I hope you will pray for them and that God will open your eyes to Jesus Christ by reading the letter and it will challenge you to study and examine your life. If you would like to encourage them drop them an E mail. Pray for their live to continue to be strong and reflection God's Love. I am sure they will appreciate it! If your struggling and would like encouragement and help please let me know! 

Dear Friends and Family,

    Well I have been meaning to write this letter for a long time but have been praying about what I really wanted to say.   So much has happened in our lives over the last few months that I feel as if I have so much to talk about and have no where to start.   So bear with me.  I guess I will start with this… God is good.   And that statement has been tried and tested in our lives in many ways over this last year.  We know that we are His people and that He is our God and there is no greater security than that.  Zach and I have been in the shoes of many of the Bible Characters and we have faced many of their same trials, but the God of the Bible has also been the God who has sustained us.   Many times we have wondered what God is doing and I cannot say that we don’t still wonder that at times but one thing I can say with confidence is that God is Good. 

    As many of you know our lives have had many twists and turns regarding our relationship with Amber and Jobe.  This last year we had to let Amber go because she chose to make some bad decisions and took on behaviors that we could not allow in our home.  At this time, I personally had nothing to offer to anyone anymore—emotionally I was drained.    I was spent and in need of refreshing.  As many of you know Jobe stayed with us over the school year and visited Amber on the weekends.  This was a trial in and of itself.  During this time I learned what is was like to share a child with another parent and all the emotional challenges that go along with it.  I learned that God often has very different plans than what we have.   I wanted so much more for Amber but she did not desire the same changes in her own life that I desired for her.  I never stopped loving Amber and I tried to be there for her as much as possible, but it is difficult to love someone who does not desire a change. This became trying and emotionally straining for me.   It was during this time that God was asking me to expand my love capacity for Amber.  He was asking me to live generously with my emotions and to love her despite her faults and to love her even though she was not meeting my expectations of what I wanted her to be.  He was calling me to live a generous life of love, but by doing so, He was asking me to give emotionally.  I was so emotionally bankrupt and I did not have it to give within myself.  During this time I spent a lot of time up on my Heavenly Fathers lap.  I poured out my hurts and my confusion and allowed Him to fill up my love bucket so that I could in return give to her.   I asked Him to show me how to let go of my own agenda and to how to love her like He wanted me to.   I learned a lot about God during this time and how He loves us even though we are difficult people.   I realized if I as a broken person had a small capacity to love someone who doesn’t care much about me, who has no desire to be pleasing to me, and who doesn’t act as if they need me, then how much more must we hurt God when He looks at us in our sinful situations.  I recognized that I look through sinful eyes and He always looks out of perfectness.  I learned a lot about God’s love during this time.   God doesn’t just love the unlovely person but he also desires to love them even when they are being unlovely in actions.  He actively seeks them.  And I decided if He can love like this than I, with His help, could love this way also.   I know during this time that I was given a supernatural love for Amber because, as I said before, I was dry emotionally within myself.  I was not perfect and it became hard to love her when mean words were hurled at me, when she gave me the cold shoulder, when she lied to me, or when I saw her hurt her own son.  But every message at church or quiet time with God called me back to love, despite my inward feelings.  During this time there was also a song on the radio that played often that said, “She is running A hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction. She is trying, but the canyon's ever widening in the depths of her cold heart. So she sets out on another misadventure just to find She's another two years older and she's three more steps behind.  She is yearning for shelter and affection that she never found at home.  She is searching for a hero to ride in, to ride in and save the day.   And in walks her prince charming and he knows just what to say.  Momentary lapse of reason and she gives herself away.  Judgment looms under every steeple.  Lofty glances from lofty people. We can't see past her scarlet letter, and we've never even met her. Never even met her! Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see? Or does anybody even know she's going down today under the shadow of our steeple with all the lost and lonely people?  She’s searching for the hope that's tucked away in you and me. Does anybody hear her? Can anybody see?”

