Waffle-y Good News

Christmas Wishes

Dear Friends,

(Seasons) Greetings from Greensburg, Pennsylvania! We pray that all of you are well and enjoying the Christmas season. We have felt very blessed this year as we celebrate the coming of Christ to earth with our own little child. Andrew is fully enjoying it too: spending time with family and taking in the sights of Christmas lights and snow (which unfortunately melted quickly--it's looking like it will be a wet, rather than a white, Christmas for us this year).

Andrew will also be making his theatrical debut on Tuesday at our church's preschool/childcare center's Christmas play. We expect he'll steal the scene, doing his little Christmas "dance": bouncing to the music in his exer-saucer. It should be cute, anyway!

In the way of things we would like you to hold up in prayer, we present our Christmas "wish list":
--for Andrew: a continued sense of the joy of this season and its meaning, and also his two front teeth (and any others hiding in there) to finally poke through and stop bothering him so much.
--for Carrie (Caty): some nice pet fish for the aquarium (which is Andrew's favorite thing to watch). Also, a car so we can give back the one her Mom has been loaning us.
--for Michael: the right job that God has in mind as a place where His glory can be witnessed, and which will help to provide for our family.

And for all of you: A special sense of God's peace and presence during this season, and that you would be blessed and cared for this coming year as much as you have blessed and cared for us through your prayers and support. We pray that God would be with each of you.

In Christ,
Michael, Carrie (Caty) and Andrew

P.S. If any of you did not receive our December newsletter and would like to get a copy, please let us know at mikencaty@hotmail.com.

Catching Up

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Greensburg, Pennsylvania! We are excited to share with you some of what the last few weeks have held for us since our trip back to the States.

We had the chance to Skype today with our Latino group in Belgium, and it seems they are doing quite well. But seeing their faces was a reminder of how much we miss them. Still, what a blessing, and we are grateful to be technologically able to contact friends around the world.

So, we ask that you would keep them in your prayers, especially two young women from the group who will be giving birth in the next six weeks or so. Also, that God would be with the group in their job situations and with those who are traveling for the summer and are unable to meet regularly. And please uphold as well Dan and Paula, a Spanish- and English-speaking couple who are serving short-term in Belgium during the absences of ourselves and fellow missionaries Dick and Sheila Dickinson.

We have kept busy during our first few weeks here. Besides some important meetings, we've had the chance to spend some time with our families, including many who got to meet Andrew in person for the first time. He has charmed them all, and we look forward to introducing many of you to him soon too!

For the moment, we are finishing getting set up in our new/old apartment, and are thankful to have some space in which to live. Please pray for us as we continue visits over the next few weeks, and for some important decisions to be made.

Thank you, as always, for your prayers and support.

Blessings,

Michael and Carrie (and Andrew) Hamley

A Last-Minute Change of Plans

Dear Friends,

A funny thing happened on the way to the airport....

Well, we weren't quite literally on the way to the airport, but we were certainly getting ready to. We had been scheduled to return to the U.S. Friday, July 1, to begin our period of partnership building ministry. (With us nearing the end of our first official term on the field, our leadership asked us to return a bit earlier than originally scheduled to get a head start on the debriefing process before we began partnership building in early fall.) We had not said much about our travel dates because we wanted to surprise our families and friends with an earlier-than-expected chance to meet Andrew in person.

However, as we called to reconfirm our travel arrangements with the airline, it turned out that, contrary to what we had been told previously, we would not be able to bring Carmen the rabbit on the flight. With only a few hours to come up with an alternative, the airline was understanding enough to waive the change fee for a slightly later return, and it turned out the best day to travel was next Friday, July 8. We are thankful for having more time to find an alternative arrangement for Carmen, but I guess this means the surprise is ruined.

On the other hand, this does give us the opportunity to help out with our church's outreach event at the city's annual "Rommelmarkt," a city-wide flea market that attracts people from all over Belgium and beyond. The church put on an outreach at last year's Rommelmarkt, and it was a great opportunity to meet and bless people by not selling anything--instead, they gave away gospel tracts and drinks and cookies. It provoked a lot of conversations and provided an opportunity to share God's love with the very secular community here. We've been working to help organize this year's outreach, but didn't think we would get to take part in person...until now. And it helps to have Caty here, as she is the only French speaker in the church, and many come up from Wallonia (French-speaking southern Belgium) for the weekend and Rommelmarket.

