Julie & Phillip S.

Much of Julie and Phillip’s work in the last few years has been to determine a best business endeavor that can not only provide income, but also serve as a base for broad contacts to spread their message of faith. They’ve determined that a tourism and hospitality service can be a doable program and provide a focus to work with others. Recently, they sent an update on their activities. Here are the highlights from that update in an edited form to ensure their personal security.

Hello from our new home in a new region. What a few great months we’ve had! We’ve been here since the end of November and it’s slowly feeling like home. Just looking around as well as seeing the opportunities God provides, it’s hard to believe we actually get to live and work in a place like this!

Along with settling into a new town and new routines, we're spending lots of hours getting our new tourism and hospitality services business up and running.  It's a lot of networking, fostering relationships, and meetings.  We've already felt well received by the local government and businesses.  Now we just need to make money!  Our business partners are Bob, Molly and their 3 kids, Penelope (1st grade), David (4 years old), and Henry (4 years old).  Starting a business is so much work but we're having a great time doing it together!

We, along with Maddie, Lily, and Abe, are doing pretty well.  Maddie and Lily really miss their good friends in our previous home in another region.  We trust they'll make new friends here but it's definitely going to take intentional work on our parts.  To keep up their friendships and keep their spirits up, we're taking trips back to their old home every few weeks.  This lets Maddie go to youth group and all three kids get to see their closest friends.  This also lets me buy cheese and cereal!  Our last trip, though was longer than planned because the pass through the mountains to get back to our new home was impassible with snow and ice.  We're definitely off the beaten path.

When we last wrote, we were planning a much needed several weeks holiday in Thailand. The vacation was all that we had anticipated, and it was a great time of seeing friends, eating lots of Thai food, and getting tans!

Please continue to hold our lives and our work in prayer. It is encouraging to feel your presence with us. Warmly,

Julie and Phil