Inreach

The Rock House, our church here in Missouri, held an inreach on Saturday. Basically the premise of the event was to reach out and help out the church body with various needs. One of the pastors, John Shelton, was inspired with the idea as the church has been studying through Acts. We all saw how the early church supported one another through meeting various needs. So John Shelton thought, "Wow the economy is a bit crazy right now and things are rough on many families... we can do that, help our fellow brothers and sisters at the Rock House" and thus the idea was born. So they held a "rummage" sale that was free to the church members. Everyone was encouraged to give what they could and those who had needs were encouraged to come and be blessed. It was great! John and I donated a bag of clothes to help out families who needed clothes. When we attended the event on Saturday we were blessed with food. It was awesome to see how the body provided for so many needs. It was such an encouragement to see how the church body provided for the needs of its fellow members.

Both pastors encouraged the church members to voice their needs. Their point was "no one is a mind reader, so how are people supposed to know how they can help when you don't tell them." Funny how this simple concept can seem so profound. We love you all very much and are blessed with your prayers. The reality is we have a need that still has not been met. Our current financial support is at about 30%. What we are receiving right now barely covers our bills. We know that God will meet this need. Please pray that God will move people to support us financially. Also pray that we will use the money we have wisely.

Thanks for your love and support!
John and Amanda Strozewski <><

life's blessings

Family and Friends,

Yay for more updates! The five-plex that John is working on is going up rather well. They have the roof on and a layer of tar paper. John says they are now working on framing the inside of the second floor. This particular building will be able to house five large families. Each home will each have three bedrooms. What a joy to bless a larger family with more bedrooms.

Child care is going well. What a joy it is to say that I love going to work in the morning. We now have 9 kids in the preschool room! It's been a joy and a challenge this semester. The dynamics in the room have drastically changed. We are really noticing the vast differences between five year olds and three year olds. Two of the students need quite a bit of extra attention, they have never been in a preschool setting. I am learning the balance of grace and timeouts for these youngsters. :)

Please be praying for the Milton family, their preschooler is in my room. His mom was hospitalized this week with a blood clot in her leg, and then found out they are no longer going to have a baby. Please pray for this family, as they cope with these new adjustments in their daily lives.

Our Current Prayer Requests:

• Safety for John and the crew on the job site.
• Health - we currently have mild colds. :( No fun!
• Patience for me as I work in the Preschool room.
• Our marriage stays Christ focused.

Amanda Strozewski <><

PS. We are still working on figuring out how to post pictures up. John's computer doesn't seem to do it, and my computer is being rather slow about things and times out before the picture has finished loading. Our appologies.

Back in Roach

Well we have made it back to Missouri safely. Thank you all for your prayers while we were traveling. We both enjoyed sharing our lives and what we are doing here in person with you while in California and Arizona. It is such a blessing to have so many people that pray for us and encourage us while we serve here. I had a chance to catch up with some other co-workers since we have been back; I have heard that the ladies in the preschool are happy to have Amanda back. I also was able to mosey around the job site. We are getting ready to finish framing the second floor and get the roof on. If you could specifically pray for continued safety on the job site as well as health in the child care. Thank you for your prayers and support in our ministry.

See you here, there, or in the air.
Your brother in Christ - John Stro

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.