Well, we've been on the road for 6 1/2 weeks now.  We are tired!   Pray for our strength and ministry ability.  We feel our energy slipping away but we desperately want to finish out the trip with as much energy and enthusiasm as we started with. 

The Lord has given us many opportunities to hook up with friends while we've been out here on the East coast.  This has encouraged our hearts and tired bodies.  Last week we had the opportunity to serve alongside our CBM building director and his wife, Dallas and Nancy Putnam at Bob Jones University during their missions emphasis week.  This was the first time that we have been on the campus of BJU, and it was huge!  We were impressed with their obvious dedication to doing everything with excellence.  That philosophy was seen in everything from their buildings to the lawn and landscaping.  We got to sit in on the student chapels all week and enjoyed some wonderful teaching on global missions.  Most of all, we enjoyed our time with the Putnams standing by our CBM display for hours on end!   We had many opportunities to talk to students and challenge them to consider mission work in the future.  Andy even got to give a 10 minute challenge to some students after their speech class.  The speech teacher talked all about giving persuasive speeches for the hour, and then turned it over to Andy to "persuade" the students to come visit our CBM display in the booth center.  Andy got up and (with a laugh) asked the teacher to please not evaluate his persuasive speaking!   When it was all done though, she said he did a good job!  One highlight of the week was meeting some of my (Elizabeth's) relatives again.  My mom's cousin and her husband work at BJU, and we were able to meet up with them and spend a lot of great time catching up on our families and stories.  It had been a LONG time since we have seen their family due to the geographical distance between Iowa and South Carolina.  Our time with them was a blessing though, and proved to provide a little "touch of home" for us.

Also within the last couple of days we have been able to meet up with some close friends from Marshalltown, IA, where we both are from.  One of the couples we were able to see has a son who lives in New Jersey near Philadelphia, and once in a while it happens that they are visiting him and his family at the same time that we are out here having meetings.  We like to try and get together for a meal whenever that happens.  This time we got to have dinner with his son and his family too.  That was way cool.  The other couple we met with are from our sending church.  A year ago they retired from their career and moved out to New Jersey with their daughter.  We were able to meet their daughter and her family and just enjoy a day with our friends that we hadn't seen in a while.  Both of these times were such a blessing to us: to give hugs and exchange laughs.  We thank the Lord for these friendships, and for the encouragement He has provided to us as a result of being with each other.

The Lord is giving us bits of encouragement while we are feeling tired and miss home.  Please continue to pray for our safety and health.  We start back for home on November 17th.