Update from Trent Hensley

I received an email from Trent today. I thought you would want to know what is going on with him. Here is what he said:

Nate,

How are you friend? Sorry for the delay in catching up with you after the National Missionary Convention. I got a quick moment to see Reuben and Anna before they headed back to New Zealand. I tried to sway them to meet with you before heading back. Did you get a chance to speak with them? How are things coming along?

For me, I believe my pursuit of serving in New Zealand is coming to a close. Enough has occurred over the past year and a half to make it clear that I should pursue serving in another Kingdom capacity. Let me know if there is anything that I can do to assist you and Whitney through they preparation process. I may have a useful resource or two.

Also, I have a brief favor to ask of you. Do you a list of the contact information for of all the SPCF board members? Typically they give one out at the annual meeting. Mine, however, is nowhere to be found. If you've got a copy and could scan and e-mail me a PDF copy, that would be sweet. If not, no worries. If you have a free moment, please jot me an e-mail to let me know how you're doing. All the best!

In Christ,

Trent Hensley

Parachute

This past weekend Hamish and I went to the annual Christian music festival this past weekend. There were at least 28 thousand people, but we estimated closer to 40 thousand. The place was packed. The big names for the weekend were Third Day, Rebecca St James, Thousand Foot Krutch, the Lads, and plenty of others. We camped on sight with the Shore youth group and had a great time. It is the biggest Christian music festival in the southern hemisphere. Many of the people there were Christians, but many weren't. People want spirituality even if they don't necessary want commitment.

NNCC in Florida and MISC.

All systems go for National New Church Conference in Orlando for Joe and Nate. Hamish, it just won't be the same without you there. We'll take good notes for you, though.

Joe, the plane tickets are booked. I've registered for the Urban and Multi-Ethnic Church Plants track and the Church Planting Churches: A Mother-Daughter Approach pre-conference intensive. I'm glad you're going to check out the Pre-launch track. I thought the Best Practices and Trends in Church Planting with your man Ed Stetzer would be a good pre-conference intensive for you to take. I will book us a room at the Days Inn ASAP.

BTW (I'm a cool cat) - North Terrace and my brother have provided funds for Whitney and I to purchase our very first computer. We went with the MacBook. Down with PC! We're loving it. Thanks be to God from whom all blessings flow.

We're still waiting for word on the living link status. They keep pushing it back, which makes us nervous. But we're trusting that God will lead them to the right decision - whatever that is. Whitney and I met with the FCA group at the local high school in Danville this morning. That was fun. They are going to do a pancake breakfast fund raiser for us! I like those kids.

Our house goes on the market next week! We've been super busy getting it ready. Pray that it sells fast and for our asking price...or more! We miss you guys. We think you're all FANTASTIC! Too many exclaimation points?!!

Tithe

So we are begining to get some money in our account and remembered that we had decided to tithe to church planting. Do we have any ideas on how we want to do that? I was thinking about talking to SPCF and giving them our tithe with the idea that it goes to new church planting in the future. That is just one idea.

We have a meeting with a church tonight. Please pray that it goes well. Nate and Whitney, I look forward to hearing from you about North Terrace. I also look forward to seeing 300, about the battle of Thermopolea.

Developments at Shore

Things are looking good for the Well idea (taking over the youth service at Shore when we arrive back in NZ). Since the departure of the youth minister at Shore, the church has decided to go with a team approach, with volunteers heading up each ministry area within the youth and another person co-ordinating it all. They have asked me if I would be interested in looking after the Well. They also seemed open to the idea of making the Well a young adult orientated service, with the team being in charge of it. Nothing is concrete at the moment, but we will be meeting soon to discuss it further. I will keep you updated.

Oh, I also watched Life is Beautiful with Molly the other night. I highly recommend it--great film.

National New Church Conference

The National New Church Conference is in April, from the 23-26. I am going to talk to my elders about the possibility of me attending (I don't think it will be a problem). Amy will not be in attendance, however. I think the Pre-Launch Track would be a good option for us to take. Do we want to go ahead and register?

Also, We should probably make a decision on MTI soon. I am going to check it out and sign up this week, if the Lord wills it.

I hope to hear from all of you soon.

Joe

Fundraising in The US

Hey guys,

Just wanted to keep you updated with fundraising. We have been invited to three different VBS programmes in a row at the beginning of June, so we think that will be a good way to kick off our tour of duty in the States. We will probably try to hit the land of the red, white, and blue in the middle or end of May. I understand that you may be in Colorado during that time, but we can all meet up when you get back. I am looking forward to seeing you guys again!

100th blog!

Thank you all for the honor. I think it is only fitting that the founder and creator of this blog has the 100th post, no big deal. Well, see ya later.

Down on the Flammer Farm

Here's an update for Hamish and Molly: Whitney and I had a great time hanging with Joe and Amy on Sunday night and Monday this week. It was a blast even though Whitney was sick and I was trying to get over a cold and coughing non-stop. Joe and Amy let us stay in the master suite! Sunday night I led worship for their youth group and Joe taught about Abraham, or should I say, Abram. After that we went back to their house where about 15,000 of their high school and college-age friends packed into two rooms and played games with us. It was a riot! Seeing so many of their close friends there was a good indication of Joe and Amy's magnetic personalities. Around midnight they had to kick them out. I think they all would've stayed all night if we had let them!

We worked on NZ stuff all day monday. Joe and Amy will be emailing a document entitled "Felt Needs of Our Team." We want you to look over it and see if you want to add anything to it for the SPCF meeting in February. Whitney will then send it on to Crabtree so he can look it over before the meeting and possibly send it on to the rest of the board. It outlines some of the things we think we will need from SPCF in order to do our best in NZ.

We'll also get our updates to you for the meeting soon. Whitney and I will probably want to wait until after we hear from North Terrace. They meet to decide about us on January 21. Please pray!

WHO WILL BE THE ONE TO POST THE HONORARY 100TH BIC BAC BLOG??!!!

Happy 2007!

Whitney reminded me the other day that NZ is the first country to ring in the New Year, so this might be WAY late for Hamish and Molly, but Happy New Year guys!

We spent the first day of 07 taking down Christmas decorations, organizing our things into piles labeled "keep" "donate" "sell" and "trash," and getting our house ready to sell. The day before that Whitney was trying to tell me that this was what she wanted to do on New Year's Day, but when she said it, it came out like this: "Tommorow we should take down some Christmas Organizations." I just looked at her for a second thinking about what she just said and we both started laughing. Then we started plotting which Christmas Organizations we would "take down" first...Toys for Tots, Operation Christmas Child, The Salvation Army... It was funny. Anyway, I can't believe it's already time to start packing up. We want to put the house on the market by the end of the month - please pray!

Here's something else you could pray about for us. We'll be putting together a short video to show our congregation about our intentions in NZ. It's basically supposed to be a video of us resigning, but showing them why it's so exciting. That's going to be a tough one to do, but it's also kind of exciting. We'll be showing it in church on the 14th! Yikes!

Cheers