We are certain that this may be God's way of allowing us to meet with a divine appointment at the outreach or over the next week. Please pray for us to be faithful to His leading and able to hear His voice in this next week. And please also pray that we can find Carmen the "foster" care she needs or else find another way to get her to the U.S. And of course, please pray for the Rommelmarkt outreach: that we would have good weather and opportunities for good conversations, and that the seeds planted there would take root in the hearts of many.

Thank you for your prayers for us, and have a great July 4th weekend!

Blessings,
Michael and Carrie (Caty) Hamley

Calling All Prayer Warriors

Dear Friends,

One of the hardest things for us about being missionaries abroad is having to be away from our families. This is especially the case in a crisis.

We regularly pray for those in our families who don't walk with the Lord, or who have wandered from Him. Some of those we pray for the most are those who are young and whose faith, even if it has the chance to begin to flower, is often pulled at by the cares and concerns of this world.

One of these we pray for often is Carrie's cousin Ethan.

Ethan is 18, a senior in high school. Last Friday, after his last scheduled day of classes and exams, he invited many friends over to a pool party. He was going to dive into the pool, but at the last moment his foot slipped and, instead of taking a normal dive, entered the water awkwardly and at the wrong angle. His hit his head on the bottom, shattering a neck vertebra and severing part of the spinal cord, which left him paralyzed at the bottom of the pool. After he didn't come up for some time, his girlfriend dove in and pulled his head above water. He couldn't feel anything. They quickly called 911, and he was life-flighted to one of Pittsburgh's finest hospitals.

When he arrived at the hospital, the doctors were hopeful that they would be able to return use to his arms and hands, but upon surgery discovered that the damage was far more extensive than they had hoped. Only a miracle could restore movement in his upper torso now. Fortunately for us, we serve a God of miracles!

Ethan's prognosis looks very grim: he has already come to terms with never walking again. But if he could gain use of his hands and arms again he can still become a pharmacist, which has been his dream for years now. We are rallying all of our prayer supporters to EARNESTLY PRAY for the following:

1. Ethan would remain strong through all of this and come to the Lord in his time of need.

2. That the spinal cord would stop bleeding internally. As of now, there is nothing more the doctors can do to stop it.

3. That we would see a miracle that would amaze doctors and unbelievers alike--that he would at least gain feeling and use of his arms and hands and proceed to lead a "normal" life. And may God be given all the glory.

We are already thankful to hear that Ethan's lungs work on their own, so he should not need a respirator.

We are so grateful that God chose to spare Ethan's life, and we know that He has an eternal purpose in this, as hard as it is to accept. May God's love and grace surround Ethan and his family, as well as his girlfriend and classmates who will be graduating this week. And may many come to know Him in this tragedy.

Thank you for your constant prayers and support. It's times like these that we are so grateful to have you on our side! "The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective."--James 5:16

A Day to Celebrate!

Today is a day we are choosing to celebrate. We have several reasons for doing so:

--First, today is Andrew’s four-month birthday! He has grown a lot, quite literally. We took him for his checkup earlier today and he has grown about five inches and doubled in weight since his birth. He continues to bring us joy each new day. We rejoice in God’s continued creation in Andrew and how He has touched our lives, and others, through this precious baby.

--Second, today we celebrate the Latino fellowship’s (which we call Comunidad Cristiana Nueva Esperanza: “New Hope Christian Community”) first anniversary. This will involve a presentation
of pictures taken over the past year, and afterward a short message of love and hope that we share through Christ. Then, a party, complete with many special foods from a variety of Latin American
countries. We’ve invited the group to use this as a chance to reach out to others who might want to belong to the group but who might be shy about coming to a Bible study.

--Third, it’s Luis’s birthday. Luis is a classmate of Caty’s in her Dutch class, a recent arrival from Chile. He is one of those we hope to be able to include in the group, but who hasn’t taken up the invitation yet. But last week, he helped us to arrange our sound system in the ministry center (which we’re now using full-time for church services for the English-speaking group as well). We had to go to Media Markt (Europe’s answer to Best Buy and the Apple store mixed into one) to get some adaptors, and in a store giveaway promotion that day, he and Richard from Paraguay, who was also helping us out, both won 50 Euros worth of gift cards. It was an opportunity to share a lesson about how God sometimes chooses to reward us for our efforts for Him. We hope that Luis, a talented musician, will consider joining the group soon.

