In about one month we’ll have a new little daughter, Elena Sofia Mielonen is due on November 1st! We’re excited to explore a new personality to enjoy and love on. Emma is becoming more and more excited and we’re enjoying all of her thoughts on how she’ll “help” her sister. As God has worked in our lives we’ve seen relationships mended in ways that many would find nearly impossible, grace where only God can give it, and growth in so many good ways! None of this has come easy, simply, or without challenge – every step along the way has been hard, with gut wrenching grief, fear, and that nasty reaction called anger. All of that to say, we know the story God is writing is for Poland and people everywhere.
Speaking of Poland, we’ve had a slight change of plans, and we’re very excited about it. Instead of going straight to Kraków, the city we’ve normally visited on every other trip of ours, we’ll first be living in Wrocław, in western Poland for the first phase after our move. This first phase is focused on cultural acquisition, language learning, and building a team to eventually plant a new church in Kraków. We’re excited for this because it means working with current missionaries who have been living in Wrocław for nearly 14 years, they are a dutch couple with three daughters that are full of grace and love for the Polish people. We have been skyping with them off and on since January and are excited to connect, plugin, and hopefully make relationships with people to start something in Kraków (about five years later). This does mean being further away from our friends in Kraków and the Lesser Poland providence, however we’re confident we’ll get many more options to see them… since we’ll be only 4 or so hours by car away from them (instead of 20+ by jet plane)!
We’re about 44% to having our full budget raised, we’ve been stuck around the 40% mark for a little while now, slowly but surely new people are joining our support team and we’re going to be stepping up our communications a lot more soon. We recently cut about $800 a month from our budget as well, which was a great success! We’ve experienced a lot of joy and ministry in supporting other missionaries and projects and we love to share the love with our support team!
Proverbs 20:24 [NLT]: The LORD directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?
With each step we pray for grace, for when we stumble and fall, love for when we’re stuck, and peace when it’s dark.