a quick prayer request

The flu bug and other various ailments have shown their ugly sides this week. (Not that they really had a good side to start with :P) Please be praying for the families who are here to study and for the staff who are here to serve the students. I think we had at least 15 families out sick from the childcare yesterday, that's not counting the number of staff ladies who were out because of illness. The preschool room usually has about 14 kids on average, and for the past few days we have only had 7 kids! Other rooms have been very low in numbers too. Please be praying for everyone as the semester winds down. Only a week and a half left of this semester!

Amanda Stroze <><

People love the cold!?

Winter is on it's way! Temperatures have been dropping, and the leaves have left trees bare. Our days are definitely getting shorter, as it gets dark around 5:30ish. Yet despite the onset of winter, we are thankful for where God has us and how He has blessed us. Our little house has been great and heats up very nicely.

Despite the cold, we were blessed to have Katie, my sister, stay with us last weekend. We enjoyed the time that we had with her and were sad to have her return home.

The cold makes John's work a bit more difficult. He says that he doesn't mind the cold it's the wind that bothers him. His team is doing a great job working on the new five-plex. He mentioned to me the plumbing is looking good and things are moving along very well.

The cold weather has a very interesting effect on the preschoolers I take care of. I can tell when they have been able to play outside verses cooped up in the house. I also find it rather amusing to see them come to school all bundled up. Aidan, one little boy in our class, has his nose peaking out of his hood when he walks in the door, everything else is covered. Yet surprisingly some kids still come in a light jacket in the morning. This makes our lives fun as we raid the mission barrel (a place where we can get various items for free) for jackets, gloves, hats, and other various items.

Winter also means vacation time! We are excited to announce that we will be visiting Arizona and California over the holidays. We plan on being in Phoenix for Christmas, and in Orange around New Years. We are so excited to catch up with you guys face to face!

We thank you so much for your prayers. We would not be able to do this without you. Some old and new requests are:

• Our marriage would remain Christ centered
• Our ministries: John with construction and me with the preschoolers
  
• Our health (we just got flu shots)
• Safe travels when we drive out to Arizona and California
  

Amanda Stroze <><

changing of seasons

It's that time of the year again... flu season!
YAY for children who love to wipe their dripping nose on you... or those whose sneezes spray...
YAY for the children who are blessed with a cough that never seems to go away...
ENJOYABLE are the times when our kids have fevers that seem to creep up on them and cause them to feel achy halfway through the morning.

So honestly, each of these things are NOT so fun. It's never fun to see your loved one sick, especially a child. Please be praying for us, the staff ladies who work in childcare and are trying our best to prevent sickness amongst ourselves and the children. Also be praying for the families here on campus. Temperatures have been dropping over here; it was around 35 degrees this morning when John drove me to work.

I am doing my best to fight off sickness... taking vitamin C drops in the morning, using lots of hand sanitizer and washing my hands when-ever needed while I am around the kids, trying to drink a lot of fluids, and trying to take at least an hour nap after lunch. Yet still those germs have a tendency to creep up. Thanks for your prayers, I know they help!

Love you all lots!
Amanda Stroze <><

blessings

The forms we bought have brought more blessings than we could have imagined. When we were at the auction, the man bidding against us turned out to be a believer. While we were there, he was explaining how to use them and what we needed to get them functional. He also made a side comment about coming out to help us so we exchanged numbers, at the time we just took it as him just being nice but nothing more. About a weekish later, after we had poured the first the footer for our foundation, we were getting ready to try and throw up the wall forms, and had no idea to go off of. That morning the guy called and said hey i am in the area how do I get to where you guys are. It was awesome, he went step by step showing us how to chalk line everything out and mark it so we can read it later. He has been back many times since and showing us tricks of the trade (he has been doing concrete for 30 years). He also dropped off three huge bins of more forms that we can use. It has just been blessing after blessing as we step forward with these foundations for the student housing. The picture above is a little out of date (about a week old) Which is us finishing off the second footer, you see the first footer below. The forms that are being used to form up the footers came also as a blessing. At the auction, there was much confusion to what was being bid on. The lot after ours we needed but did not get, and the guy that got it thought he was bidding on something else. So we were able to split the cost of that lot with another guy who bought the other lot of forms, and get all the hardware that we needed and the extra forms for half the cost the lot went for. God is so good. Well I want to keep this shorter than last time so I will end here. If you guys could continue to pray for us in our ministry, to keep our focus on Him and not to lose sight of the big picture of reaching lost people for Christ. Also if you could be praying for a volunteer that is here, for his health, he says that he is fine now but yesterday he passed out on us, he is about 60 so we were worried about him. Thank you all for your prayers, if you want to drop us an email our address is jahardname@gmail.com

See you here there or in the air.

