Update

Hi Family and Friends,

As promised, here is an update on how we are doing in Lithuania. On Monday we will start the last 6 weeks until graduation (graduation is on or around May 1st here this year). It will be an especially busy time, because LCC has a new president, and toward the end of March here we will have an inauguration. Should be a pretty big event in addition to the normal wrapping-up activities that happen in the last few weeks of school.

The biggest news that we have (NO we are not pregnant) is that this will be our last semester here. Going into it, we committed to be here for 2 school years (and then we'd evaluate whether or not we were coming back)...as I mentioned in the last post, time flies! It is already the end of the second year, and we are feeling that it is time to move on for now, and that we will not extend our commitment beyond what it already was.

There are a few reasons why we are coming back to the United States, and I won't get into all of them here, but mainly we want to develop and grow professionally. Steve wants to gain more RD experience at another school to compare, and he also wants to be able to continue to be mentored and to mentor others within the context of higher education. We have felt a lot of support from back home (in every way possible), so thank you for that.
I would like to develop professionally as well, but not quite so sure how that will look. I am sure that the jobs I was doing here (and am doing for another 6 weeks) are not the jobs I want to do for the rest of my life. Last semester I took one seminary class online, and this semester I am taking one more class (I had originally signed up for 2 classes, but had to drop one due to me being in over my head busy)...at this rate I will finish a master's degree in 200 years. So I would like to take more classes next fall if possible. I have really enjoyed the classes I've been taking, but would really like to do a program that is not online, and have more classroom time. So who knows where I will be next year? It all depends on where Steve gets a job, and if there is a seminary near by.
Which brings me to my first prayer request:

Job hunting.
Steve has been diligently sending out resumes and job applications to various schools all over the United States. We would like to settle in the Midwest hopefully, but we are open to living anywhere (anywhere is closer to home than Lithuania!). It has been slow going. I don't know if schools are hesitant to contact someone who is currently living in a country they probably can't find on a map. He is certainly qualified, but it is hard for a school to want to fund flying him in for an interview. So we would really appreciate prayers for the job hunt. Pray for encouragement and wisdom to know what to do. We have faith that God already knows where we will be next year, and what we will be doing....but a lot of schools have been silent, so it would be very encouraging to at least hear something from them!

With all of this thinking about the future, it is really going to be a struggle to live in the present. So that is another prayer request. That we would be able to finish strong here. We have a lot of great students that we've been privileged to get to know and mentor over the past couple of years, and it would be a disservice to them if we started coasting now. Pray that we would be able to be here while we are here, and not in our worries and excitement over the future (hopefully the last two prayer requests are not contradictory to each other).

I have also had the opportunity to be apart of a growing Bible study here in Klaipeda -- CBSI (Community Bible Study International). It is wonderful to study the Bible alongside a group of women from all over the globe. An experience that I will cherish for sure. Pray that the group would be able to reach more people in Klaipeda with each new year (and for translation! We are studying in English, and a couple of the studies have already been translated to Lithuanian...and a lot more in Russian...but it is so much more meaningful for people to study Scripture in their heart language).

Steve has been able to mentor students, a role he is really gifted in. Pray that the conversations that he has over the next couple of months will be fruitful, and that the relationships that he is building will last beyond the distance of living on the other side of the world next year.

Pray for me in my job. It has certainly been a stretching couple of years for me, in a role that is "filling in wherever needed." I have filled a lot of shoes and worn a lot of hats that don't fit me well (or are really not my style, etc). Pray that I would be able to finish well. It will be a huge relief to be done with my jobs...but difficult to leave behind students.

Our original flight home was going to be in the end of May (the 27th or so?), but we are working to change it so that we can come home sooner. We are missing you, friends and family, and would also like to be home sooner, in case Steve can still do some job interviews. So we are going to try to be home by May 12th (2 months from now). Or at least we will leave here on May 12th.

In the spirit of finishing strong, we will soon give an update on where we are financially. I still have a couple of questions that I would like answered (like, for how long do we raise support? Through May? June? and Can we re-evaluate our budget sooner than May, so we can give you a better idea of how much more, if any we need to raise? etc) before we can give an accurate update. But we do know that we are doing well, and headed in the right direction. Thank you so much for all the support over the years. Your prayers, letters, calls, visits, donations, etc have been very meaningful to us, and to the ministry that we are doing here in Lithuania.

Hope this update finds you well....and thank you for reading!
Laura