{"id":540,"date":"2016-09-07T11:29:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T16:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/?p=540"},"modified":"2017-05-01T11:49:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T16:49:55","slug":"joys-sorrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/2016\/09\/07\/joys-sorrows\/","title":{"rendered":"Joys & Sorrows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven\u2026.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Eccl. 3:1 & 4<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your prayers for us and all the extra family activities that have been going on these past months that we told you about in our last letter. We apologize for the delay in getting more news out telling you about everything. Some events this summer caused a lot of emotional and physical exhaustion which has left us feeling quite drained and resulted in getting behind on many things.<\/p>\n

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Evalynn Grace Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First of all, we are so pleased to introduce to you our new granddaughter, Evalynn Grace Parker, born April 23, 2016, weighing 7 lbs 13 oz and measuring 20.5\u201d long. She is just adorable and such a joy!<\/p>\n

Josh graduated from New Tribes Bible Institute in Waukesha, WI, on May 14th<\/sup>. He is the last of our 4 kids to graduate from this school.<\/p>\n

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Joshua’s NTBI graduation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the school semester finished in May, Bethany & Zach concluded their time on staff at New Tribes Bible Institute as associates with New Tribes Mission. They are now living off campus in Waukesha and Zach is working for a company doing IT.<\/p>\n

BJ & Carissa went to Israel the end of May. They spent the first couple of weeks with a team doing outreach ministry. They had just completed their first week of the 6 week modern Hebrew language course when they received the tragic news that Carissa\u2019s 19 year old brother had died. In a state of shock and devastating grief, they traveled back to the States to be with her family in Waukesha.<\/p>\n

We made the trip to Waukesha over the 4th<\/sup> of July weekend to be with BJ & Carissa and to attend her brother\u2019s very heartrending memorial service. A tremendous amount of pain, tears, hugs and prayers were shared those days. It was (and has continued to be) an incredibly emotionally and physically draining period due to the circumstances. We continue to mourn with and pray for the family.<\/p>\n

We got back home and, in the midst of pain and grief, tried to work on some things. A few days later there was more loss when a friend from church died\u00a0in a car accident. After 9 emotional days at home we made the trip back to Waukesha for wedding preparations.<\/p>\n

Charity and her friend are enjoying their new apartment the Lord provided for them in March. Charity was able to make a trip to Idaho the beginning of July for testing and treatment with a doctor there—the same one that BJ & Carissa have seen. She was officially diagnosed with Lyme disease and is now in the midst of treatment for that.<\/p>\n

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Joshua & Sarah’s wedding<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

July 23rd<\/sup> was the big day for Josh and Sarah in Waukesha. Their lovely, God-honoring wedding went smoothly with the only glitch being that the power went out in the reception venue.\u00a0 Although it was disappointing to not have the desired ambiance of the beautiful glowing lights hung all around the room, we were thankful that the centerpieces had battery-operated lights! Josh and Sarah continue at the Bible school; Josh is interning in the IT department, Sarah is managing the coffee shop, and they both continue their jobs driving buses.<\/p>\n

After we returned home from the wedding, we had a couple of days with John\u2019s brother and family who were in town from Las Vegas and then we jumped into preparations for the new semester starting at MTC. Feeling so emotionally and physically exhausted has been challenging as we have had to keep moving forward with various matters, but we are so thankful for the Lord\u2019s grace in carrying us through the events of these past months. We haven\u2019t been discouraged, just extra weary with the emotional ups and downs of things.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your continued prayers for us; we covet them. God has been faithful to meet our needs and encourage us.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven\u2026. \u00a0A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.\u201d\u00a0 Eccl. 3:1 & 4 Thank you so much for your prayers for us and all the extra family activities that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"full-width-content","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[448,20041,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"tag-ethnos360","8":"tag-family-2","9":"tag-new-tribes-mission","10":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}