Going Forward

As I am on staff with the new construction crew here at the MTC, we had run into a snag. Money that was given for the student housing projects was allocated to the new classroom buildings, meaning that we can not touch it due to the account that it was placed in. legal stuff. So here is the praise and the problem. New tribes currently has around 3300 members around the world, I believe about 2200 are from the USA. The problem is the rate that members are retiring to the rate students here are becoming members is behind. We don't have the capacity to keep up with the attrition rate. That is why we have been trying to pump out so much student housing, our goal is to be able to have 370ish students graduate each year. The sad part is that currently we have 90 tribes that are all ready to have a team of missionaries move in and get a work started in them. NTM is planning on getting into 40 of those in the next ten years, that is if we can up our capacity here to catch up and exceed the attrition rate. The praise is that a donor came to the campus here for a meeting. His heart is very much for the students and providing them housing rather than classrooms, he came and saw the progress that we were making towards our goal. He told us that he wants to see our goal come to fruition, and he said that he wants to see two new four plexes every year and he will give as much as he can to see that happen. This is such a praise God for His provision. We now have the funds to lay down 2 new foundations, and get started on those buildings. God has also blessed us with concrete forms that we got at auction, the awesome thing is we were able to get them so cheap that their scrap value is 2/3 higher than what we paid for them. These forms will save the mission a lot of money in the next few years, because we can now lay out our own foundations instead of contracting them out. So praise God for that. Please pray that we can get these buildings up and the new classrooms that we have planned so we can see these 90 tribes reached and many more, by being able to train up more and more missionaries to go out, and to thank God that as fast as we are building people are coming into the training center to be sent out into the harvest. When we first arrived here I was helping finish a building, final touches etc, and as fast as they were inspected and approved people were in them. It is awesome to see that God has laid it on so many hearts to reach those in the far corners of the earth. Other prayer requests include the health of the staff here and the students, there is a bug going around and knocking out everyone. I am justing getting over it, but Amanda is still very ill. If you could also be praying that we can get a good prayer support team built up. Also if you could be praying that God would continue to raise financial support as well. Thank you for all your prayers. We are going to be sending out email updates and updates through this blog. if you would like to get email updates on our ministry and prayer requests and praise reports, email us at jahardname@gmail.com Thanks for being apart of our ministry, see you here, there, or in the air.

your brother in Christ- john stro

Serving at New Tribes Missionary Training Center

Hello Friends

Just wanted to drop a note saying where we are and what we are doing right now. We are currently serving God in Roach, MO with New Tribes Missionary Training Center. We arrived two weeks ago, and were blessed with a beautiful small home on campus. For the past week John has been serving with the construction crew, building new apartments to house the growing influx of students. Amanda started serving in the Child Care this week preparing for the arriving munchkins. She will be allowing mothers to attend more classes, rather than being on a rotating schedule within the Child Care department. A few prayer requests are that we would continued to get settled into our new home and ministries. Please be praying for our new marriage, as we continue to learn more and more about each other while trusting more in our God, as we depend on Him for wisdom and guidance. If you would like to talk to us or receive email updates from us our new joint email address is jahardname@gmail.com, we will also be keeping our old individual addresses. We would love for you to join us in our ministry here by praying for us. One other prayer request is that God would continue to provide for us the support we need to continue serving here. If you would like to join our ministry financially, you can send your donation to New Tribes Mission 1000 E First St., Sanford, FL 32771-1487. Please make your check out to New Tribes Mission and with the memo stating for the ministry of John and Amanda Strozewski. We have been very blessed by your friendship and prayers. Please continue praying for us as we serve here in Missouri.

Your brother and sister in Christ,
John and Amanda Stroze

home sweet home

well here i am sitting observing our new home. finally we're almost fully "settled in." meaning that i still have a few loads of laundry, a sink with a few dirty dishes, and a few other things that still need to be done. we no longer look like we are just moving in... we look like messy people. which is rather close to the truth. we will claim that our home looks lived in.

john was so good to me in hanging up all the picture frames and art up a few days ago. now we face the task of filling each of the individual frames. i never realized how difficult it is to pick out x amount of pictures for each frame and then make sure that each picture fits the frame properly. not to mention that all the pictures go together. aaahhhh the joys of moving in.

we find our home both quaint and comical. for example, our cell phone service is very limited, as some may have already figured out. however on the rare occasion that a call makes it through it is a struggle to find the correct placement to receive reception. our current favorite is to lie across the bed with our head shoved up against the wall near the window. we are rather amazed and amused when the occasion call comes through.

all in all we are very blessed with our new home.


love in Christ,
amanda stroze <><