This song brought her to mind every time it played and I knew I couldn’t give up on her, because I, as a God Reflector, was the only hope she had.  I would love to tell you that everything worked out perfectly and that she came back around, but things at this point just got worse rather than better.  In June she chose to take Jobe to live with her full time.   This broke my heart because Jobe had lived with us since birth and I considered him just as much a part of our family as my other kids.  He was being raised with principals that were centered on the character of God, a life model that Amber did not share anymore.  Amber spoke a great “Christian Talk”, but didn’t live it.  Jobe became very insecure and started acting out and emulating bad behaviors that Amber showed by example.  During this time I was more confused than ever and prayed fervently for God to bring Jobe back to us.  I had no problem loving Amber when it did not involve Jobe, but as I saw Jobe begin to change and lose his innocence.  I questioned what God was doing.  I couldn’t understand why He wasn’t protecting Jobe from unnecessary hurt.   God again was asking me to let go of my own agenda and He was asking me to be still and wait on Him.  I was hopeful that God was going to return Jobe to us until Amber called and said that she had found an apartment that would rent to her.  The apartment was in Muskegon, which is an hour from where we live.  Her plan was to get an apartment, become their own little family, and go to college.  She told us that she would be moving in a couple weeks.   Wow, Talk about a 2x4 hitting you in the gut.  I was so sure God was going to bring Jobe back to us, I even felt as if he had told me such.  I was so sure, until Amber said she had an apartment.  I asked God, Why? He told me again to love her and to be still and to wait on Him.    This was hard because I knew Amber’s lifestyle involved drinking, drugs, and many other unhealthy behaviors.  I could not see why God would allow Jobe to go from a safe environment into a very rocky one.  Not only was this a bad move because of family stability, but also because she had no job, no car, no friends near by, and only enough money to barely pay rent with her government check.  I could not understand why an apartment complex would even accept her, in her financial state.   During this time God told me to set aside my own feelings and to love Amber like MY mom would love me.  He asked me to place myself into her life.  So I took her shopping and helped her buy a few things for her apartment and we started talking about how Zach and I would help her as she moved.   Amber and I bonded during this time even though I still prayed that Jobe would not have to go with her.  Well the day came when she was supposed to get the keys and sign the papers, but for some reason the apartment complex kept pushing the move in date back.  During the apartment stalling process, the family, with which Amber had been living, told her they were done with her and that they were kicking her out.   So Amber called the Apartment Complex and told them that she needed to get in because she had no place to stay.  At this time the apartment management told Amber that they had decided not to rent to her because she did not have enough funds to afford the apartment.   All of this news came on the day that Amber was moving out of the house that she had been living in.  At that moment she became homeless.   We had started forming an emotional connection but she hadn’t changed enough to bring her back into our home.  Her lifestyle could not be modeled regularly in front of our children.  So I helped Amber find a hotel in town to stay at.     During this time she decided to go stay in the dorms at college, a decision that we supported all along.    In that moment GOD did something far greater than I could have ever done.  He brought Jobe back to us for another year and emotionally connected us back to Amber.  Amber since has been going back to church and has made some baby steps back towards the right direction. Wow, What an AWESOME GOD!  Who, but GOD, can take what seems to be an impossible situation and work it into something far better than what you could have imagined.   Amber comes home on Saturday and Sunday to see Jobe, but is currently living in the dorms.  Jobe is a very happy little boy and he is much more secure.  I do not know what tomorrow holds but for now we have another formidable year with Jobe.  Now I would like to say that it all flowed together just like a perfect dream, but it didn’t.  There were challenging times, confusing times, and many moments when I climbed up on God’s lap and bawled as I asked why.  But it was during those times that He became real to me and He showed me His heart.  I began to know what peace was even in a very un-peaceful time and I saw God put together, piece by piece, a puzzle that I couldn’t even see.  There were so many personal lessons that I learned during this time like how to trust and let go of fear, or how to wait on God even when it looked as if He was missing perfect opportunities to take action.  I cannot tell you all that has happened to me spiritually over the last year, but I will say that God has chosen to prune me in ways that I am so grateful for and that I am willing to let Him do whatever He wants to do in my life because I have come to realize that he Does best and HE IS GOOD.

