a busy Thanksgiving for us, but such a great break from the usual routine of studying. Although some school preparations had to be made, we spent the majority of our holiday preparing for the upcoming move. What a blessing to spend Thanksgiving with some friends here in Kansas City - what a feast and what great company. We had a very nice and relaxing day. But then, it was back to the work of crate making (that's David's job) and packing (that's Shelley's job). David made two great looking crates (well, they are not exactly pretty, but how pretty can plywood and 2x4s be?) and I began to stuff them with our belongings. All the pictures are off the walls, the curtains are down and I'm left with only a couple pans. So, progress is being made in the Webb home.

David will build us two more crates tomorrow and that should be plenty of room for our things. The crates will be stored for the year of 2006 and will meet up with us again in 2007 in Mexico City. Wow! That will be like Christmas. (I'll probably think, "Why did I keep this?") Kayley is taking as much room in the crates as anyone with her toybox and her many stuffed animals and dolls. Yes, we have managed to persuade her to give up some things, but there is only so much you can do with a packrat like Kayley. Joshua is easier to deal with in this department. His toys are much smaller (and much more expensive!).

David and I completed our final class presentations today. We still have some small papers to write and finals to contend with, but the majority of the school work is completed. YEAH!

This weekend is our last traveling deputation weekend. We'll be in the Tulsa area with services in both the am and pm. It will be a lot of fun to speak at Pastor Gunter's church in Tulsa. He and Sharon are special to us as they were our pastors in Junction City, KS many years ago.

Thanks for your continued prayers. You are each special to us.

The Webbs

Christian Academy of Guatemala

Friends and family,
It was another great weekend as David and Shelley visited churches in Jefferson City, MO and Eldon, MO. Everyone was wonderful, as usual, and to top it off we got to eat a great Thanksgiving meal after church on Sunday morning. Yum - Yum!

Joshua and Kayley stayed behind in Kansas City. Grandma Webb was kind enough to drive down from Iowa and keep them all day Sunday so they could have a break from all the traveling. They appreciated being back at Central Church on Sunday morning for Sunday School and Church. It's been a few months since they could attend Sunday School and attend Children's Church with their friends.

Joshua and Kayley will be attending Christian Academy of Guatemala while living in Guatemala City. This school serves the missionary children in the area. The kids are excited to see their new school and Joshua is anticipating playing soccer on this field. Here are a couple pictures off the internet. The web address is http://www.christacadguate.org/ if you want to see some more.

On Thanksgiving we will be sharing a meal with a special family here in K.C. The Richardson's have invited us for Thanksgiving meal with some of their family. We are looking forward to having a weekend off from traveling, yet there is plenty to do. David will be building some crates to store and later ship our household goods to Mexico City. Shelley will stay busy packing up the house and making decisions about what to keep and what to throw.

We have much to be thankful for this year. I'm sure you do too. Enjoy the holiday and remember to thank God for all His goodness and blessings this year.

Until next week,
The Webb Family

Friendships Galore!

Dear Friends and Family,

One of the most enjoyable things about traveling and speaking is meeting so many new friends. Kayley is especially good at this and usually manages to find a little girl to play with wherever we go. This weekend her new friend shares her name with only a slight spelling variation: Kailey. (You can see Kailey's little brother there too). We had another wonderful weekend, this time in Burlington, Iowa. We were blessed to be there. I didn't hurt that we got to watch the Iowa State game on Saturday night at our hotel. Wow! What a game! Go Iowa State!

We are glad for bit of a break from our long car trips this weekend. We are headed for Jefferson City, MO and then Eldon, MO in the evening. Grandma Webb is coming to stay with the kids so they can have a weekend off from the traveling. They have had great attitudes about it all, but are anticipating a fun weekend at home.

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. We have much to be thankful for this year. And much to look forward to as well.

Thanks for your continued prayers,
The Webbs

Update on Language School

Hi Family and Friends,

As you all know, we will be studying Spanish and doing some ministry projects during our year in Guatemala. This is a picture of Antigua, a city just west of Guatemala City. We will be driving 45 minutes or so each day to get to Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua. It looks like we'll really be "roughin' it" doesn't it!? The school has a great reputation and we are excited to study there. Antigua used to be the capitol city and has great history, culture and beauty.

We had (once again) a great weekend presenting a Faith Promise in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It was a special treat to have Shelley's mom and step-dad, as well as Shelley's step-mom at the Saturday night presentation. The church was so fun and receptive to our message. Unfortunately, Kayley got sick on Saturday night (at 1 am wouldn't you know it!) but was able to attend with us on Sunday morning. She seemed to be over it by Monday morning after sleeping much of the way home to Kansas City on Sunday. She is a trooper.