--Finally, on a Pittsburgh-related note, Steelers receiver Hines Ward won on “Dancing with the Stars,” and today is the twentieth anniversary of the Penguins’ first Stanley Cup win, which we remember fondly. (No hate mail from Buffalo Bills fans or others, please. You know who you are.)

Thank you for praying for us and celebrating with us! We pray that you may celebrate God’s love and mercy this day as well.

In Christ,

Michael and Carrie (Caty) Hamley

Happy Mother's Day!

Dear Friends,

We would like to wish all mothers out there, and especially our own, a very happy and blessed Mother's Day. This is a special one for us, because it's Carrie's first Mother's Day as a mother.

To celebrate it, Andrew and I (Michael) had a little extra work to do, but it was a lot of fun for us. As many of you know, Carrie is a big fan of aquarium fish. One of the ways we have built relationships with some of the Europeans we've been sent to minister to, is through the aquarium fish hobby. In Spain, our favorite fish shopkeeper, a Moroccan man, and several secular Spaniards heard the Gospel of Christ through the relationships we'd built by being a presence in their community. We have continued building relationships in this way since moving to Belgium. Which brings us to our favorite fish shopkeepers here in Oostende, Cedric and Doreen.

Cedric and Doreen have gotten to know us through our regular visits to their beautiful and well-kept store, which is a block away from our ministry center here in town and not far off the route we travel to and from language school. They have also gotten to know Andrew, at first as Carrie's "belly dweller" preparing to emerge, and later as a real, live baby. At first, he mostly slept when we went to their store, but the last few visits he has been awake and usually quite smiley, and they have fallen in love with him, just like most people we meet do.

So earlier today, we visited Cedric and Doreen's store and Andrew became probably their youngest customer ever, picking out just the fish for mommy as a Mother's Day present (a six-line wrasse, if you’re interested). He even paid for it himself!

 

Please pray for us and our continued witness to Cedric and Doreen, and many others like them.  And please pray for Andrew, as he continues to be a big part of our lives and work here as missionaries.  Thank you!

In Christ,

Michael and Carrie (Caty) and Andrew

Royal Wedding

As we write, Europe, and to some degree the whole world, is keeping its eyes on London and the royal wedding taking place there today. It's astonishing, to us at least, how excited people can get over the marriage of people they have never met and probably never will. For our part, we're just happy it's today rather than tomorrow, when we'll be driving to England and skirting around London on the way to the Europe area missionary retreat. That's one traffic jam we will cheerfully be avoiding.

But we can certainly understand the excitement of a wedding. The joining together of two lives, at an important and blessed point along the journey of their relationship. The hopes and plans for a wonderful future together, maybe even a "happily ever after." We've been there ourselves and can identify.

However, a much greater and more exciting wedding feast awaits those of us who are in Christ. Revelation 19:6-7: "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding feast of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready."

Continuing with verse 9: "Then the angel said to me, 'Write: "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!' And he added, 'These are the true words of God.'"

How much stronger and more joyful would our churches be if we, as the church--the bride of Christ--went about delivering our invitations with the joy and blessing God's angel describes. We look forward to the day of the wedding feast of the Lamb, marking a blessed day in the church's relationship with Christ, the beginning of our joyful eternity together. Talk about hopes and plans for a future!

I hope belonging to Christ's covenant community is as much a joy and blessing as it should be. But how often does the word "church" bring up thoughts of a longstanding habitual gathering, a past-its-best-by-date tradition. I hope that is not what you think of, but for many in Europe, it is that much or worse. One of the reasons we as the church have missions to Europe is because the sense of joy in gathering together in Christ's name is lost. Please pray that it will not be lost much longer, that Christ's joy, love and hope would shine through even in the darkest of corners.

May the Lord bless you this day and until that day.

In Christ,

Michael and Carrie (Caty) Hamley

More than an Egg Hunt

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Belgium!  We hope you had a blessed Easter!

We certainly did here, although it was mostly quiet.  As in many places in Europe, the week before Easter here is a big time for travel, so many in our congregation were out of town.

Nevertheless, we had a wonderful event on Saturday morning at our church's new ministry center.   Combining the international and Latino churches, we invited children to bring their friends and relatives to an Easter celebration.  Activities included learning about the egg and how it illustrates the Trinity, the telling of the Easter story through resurrection eggs, dyeing and decorating Easter eggs, hearing the Easter story through storyboard, making butterfly crafts that remind us of the new life we have in Jesus, playing Easter bingo, and of course, an Easter egg hunt with chocolate eggs, which did not last long in the sun!   We even offered pictures with our resident Easter Bunny--our very own Carmen.  It was so popular that many of the adults had their picture taken, too.  The children had a wonderful time, but we think the many adult volunteers had just as much fun as the kids!