    Now I could end this letter here and it would be a good place to end, but many of you know that recently we have entered a new challenge.  As many of you know, Zach lost his job back in Nov of ‘06  and since then we have worked out of our home in our own Business Consulting and Legal and Identity Theft Benefit Company and I am amazed that we are a year out from when Zach lost his job and still surviving.  God has been so good to us over the last year and continually supplies our needs just in time.  And just like in the Jobe situation, God has shown himself real to us in this business as well.  As some of you know we have recently have been working with some really big accounts.  About two months ago God directed us to a big insurance agency and we discussed the possibility of a partnership with them.  Well God just allowed those doors to fly open regarding this possibility.   Not only did I speak with the CEO who thought it was a good idea, but the Marketing Director of the company also thought it would be a good fit.  Every door was opening and Zach and I spent a lot of intimate time with God during the process. Zach went to several appointments with the agency and we received a “yes” at each stage until two weeks ago when the door slammed shut.  The lady, with whom we were supposed to be working with, decided for the agency that they did not need our products and ended the relationship with us.  So here we are… we are not quite sure why God closes doors that seem so open and not sure why He has halted our efforts when all of our time and energy were poured into it.  But we know as we have learned over the last year that God is Good.  We choose to believe this even when life does not make sense.  We know that God is doing something right now even though we cannot see what.   Just like I could not see what He was doing in the Amber/Jobe situation, He was working out his perfect plan, in His timing.  So I wish I could say that God has given us this agency and that He has relived the financial burden that always seems to surround us, but as of now, He has not.  But it is OK, because we are resolved to say, “God is Good”. Please pray for us right now as we are seeking God’s direction and what He wants for us to do.  He has used many of you to encourage us along the way or to send a financial blessing just when we needed it most.  He has taken care of us thus far and I know He will not stop now.  He has recently brought some new people into our lives who have needed help getting their own business going and he has opened up several ministry service opportunities to us as well.  We are still here with a big question mark on our brains, but a peace in our hearts.  Please pray for us as being in God’s waiting room is often the hardest place to be.  There are several songs that I often sing during this time such as, “God is too wise to be mistaken, God is too good to be unkind.   So when you don’t understand and you can’t see his plan, you can’t trace his hand, Trust His heart.  He alone is faithful and true.  He alone knows what is best for you.  So when you don’t understand and you can’t see His plan, you can’t trace his hand, Trust His heart.”  I cannot always see his plan, but I have learned that God is good and that I can trust His heart no matter the trial.  If I had to choose my own path over again, I would not change a thing because God has knitted me to His very own heart through it all.  Another song I often sing is this,” I thank God for the Mountains, and I thank Him for the Valleys, and I thank Him for the storms He’s brought me through. Because if I never had a problem, I wouldn’t know that God could solve them I wouldn’t know what faith in God could do.  Well, I’ve been a lot of places and I’ve seen millions of faces but there were times I stood there all alone, but in the lonely hours, those Precious lonely hours, it was there  that my Savior was made known.  And through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus; I’ve learned to trust in God.  And through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.” And I can honestly say that Zach and I have depended heavily upon His Word lately.    We believe that He will do what He says, He will provide for our needs, He will answer our call, and He will not forsake us.  Please pray for me, as I live in the Valley, right now. Because, although my resolve is to stay faithful and to trust in a good God, there are moments when you are in the valley and you cannot see God and when all you can see are the trials that surround you.  It is during these times when I crawl up on His lap and cling to Him, but it is when my strength is weak and the trails are long that I need you too to lift me up before his throne.  Thank you for sharing life with us and for living out the verse, “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the love of Christ.”  We love all of you and Never Forget that you are appreciated and so important to us.  I look forward to when we can tell you what God has done with this stage of our life and how He has worked all things together for good.  He truly is a good God and I am privileged to be loved by Him.   Keep us in your prayers as we will do the same for you.  We love you all.    Karina