Let the presenting begin!

 This week Tyler had the opportunity to share at our church's Awana program about his role as a missionary pilot to Indonesia.  He did a great job "flying in" for the talk with them and letting the kids pretend to be crocodiles, trees, and mountains that he had to fly over to get to the village in the jungle.  

 Anyone know where Indonesia is?

 Sharing with the TNT (3-6th grade) kids.  

Who doesn't love airplanes?!

What a blessing to share how MAF uses aviation to share the love of Christ.  Praying that the kids took away more than just "wow, airplanes are so cool!" and realized what a privilege it is that they are memorizing Scripture when many others don't have it in their own language yet. 

Our NEW Job

Dear friends,

Over these past two weeks we are getting settled back into our "home" (for now) and figuring out what a routine looks like for our family.  And no, we don't have it figured out yet!  If you're wondering, "so, what IS their new job?"  I will try my best to describe what it looks like as we prepare for this journey to Indonesia.

Tyler (and I) are doing "Ministry Partnership (MP)" full-time.  What that entails is at least 50 hours a week of various activities that involve the spiritual, relational, and physical aspect of actively raising a team of partners around us to financially and prayerfully support us in our ministry with MAF.

It can look like...
LOTS of phone calls to family, friends, churches, and even people we don't know.
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.  Trying to keep track of what we've done, are doing, and need to do in the future is quite a lot of work.
Writing letters and emails of all kinds
Securing times to share our ministry with friends and at churches
Taking trips for the purpose of these speaking engagements and sharing opportunities (in the future)
And eventually, packing, shopping, prepping for the BIG move, including getting passports, visas, vaccines, etc...

Now for myself (Renae), I want to be a part of the MP process as much as possible, but my full-time main job is still being Mom and wife.  I am working at establishing a better daily routine for me and the boys, as well as getting Caleb used to his new "chore chart" and trying a few pre-school activities with him a couple times a week.  And, of course, I am feeling to "urge to purge", or, get organized and get rid of stuff before this new baby comes!  At almost 35 weeks I feel more than ready for the baby to come, but there is still a lot of organization to do, plus maybe gather a few girl clothes for our new daughter.  Not that she can't wear boy things...but...it IS our first girl.  :-)

There is a little snippet of our life right now.  Ask in another few weeks and it might look quite different!

Renae for the Schmidts

"You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."

Our dear friends Matt and Ellie leave for their final trianing

with MAF and then for Indonesia in a couple months!

Our last evening with them and the kids...if we don't

end up on the same base, at least we'll be in the same country!

We'll miss them greatly.

Aaron has always loved to kiss everyone...

maybe a pre-wedding picture?!