The Mayer Family

Saturday started with a visit to Focus on the Family. Evan & Ellie loved the awesome kids area, and Evan especially enjoyed the giant slide. We toured the building, and browsed the bookstore. Then we left for a pleasant drive around the countryside to view the scenery that we assumed would take several hours at the most. Well, 6 ½ hours and 1 speeding ticket later, we arrived back, late for dinner. The trip included getting lost and sitting in traffic, but the fun part was the incredible scenery! We went through Cañon City, and up to the Royal Gorge Bridge. The views made the trip almost worth it.

Sunday we visited the All Peoples House of Praise in Colorado Springs. Our group from MTI made up half of the people present for the service. It turned out to be more of a Hispanic group, and very friendly. The pastor even tailored the sermon to speak directly to us as missionaries, and gave us his sermon notes (in Spanish) before we left.

Evan preparing to enter Whit's End at Focus on the Family

Fun in the kids area of FOF

Puppets at FOF

Tyler & Brenda, our friends who endured "The Ride" with us

One of those nice views on "The Ride"

Wendy

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This week of SPLICE has been interesting & challenging to say the least. We started off the week on the subject of Conflict. We were able to identify what our individual Conflict-Handling Styles are. So I am a “Teddy Bear” and Kevin is a “Fox”. For those of you who have been through SPLICE, you will totally know what I mean. We learned to appreciate other styles and even communicate in those styles. We talked to people close to us about how we handle conflict, and gained valuable insight. A statement I appreciated was this:

The examined life…What you know about yourself you can change
The unexamined life…What you do NOT know about yourself controls you

One day we all participated in a dramatic simulation that ended up being very real and left a lot of us in tears. It was interesting to consider our reactions and observe the different ways we handled conflict and stress in that situation. If I have made you curious, ask me.:)

Today we have been focusing on Soul Care. It was an incredible day. We were given much needed individual time with God. We studied quite a while on the meaning of the Sabbath. It was interesting to see how incredibly important the Sabbath is to God, and to recognize how I have certainly been seeing it as one of the lesser Ten Commandments. It was emphasized that the Sabbath is for us, to the Lord, that God desires an intimate relationship with us, and wants us to spend that special “date” one day a week with us.

Evan has been becoming very comfortable with the people in our group. This morning at breakfast, much to our dismay, he told the girl next to him that she should have combed her hair better this morning, then as we were gasping and telling him to close his mouth, he said “your hair has color in it, doesn’t it?”. AAAAAHHHHH!!! Thankfully, she was very gracious and just laughed.

Elephant Rock sits just behind Mission Training International

Today Mike Hawbaker let Evan try on his rock climbing gear...cool stuff!

Playing Spades

The view of a peacefully sleeping child is the perfect way to end the day

Wendy

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Saturday
We started the day by visiting Garden of the Gods. It was basically a big park filled with large rocks. I know, it sounds boring, but really it was incredibly beautiful. There were lots of trails to walk on and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation, and it was FREE!

We then took the Cog Rail up Pike’s Peak, which was rather pricy. It was a 3 hour journey round trip, and the sights were awesome. We had a clear view at the top for a few minutes before it started snowing. It was really cold up there, and the altitude made us tired and light headed. Ellie must have been feeling that way too, since she spent most of the time at the top crying. She probably will not remember being there, but we can tell her, she has been there, done that!

Sunday
We were told to visit a church out of our comfort zone, and chose to attend New Life Church, a 14,000 member church. We sat in the 4th row of a packed-out building, and listened to the letter read from Ted Haggard in which he confessed to his sin of sexual immorality. A touching letter was also read from his wife Gayle. She spoke to the women of the church who felt they could never quite relate to her “perfect” life. She let them know that maybe now they could relate, since her life wasn’t so “perfect” now. She also expressed commitment to their marriage, and said was planning to be there through the long haul to work things out.

To read more on this, check out this link:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/06/news/haggard.php

Wendy

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Evan & Ellie enjoyed the week in their classes. Evan took a field trip to the Garden of the Gods one day. They didn't know where they would be going on the field trip, so they talked about Expectations and if they were dissapointed or excited about the place they visited (after they arrived), and if it was what they pictured it would be. This will certainly be something Evan could experience in Spain. Here are some pictures with their teachers.

Ellie & her teacher (Delice)

Evan & his teacher (Gay) & classmates Abby & Audra

Evan & Ellie have also thouroughly enjoyed interacting with the adults here that are participating in SPLICE. We have a lot of singles in our group and people that enjoy kids, so Evan convinces them to play football, frisbee, chase me around, tickle me, or you name it. They both have a blast.

Wendy

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Here we are at SPLICE, a Mission Training in Colorado. We arrived on Monday, and will be here 3 weeks. So far we have enjoyed getting to know other people who are also preparing to move to other countries. The classes have been challenging, encouraging and stretching. Evan & Ellie have classes during the day, and have really enjoyed them so far. Ellie is all alone in her class, and is loving the constant attention. Evan has 2 little girls as his classmates, which is no problem for him.

This is my first time to visit Colorado, and I think it is beautiful, in spite of the freezing cold and snow on the ground. The mountains are gorgeous. Today after class we took a hike on a nearby trail. Evan was thrilled to see a big train close-up as we waited for it to pass by on our way to the trail. Ellie's little fingers got really cold, so we kept the hike short. I tried to upload some pictures of the hike, but so far have been unsuccessful.

We have had some extremely thought provoking conversations as a group so far. One subject that came up today was "truth" and how to relate in different cultures that view truth differently. It is challenging to look at things from another person's point of view.

Thats all for now... Wendy

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