Fall 2008 Newsletter

New features on your right

Good day to you all hope your summer has been a great for you as well. We have had a great trip for the most part and are looking forward to the fall.

Wanted to bring a few things new to our blog to your attention.

1st - > We have added a new button on the top of the bar to your right. It is right above our photo. This is a button that will remind you who we are working with in our Ministry towards and in Nigeria. For all information SIM related just click on it, it will take you directly to their site.

2nd - > Just below that it reads "Join us in ministering to Nigerians. Click here to donate to SIM. You will need our STA# 12049". If you are interested in joining Christ in his Ministry in Nigeria thru our family just click on this and you will be directed to their site. You can then sign up there.

3rd - > Below our photo we have included an option for you to sign up and receive our posts along with other posts to one site. Along with our site and any of your other fav blogs you can receive them all in one place. So if you have many blogs that you read on a regular basis please sign up.

If you are already signed up to one of these sites please hook us up into your grouping.

We are trying to make this site more user friendly and give you many options that will help in keeping you updated in our ministry and ways you can join us.

We appreciate all of your Love and Prayers.

TAC
(Toby, Alycia and Caden)

Cheese anyone?

Yesterday we attended the State Fair of Wisconsin. For over 4 years now I (Alycia) have been hearing about this event...especially about the Cream Puffs. Now, I expected there to be a lot of food at a fair...but this one out-did the Texas State Fair- especially in dairy products! Did you know that there are 1.252.000 dairy cows in Wisconsin? Whoever says "happy cows live in California" has never been to WI. We enjoyed only 3 of the dozens of dairy products available- fried cheese curds, flavored milk (such as rootbeer flavored) and of course, Cream Puffs. Now, you might think all we did was eat...well, we also got to visit with Toby's friend Scott and his family as well as Deb and her girls. It was a fun, but hot, day. Here is a scrapbook of our day...enjoy!

Make a Smilebox photobook

By prayer

"By prayer"

We have some great things to tell you about our time here at Simco. There is one thing that I want to share with you that each of us has been greatly encouraged by during our time at SIM.

"By prayer". This is a motto that SIM has had for a long time. We are here to tell you that this statement is the truth. Each weekday morning the staff of SIM gathers for a half hour worth of prayer before they run to their desks to start their day of work.

They pray for specific countries each morning along with prayer requests from their Missionaries on the field and on home assignment. They also have one day a week they pray for their appointees.

The greatest day of the week is Friday. They have prayer time set aside to pray for supporters specific prayer request’s. We had the great opportunity to pray for a gentleman that has supported SIM for years. He has grown ill and his family has taken control of his finances and is not able to send in his monthly support as he has for so long.

We had a request from a Church that has supported SIM for years that lost one of their younger congregants. He was killed in an auto accident while on a short term trip to Peru. We prayed in celebration for the young man’s life in Christ yet praying for the Churches mourning due to the lose of life here on earth.

It was a great encouragement to see how the agency that is sending us is backing us.

They say "by prayer" but the greatest thing is

they show "by prayer" as well.

SIM

Here we are at SIM in Charlotte, NC for our two weeks of training. For the first few days we seemd to be on a roller coaster but things have evened out for now. We will share more with you a bit later. There is one communal PC and laptops for some reason are not allowing us to update blogs. So here is a quick one between sessions.

Here is "Caden's corner". In our room we rearranged our room completely except one piece of furniture. This way we could make room for Caden to have his corner to play.

Thanks and check back for more updates.

Tennessee to North Carolina

We started our way through Tennessee Wednesday morning. When we reached Memphis we stopped for lunch and playtime. Caden had such a big day... he made a fish face, drank lemonade, saw ducks in a fountain at the Peabody hotel, crawled around in the hotel (yes, as Toby mentioned yesterday he is crawling and moving so much it is hard to keep up with him!), and even figured out how to turn the water on and off in the bathroom! These events were all captured on film of course. Enjoy a scrapbook of our fun ... you can move the photos around with your cursor to see them better.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Oops...I left one of the cutest videos out of the slideshow. Here Caden is turning the water on and off in the bathroom WHILE I changed his diaper...it's getting more challenging each day!


We stopped Wed. evening just East of Nashville for the night. Caden did the funniest thing when we put him to bed. We laid him down and he sat right back up! Then, sitting there, playing with his little bear blanket, he fell asleep...sitting up! It was the funniest sight.



Today we made our way through the mountains to Waynesville, NC...home of Larry and Frances Green, my aunt and uncle. It was a beautiful drive and Caden was such a great traveler! Here is a pic of Toby and he at the NC visitor center:

Well this has been a very busy day here in the Abtstra world. It all started with us packing up the car for our summer adventure thru the US of A. Well parts of the US but a good portion of it anyways. As we were doing that Caden wanted to share something with us, a new trick he has learned. I have tried to include a short snipit for you to view but it is too big of a file. I will continue to try and include it in a future post.

Well we made it to Hot Springs in about 6 hours with a few stops along the way. Having a ten month old little guy along for the ride certainly adds a bit to the travel time. Caden did awesome! Even after being locked up in his car seat after he shared with us in the morning his new trick.

Caden is now crawling! Wish I could have got the snipit posted for you, sorry.

Tonight we stay here in Hot Springs and then travel into Tennessee as far as we can get before a complete meltdown from each of us. So continue to pray for us as we move along towards Charlotte and two weeks of training.