Photo Friday

Yesterday, we had the chance to meet Baby Jacob. We were so excited to meet this handsome little guy - and surprise his momma & daddy with our visit too! We are so thankful that Dayton is just two hours away from Indianapolis so we can do things like this! The Ellers are very good friends of ours and we just had to see their newest edition to the family!

Meet Our Friends: Rhymz Suhreal

When we moved to Indianapolis in December, we had this mindset of "instant community" by living so close to our Keynote friends. We were deep within community in Dayton with our friends from Apex, Covenant Creek, and Passage. What we didn't anticipate was the timing of our move, as so many of our friends left town for Christmas with families and working at various Christmas Conferences [see our previous post on Christmas Conference]. It worked out well, though, because we had our hands full with unpacking, organizing, and settling into our new home. Thankfully, God had a special bonus for us....new friends!

Zak and Becky and their three kiddos actually moved into the area about the same time as us. They are new staff, too! We seemed to be the only two families in town for awhile! We were blessed by hanging out with them and looking for church homes together.

We wanted to introduce you to them and what they're doing with Keynote. Zak and Becky are hip-hop artists for Keynote! Their band's name is Rhymz Suhreal. In August, they traveled to Kenya for two weeks, to minister to children. They delivered Bibles, taught them Bible lessons, and co-wrote a song with them.

You can learn more about and/or keep up with Rhymz Suhreal from their website.

Enjoy a quick glimpse of their time in Kenya:


Rhymz Suhreal @ Soweto Academy (Kibera, Kenya) from Rhymz Suhreal on Vimeo.

Photo Friday

A little more official. Name badges!

Lord, we trust You for our provision of what we need. We know this journey is in Your hands, and You know what we need. We're ready to work from the office now. A few years ago, we weren't ready. Please bring in that last bit of support soon!

"Tewbowing" - a way to start spiritual conversations!

One part of Keynote that we are excited to help out with is with the yearly Christmas Conferences. College students from all over the US go to different regional conferences between Christmas and New Year's. We both were able to attend our regional Christmas Conference in Indianapolis [Indy CC] several times throughout college.

Indy CC was where I [Jonelle] fell in love with the city of Indianapolis. There was just something special about the city that drew me in. Little did I know that it would be my home someday! Also, Indy CC was where Tony and I really started our friendship [albeit a little ironic, as we both went to the same university]. Little did I know that this guy would be my husband someday!

We are very excited to be able to work at the conferences next year, since they were a big impact on our lives! These conferences also can have a big impact on Keynote, because we use these conferences as a time to share with students about opportunities with Keynote, either on Summer Project, with an internship, or with full-time staff. [This is where we first learned about Keynote!]

This winter, some of our staff helped out at the Denver Christmas Conference, where over 1,000 students from various schools attended. At this conference, students packed thousands of meals to send to Haiti and heard from great speakers during the sessions...but what was interesting to hear was that they did a “Tebowing” flash mob in downtown Denver as a way to start spiritual conversations!

Check out the Denver newscast featuring these students "Tebowing" downtown!

Photo Friday

The living room transformation is almost finished! It won't be much longer until we post final pictures. We hung these panels today. It was great to get something large up on the walls in this big space! It was also great that it was low-cost, too! (foam insulation panels covered in fabric!)

Photo Friday

I'm hoping to get back into "Photo Friday" postings, whether they be photos from my DSLR or my phone. Today, you get the phone picture.

When we moved in to our house, we peeked under the carpet to see if we had hardwood flooring hiding underneath all that carpet. We didn't see anything, though.

Fast forward to today. Tony checked again - a little closer this time, and peek-a-boo, look what we found!

What is next?

We have moved to our new home in Indiana! We just celebrated the birth of our King with family and friends this past weekend. I am sure you are pondering your own life about what is next? That is a great question to ask, especially as we turn a new chapter with 2012 quickly approaching. For us, we are still focused on the last tidbit of ministry partner development as we call it, or rather support raising. We have been in talks with Keynote department heads which allows us to pin down what our exact roles are going to be in 2012. We have high hopes and prayers that we will be finished with support be the end of January! We are very confident in the power of God, He brought us to Indiana and is ready to finish out the mission!

Another idea we had about keeping you our ministry partners in the loop even more frequently is an email/online only update each week. We are still tweaking out the name, but it will be short and sent out on Tuesdays, so keep your eyes out on January 3rd for the first of 52 updates in 2012!

-T

Moving!

We are moving again...this time it is to Noblesville, Indiana! We found a house that we absolutely love. It's pretty much our dream home. [another post coming about that God-led process] We close on the house this month - on the 28th and move on the 30th!

We are so excited and blessed for this step in the process, yet we are definitely sad to say "see you later" to so many friends here in Dayton. We really do love our community here will be sad to leave...luckily, we will only be 2 hours away, so we anticipate many road trips! :)

We still have support to be raised, though. Even though we'll soon be living 15 minutes away from the Keynote office, we can't go in there to work until we are at 100%! If you are able to help connect us with people who may be interested in hearing about our ministry with Keynote, or if you are interested in support info yourself - let us know! [Click Here ] We'd love for you to help us reach our goal!

One of our faves from our recent "good-bye, Dayton"
photo shoot with Fullam Photography.

The Gap Theory

In our latest newsletter, we shared with you about a Keynote team [The Gap Theory] who is heading to India in less than a week. We are eager to see how God uses this team for His purposes.

We wanted to share with you a short video that the members of this team created. It talks about this trip to India and how you can be praying for them.




You can keep updated on what is happening during their trip by:

Their blog: click here
Their Facebook page: click here

September Update

Our excitement is growing as we are inches away from having 90% of our initial support raised! We are beginning the process of looking for housing, which is exciting and overwhelming at the same time. We hope to take a trip out to Indy in October to look at some living options and sit down with some people at Keynote to talk about our placements. The light at the end of the tunnel is growing larger each day. We are continuing to vividly see God's hand and provision through this whole process and are deeply encouraged by Him.

Click here to view our September update!

-T & J