Keep us in prayer as we have another couple of hard weeks ahead of us with our schooling. Most of our major research projects are due just before Thanksgiving, so we hope to begin the serious work of packing at that time. So much to do, but somehow it will all get done.

A special thanks to you all for your emails, calls, cards and letters. What a blessing you have been to us during the last few months. We are thankful for you all.

Have a wonderful week,
Shelley and David
Joshua and Kayley

Many Thanks!

Dear Friends,
Thank you for your many words of support during the last few weeks. Your emails filled with kind words mean more than you know. As I was unable to reply to them all, I wanted to take this opportunity to express our gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Saturday was a day of celebrating my Dad's life. And I guess it was about as fun and joyful as a funeral can possibly be. We really did have an enjoyable time hearing some funny stories about my Dad as well as gratitude for his friendship and love. We appreciate your prayers as they provided the strength from God that I needed to sing a song at the end of the service. God is so good to supply all we need.

This picture is of 6 of the 9 grandkids with Dad's horse. Dad's friend rode from the funeral home to the lunch site leading Dad's horse behind. It was a fitting tribute to Dad.

A big, huge thanks to the Messers who spoke in our stead on Sunday morning in Lawrence, Kansas. We were upset to miss that service as we had anticipated meeting the folks from the Lawrence church, but we understand the service was wonderful. You see, the Messers are missionaries from Africa and are now living in Kansas City and serve as the Pastors to all missionaries. They certainly ministered to us this week. What a blessing to not have to drive back on Saturday. The time with family was well spent and much appreciated.

May God be your rock, comfort and shield this week. Until next time,

The Webb family

Homecoming

Dear Family and Friends,

It is a sad week for us grieving the loss of Shelley's Dad. He died early Monday morning at home and at peace. We are so thankful he was able to be comforted by his wife, Donna, in his last moments. And we are also thankful to God for opportunities to say goodbye and share our love in the weeks leading up to his death.

This scripture has been meaningful to us. It's I Thessalonians 4:13-18

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words."

We grieve, yes, but not as ones who have no hope. We have a great hope in the truth that Jesus is preparing a home for each of us that accept His gift of forgiveness and allow Him to be Savior and Lord of our lives.

We will travel to Iowa on Thursday in preparation for the funeral on Saturday. Thanks for your prayers, your emails and kind words. They mean more than you know.

God bless you this week,
The Webb Family

Fall Leaves / October 18, 2005

Fall Leaves – October 18, 2005

What a beautiful drive through northern Missouri, across Iowa and into Illinois! The leaves are turning beautiful colors of red, brown and gold. We had wonderful services in Elgin and Naperville, IL this weekend and in addition, we had time to visit with David’s brother, Steve, and his family in Batavia. They have four children, two of which are around the ages of Joshua and Kayley. There was some serious soccer action in the backyard!

We were blessed as well to spend a few hours with my Dad in Iowa before heading off to Chicagoland. The kids got to read him some poems and stories and make a sign for his room. Keep praying for my Dad as he is under hospice care. Especially pray for Donna, my step mom, as she cares for Dad.

The children were excited to miss school yesterday (Monday) since we had an 8+ hour drive back from Chicago. I’m afraid they won’t be near as excited when they get their extra homework for tonight. They are troopers on the road and at the deputation services. Joshua is in charge of setting up the table and Kayley makes sure everyone gets a prayer card. I missed them this weekend as we let them spend some quality time with their cousins at their local church. The picture with this blog shows the kids at Chariton, Iowa Church of the Nazarene. They are such good kids and so helpful to us at services.

We are so glad to have a week to get caught up on our school work. This is Reading and Research week at the seminary, so there are no classes. We have multiple major research projects due in about a month, so this week is important for us. Pray we’ll get everything done that needs doing.

We are glad to be a little closer to home for the next two weekends. This weekend we’ll be heading north to Excelsior Springs, MO and next weekend we’ll head a bit west to Lawrence, KS. We’re excited to meet the people there and share our story.

Have a great week,
Shelley and David
Joshua and Kayley

A Late Update 10/6/05

Dear Friends and Family,
Wow! What a week! I apoligize for not getting this blog up sooner, but with the demands of classes and weekend treks for deputation services, time has been limited.

Last weekend found us in Bettenforf, Iowa at the Church of the Nazarene for their Faith Promise services. They had some of the best enchiladas and "elephant ears" I have ever had. So tasty! Great people and great services.

I was thankful to have the opportunity to visit my dad in the hospital in Iowa City, which was only a hour or so away from Bettendorf. Keep praying for him as his cancer has returned and the prognosis is not good. I look forward to another visit with him, if I am able, in a week or so. What an act of God's grace to be so close to Iowa City on a depuation weekend planned months ago. God really does know what he is doing!

