Update

Hello Everyone,

And thanks for sticking with us. It has been a very crazy few months and as I just told a friend I am praying God teaches me how to sit down and write our updates even when life is crazy.

Stefan sharing a dream he had.

Well, June, all we can remember was prepping for the Elav Conference.  Most of our watches were spent praying for the conference.  The week before the conference I (Stefan) was busy going from one band rehearsal to the next, one of them being the opening night band which was dismantled earlier and then by God's grace reconnected.  The other thing we can remember is finances, but more on that later.

The Elav Conference:  It was AMAZING!!! God showed up.  It was a much smaller crowd this year then in years past.  But we think that was good and right for what God wanted.  God seemed to focus us on Him, about loving God and not compromising for friends. If we want more of God then we need to find friends, whatever age, who want more of God. And then the last night broke out into repentance for Tel Aviv. Adults,

This is how Shirel would spend the evenings.

youth on the ground, prostrate crying out for their country, their city. It was very powerful. The astonishing thing was that people from Jerusalem were already getting on their buses (out of necessity, not because of want) and the remnant left in the hanger broke into a surging wave of wailing and crying out for Tel-Aviv in a way we have never seen before. We will place a video we filmed of it onto our blog and possibly on facebook for you to see, since that is something that was not caught on camera. They started tearing down the equipment by this time.

Then we had a little over a week before we flew out to Romania for a vacation per say to see Stefan's family and visit a friend who started a house of prayer.  But during that little time at home we had to say good bye to four very dear friends who are leaving Israel, with a desire to return but not sure when.  So we hosted, in a park, a good bye party for one friend who we just couldn't leaving without gathering around him and sending him off properly.  And then to top off the craziness, we have started making "cakes" now we don't just mean a nice vanilla cake with frosting, we mean a red velvet cake with butter cream frosting, and fondant on top with fondant sculptures portraying a story.  But it was worth it to see the look on our friend's face when he saw the cake and for him to know how much we appreciate him.

Then we packed up again and headed to Romania.  A vacation it may not have been since we never stopped when we got there, but it was a wonderful time with family and friends.  Everyone loved meeting Shirel, she had just started being very mobile in her crawling and starting to pull herself up and cruising along furniture.  We toured one day with our friend Claire who now runs a house of prayer in Brashov, Romania and was taking one of her teams on a small tour and we had the privilege to join in.  Then on Friday we had the honor of sharing what we do at our house of prayer, Succat Hallel, at her house of prayer.  We then lead everyone in the Shabbat blessings and had dinner.  We also went up to the Brashov sign (like the Hollywood sign) and anointed the ground and called forth God's destiny for Romania.  We went to church with Stefan's parents and had the privilege to hear Stefan's father speak.  It was a very blessed trip. We will be loading up a video on our blog that goes into a little more detail about Romania and it's importance and destiny in God.

What is coming up for us now is this.  We are continuing to discover what ministry looks like for our family as Shirel continues to grow and change.  We also are starting to look for a new apartment.  The one we are in has approximately 100 steps up to our door and that is just too much with Shirel, a stroller, groceries, or laptops.  We need God to show us the perfect apartment for this new season.

Which brings us to finances.  We don't want to sound like we're asking for money, we do however want to share some things with you of God's amazing provision, that when He says He will do something specific or just the general day to day He always does it.  This whole year we have not lacked anything we NEEDED and in fact we think we have been able to have many of our WANTS as well.  Now we have to say the last few months have been hard.  In June both of us had teeth problems, I (Stefan) had to have a root canal (which still needs a crown to replace the temporary filling) and I (Samantha) had a cavity appear and hurt like I have never felt before.  There went a good chunk of money.  Then we finally were able to settle our health insurance and we now have a good chunk of our monthly cash going to insurance. This week we also got a call from our insurance company saying we owe them 1331 shekels for the back months when we didn't pay.  To top it all off we need a different apartment and that means we may need first and last month rent, plus a security deposit.  We may need to hire movers to move at least for the big items if not all (unlike in the USA not everyone has a car and big vehicles are few and far between and you can't rent a U-Haul).  Now the thing we want you to hear from us is that we know God will provide.  Now we do want to ask, if you don't normally give to us financially, to pray about it and possibly send us a one time offering to help in this season of our lives.  PLEASE, do NOT send anything on impulse of this letter. If you know God is asking of you to send we will gladly receive. We are trusting that God will speak to all of you regarding this subject.  God has been amazing. 

Samantha at the Information Table.

On the last night of the Elav Conference a lady came up to me (Samantha) and asked if we had anymore water for sale (I had been in charge of the Info Table where we also sold the water and it was now torn down.) I told her no and asked her why and she said they had a 3hr drive home and said they were the youth from Bethlehem and how the youth didn't even have food at home much less money to buy water and such and how "they" had been giving the youth money to buy water and food. Now God just grabbed my heart. So I grabbed our wallet to see how much we had and I puled out a 100 shekel bill and found the lady and handed it to her saying, "I know this isn't much." And she just smiled, she went on to say how they had raised support to cover the lodging, the food, a few extras, and a bus, and that they had given the youth the last of it today. Then they called their bus driver and he said it was 100 shekels more then they thought. So here was my "little" 100 shekels and it was just what was needed to cover the bus. God can do a lot with our "little" bit from a happy heart.

We love you all and thank you so much for your prayers and finances.  May God bless you abundantly this summer.

On the mountain top, above Brashov, Romania.