 
Isabel and Luna decorate their butterflies

After the children had gone and we were cleaning up, a woman from our Latino group suprised us (and all the volunteers) with a Spanish paella.  Enjoying it and relaxing in the back yard on a warm, sunny day was just what we needed after such an eventful morning!

Thank you for praying for our work here.  Pray that the Lord would continue to provide oportunities for us to connect with and minister to the lost.  You can also pray for us as this week we both have Dutch exams at language school.  Lastly, please keep us in your prayers this weekend as we travel to the Europe area missionary retreat.  This will be Andrew's first overnight trip away from home.  We pray he won't be too stressed by the unfamiliar surroundings, and that we don't forget anything vital!

Blessings,

Michael, Carrie (Caty), Andrew and Carmen the Bunny

 
Carmen wishes you a "Hoppy Easter"

Hamleys' New Blog Name

Dear Friends,

Greetings!  We hope you are doing well.

A while back, we decided that, since we were serving in a new country, it was time for a new blog name.  Some of you offered suggestions, and since we're serving in Belgium, the one we liked best was "Waffle-y Good News."  Thank you, Rev. Dennis Henley (Michael's brother's father-in-law), who came up with the winning entry.  A few others had suggestions along similar lines.

When we changed the name a few days ago, it seems to have garbled the mechanism for sending out blog entries via email.  I think we have that corrected now, but we won't know for sure until we send out a new post (which is to say, this one).  You can catch up on previous posts at www.mikencaty.typepad.com.

We just returned from a meeting of our Latino group, which was meeting in a new place in a new town and an hour and a half earlier than usual.  Because of those factors, we were expecting a meager turnout, but were pleasantly surprised to have 13 people at the meeting, which went very well!  Please pray for our group, because this Friday we will be presenting the movie "Fireproof" in Spanish at the new ministry center.

Also, please keep Carrie in your prayers.  After finally starting to feel better from a cold/laryngitis and eye infection, today her sore throat is back and the infection has migrated to the other eye.

In more pleasant news, Andrew just turned 10 weeks old and continues growing happily.  He's been very easygoing, which has been a huge help to us both, especially with both of us in language school (albeit at different times of day).

Thank you for your prayers, and may God bless you this day.

In Christ,

Michael and Carrie (Caty) Hamley

One of Those Weeks...

  For sure, it has been one of those weeks.  We have been affected by sickness and sorrow.  It hasn’t been easy!  Over the weekend we learned that our friends’ baby (a couple from our Lanzarote church) has died after waiting all 11 months of his life for a new heart which never came.  Then on Wednesday we received word that our Spanish neighbor Natalia (the one Carrie visited with nearly every day when we lived in Spain) has died unexpectedly.  This comes as a huge shock since as far as anyone knew, she was healthy as can be!

   These deaths, coupled with the fact that Carrie has been sick for over a week now (an illness which coincided with her beginning language school 4 days a week in an intensive Dutch course) has meant that our plate has been quite full this week physically and emotionally.  Michael has had to spend many more hours a day caring for Andrew which makes sermon writing more challenging.  And Carrie has had to go to class despite her illness because the regional government (which graciously pays for the classes) requires attendance, and if you miss too many classes, not only do you fall terribly behind, but you are also fined by the government.  (A doctor’s excuse is acceptable, but that would require having a doctor, which so far, we don’t!)

   Despite these challenges, God has been faithful.  Carrie is enjoying her language studies and will so even more once she is feeling better.  On Friday, a friend came over to clean our house, care for Andrew, and prepare enough meals to last us all weekend so that Carrie could spend the day in bed resting.  We are so grateful!

   This week please keep us in your prayers so that Carrie may continue to recover and Michael and Andrew would stay healthy.  Please also keep in your prayers Natalia’s family as they continue to mourn their loss.  Although Carrie had shared Jesus with Natalia, she doesn’t know if she chose to make a commitment to him or not, making her death twice as painful.  Also remember the family in Lanzarote who lost their 11-month-old son.  They have been strong though this entire process.  Pray that they will continue to be strong in the weeks and months ahead.

Thank you again for your prayers and support.  We appreciate you!

Blessings,

Michael, Carrie (Caty) and Andrew