Please pray for Josh as he defends his dissertation Friday, March 29, at 10 AM Central Time.

Last week (March 17-20) we participated in a missions conference at Westside Baptist Church in Eugene, Oregon. We were invited by the church’s assistant pastor, Nathan Damm, a former classmate of Josh’s. Nathan invited us after reading our article in the EMU newsletter. Josh taught Sunday School, prayed in the second morning service, and gave our missions presentation Wednesday night. We also sang in both Sunday morning services and the Wednesday evening service, as well as led junior church Sunday night.

The church gave us a warm welcome. We enjoyed fellowshipping with the people in the church as well as the other missionaries invited to the conference. We enjoyed several meals with families in the church. It was a great way to kick start our deputation journey. We thank God for a good missions conference, safe travels, good health, new friends, and for helping both kids do great.

We stayed with family (pictured above) for a week while in Eugene. Josh’s grandmother’s cousin, we call her “Aunt” Jan, lives in Eugene, where her husband, “Uncle” Mike, pastors a church. Aunt Jan made us truly feel like her home was our home. It was an ideal situation. The Friday before the conference we went to Sweet Home, OR, to visit with the Andereggs (friends of the Jensen family; picture to the left). Saturday night Aunt Jan had a family get together where we met some other second and third cousins (picture to the right). Wednesday afternoon I taught a music class for the after-school program at Uncle Mike’s church.

Friday evening we drove to the coast. It was my first time to see the Pacific Ocean. I was really hoping to see a sunset, but the weather did not cooperate. Becca was excited about putting her feet into the water until the ice cold water touched her feet – then she cried and ran away. She refused to go back until she realized that her mommy didn’t want to put her feet in the cold water. After that Becca was thrilled to drag me down the beach! And she proceeded to ask over and over again to go in the water!

Two funny Becca stories: Right after Josh prayed in the Sunday morning service Becca said loudly, “but I want to pray for a little sister!” Anytime we pray she always asks to pray about a little sister. She just couldn’t understand why this couldn’t happen in the church service. I was able to convince Becca to pray quietly for a little sister. In the same service, Becca was sitting with the children to go out for Jr. church and got a hymnal to sing with the congregation.  She couldn’t understand why the children’s workers took it away from her (they don’t let the kids use hymnals since they usually drop them) – Becca burst into tears, loudly exclaiming that she needed a hymnal to sing! Fortunately I had positioned myself in the pew directly behind her and just lifted her over the pew and into my lap so she could sing with a hymnal.