October Update

It's been a little bit since our last update and we're pretty much settled in to life at NTBI now and our roles as interns.  In case you didn't know or have forgotten, Felicia and I are employees here at NTBI, where I work in the maintenance department and Felicia works in the front office.  We have been busy here, getting involved in students lives, working, getting involved at our church, Skiff Lake Bible Church and studying God's Word on our own and in studies on Monday's and Tuesday's.

To give you an idea, here's what a typical day looks like for us here at NTBI.  I start work at 7am and work until 4.  On a daily basis we have work orders sent in on things that need to be worked on around campus.  For instance today, I worked on replacing some ballasts (what connects fluorescent lights to the electrical).  I recovered a chair from the dining hall that was torn and helped move and tear down some scaffolding for changing out light fixtures in our auditorium.  I also get to do some projects, like rebuilding a retaining wall along a staircase like I did the past 3 weeks (see picture of the finished product below.)  Felicia and I also like to eat some meals in the dining hall to be around students and spend time with them and so we ate there today.  For Felicia, she works in the morning or afternoon, depending on the day in the office, where she grades papers, does attendance, sorts mail, answer phones among other things.  Occasionally she works as a sub for childcare and she helps take care of the children so their parents can go to classes.

The Lord, as always, has constantly been at work in our lives through our time here.  Although we don't have the classes and the homework, we see the Lord work through His Word each and every day, bringing situations and circumstances into our lives, giving us opportunities to trust Him.  Felicia has been spending her time in Hebrews and I've been making my way through Genesis, finishing up the other day.  It has been incredible studying through Genesis and watching the beginning of God's actions toward man, his pursuit of man after their choice to sin against God.  I learned about God's desire to have a relationship with man given how wayward they are and how all their choices are against God, example being Jacob whose whole life was a lie.  He took his brother's birthright for soup, he stole his brother's blessing, he misled Laban to get the best sheep, yet God pursued, God reached out because no matter how bad, he wants a relationship with man, the very thing they lost when they chose sin.  It has made me appreciate the relationship I have with God because it reminds me how undeserving I am of God's mercy, how similar I am to Jacob, yet God still pursued and he still wants me to go deeper in our relationship.  I hope that encourages you and challenges you in your relationship with God.

Some prayer requests:

1. We are in the midst of trying to find health insurance and with my Crohn's it only makes things more important and urgent.
2. We may have some financial decisions to make coming up this winter so please pray for wisdom in those as we look to trust God with our money and our "hopeful" savings for MTC.
3. Pray for our growth in relationships:  First and foremost our relationship with the Lord, growing in the grace and knowledge of him.  Our relationships with students, to invest well.  Our relationship with our church here as well as in PA and AZ, to be involved as God desires and looking to Him to see relationships established and our relationships with the unsaved, though we work at the school that the Lord would bring them into our lives.

Thank you for your prayer support and the part you play in our lives.

Josh and Felicia