The spring semester finished at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) the middle of May but our schedules\nhave remained full with regular ministry responsibilities. John continues with a\nlot of correspondence with missionaries, assisting them by answering questions\nand providing resources or direction for help. We\u2019ve also had the privilege of\nhosting a lot of people in our home the past couple of months which has kept\nMelanie busy. We praise the Lord for the home He has blessed us with and the\nopportunities for hospitality that He gives us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In April our\ndepartment hosted its 5th<\/sup> annual MK Summit with John facilitating\nand Melanie looking after snacks and meals. Fifteen Ethnos360 members from 5\ncountries who are involved with MK (Missionary Kid) Care and\/or Education\nassembled together for 3 full days of meetings, all for the purpose of\nenhancing our ministries to help families thrive on the mission field. The\nhighlight of our meetings was looking at the topics of compassion fatigue and\nusing art to offer emotional first aid to MKs. We praise the Lord for the time\ntogether, great information shared, and that everything went smoothly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lord\nwilling, we will be making a trip out to Virginia soon to meet BJ & Carissa\u2019s\nbaby girl that is due any day. There are always things that can \u201cgo wrong\u201d with\nany pregnancy, labor, and delivery. However, with Carissa\u2019s health issues\n(mainly the Mast Cell Activation Syndrome that can cause random and severe\nallergic reactions to anything at any time), there are a lot of unusual\npotential complications they face with her labor and delivery, even though they\nare receiving excellent care from an experienced high-risk pregnancy medical team\nat a well-equipped hospital. We are extremely thankful for the relatively\nsmooth pregnancy she has had and we all believe God has everything under His\ncontrol and we all know that we can trust Him with the labor and delivery as\nwell. Thank you for your prayers for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The end of July will find John headed east for a week-long Enrichment Conference hosted for Ethnos360 missionaries on home assignment. He will be representing our Education Resource Center department to connect with the missionaries and be available for questions and conversations with families. We would appreciate your prayers for John during this time, as well as for a refreshing time for the missionaries who are attending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Come\nAugust, we will be gearing up for the start of the fall semester on the 12th<\/sup>.\nCurrently we are expecting 48 new students, 39 returning students for their 2nd<\/sup>\nyear, and 7 students doing the Linguistics course. Please pray for all of these\ncandidates as they get ready for classes and all the training involves, and for\nthe staff as we prepare for their arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are extremely thankful for you, our\nfaithful current team of ministry partners, who make it possible for us to\nserve here at the MTC, while impacting missionary families around the world. Many\nof you faithfully pray for us and sacrificially give to us so that we can do\nwhat we do. We have, however, recently lost some ministry partners and are\ncurrently averaging about 50% of our monthly recommended financial support.\nPlease pray with us that God would connect us with additional folks like you\nwho would be interested in partnering with us in ministry through finances and\nprayer. Thank you! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Laboring together with God,<\/p>\n\n\n\n John &\nMelanie Kerstetter<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The spring semester finished at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) the middle of May but our schedules have remained full with regular ministry responsibilities. John continues with a lot of correspondence with missionaries, assisting them by answering questions and providing resources or direction for help. We\u2019ve also had the privilege of hosting a lot of […]<\/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":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-ministry","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","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=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-kerstetter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}