Tomorrow (Friday) classes at the seminary are cancelled so we get a free study day! It is much needed to stay caught up with all the reading, writing and research that must be done.

We learned today how to build and pack the crates we'll be needing for our shipment to Mexico City. We hope to actually build our own in a couple of weeks and then begin sorting, giving and selling items. There is so much to accomplish in a short time frame.

We leave for Guatemala on January 2nd, but will be moving out of our house sometime around the 20th of December. Thanks for your prayers as we make this HUGE transition.

Until next week,
Shelley, David, Joshua and Kayley

Praises and Prayer Request

Dear Family and Friends,

Our praises this week include keeping up with our heavy school schedule and allowing us another great weekend speaking in churches. We were at the Des Moines First Church on Saturday night and Sunday morning and what an exciting Sunday it was as they have nearly met their Faith Promise goal already. It's always a privilege to see God at work and I believe He is doing something new and bright there in the hearts of the Des Moines congregation. It was an exciting morning!

After eating a quick lunch with the folks in Des Moines, we headed down the road for Kansas City. We spoke at Central Church of the Nazarene, where we been worshiping each week for the last 20 months. What fun it was to be with our home crowd and their responsiveness and kindness overwhelmed us. We praise God that He allowed us to be a part of this mission and ministry minded congregation while here in Kansas City. Thanks, Centralites!

We will leave on Friday for Manchester, Shelley's home town in Iowa to leave off the kids while David and Shelley travel to Bettendorf, IA for a Faith Promise weekend. Joshua and Kayley have a few days off of school, so it will be a good break for them. The seminary classes continue to challenge us, but God has allowed us just enough time to complete the reading and writing required for each day.

I have a prayer request I'd like to share. My Dad, Dave Raus, (in the picture with Josh, Kayley, Brandon and Karly) has been very ill for the last 2 months. Would you pray for him as he was transfered from our home town hospital by ambulance today to the Iowa City hospitals. Some tests need to be completed to determine the next steps. He has been in extreme pain for weeks and I covet your prayers for him. Thanks!

May God bless you this week,

Shelley, David, Joshua and Kayley

Seminary Begins

Dear Family and Friends,

With the first week of seminary behind us, we are feeling a bit overwhelmed, but excited to be learning so much about missions. We are both taking Mission Strategy and Sociology of Mission. Shelley also has Mission Spirituality and Foundations of Missions, while David is taking a course on Genesis. In addition, we are still in World Mission training one afternoon a week. It is a lot of reading and we would appreciate your prayers as we try to study during our free hours each week.

We've enjoyed our missionary intern friends and wanted to share with you who we are spending time with day in and day out. So, you can see here a picture of the families in mission training this fall here in Kansas City. They are all such wonderful people and although we'll be in all parts of the world, these are friendships that will last.

We sure enjoyed our time in the Ankeny, IA and Trenton, MO churches this weekend. What wonderful people in both congregations. We've also been in touch with our LINKS district in Los Angeles. They have been a strong support as we're making many transitions. We're so glad to know people are praying for us. Thank you!

Well, David and I are off to the doctor to get our shots. The kids go this afternoon and Joshua is excited to miss one hour of school while Kayley would just rather stay in school to avoid the needle. Thankfully, they only need one shot each, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Until next week,
The Webbs

The First Blog

Dear Friends and Family,
This is our first attempt at "blogging" and it's a new world for us. We decided this is the best way we can manage to keep in touch with you all. Feel free to stop by weekly as we'll try to post the highlights from each week, especially as we arrive in Guatemala in January 2006.

We had a terrific service this afternoon with the Samoan Church in Independence, MO. What wonderful people, so loving and kind. Pastor Dan is in seminary classes with David and those two really enjoy each other. Thanks, Dan for inviting us to your worship service.

Last week we were in Cyclone country. That's Ames, IA for those of you who are not Iowa State University fans. It was the first time our kids had attended a college football game, and boy did they love it. (See the picture to prove it!) We also had a great worship service with the Ames Church of the Nazarene (COTN). And everyone was in a good mood with the win over Southern Illinois. I can only imagine the smiles after beating Iowa today! (Just had to rub it in to you Hawkeye fans, sorry!)

Seminary classes start this week, so the studying begins. We are each taking 10 credit hours, so we'll stay quite busy, especially since we'll be traveling most weekends to churches. God has been so good to us and we're excited to be serving Him and learning much along the way.

Until next time...
The Webbs

The Webb Family: Joshua, Shelley, David and Kayley