It's Official!

If you have not already heard the news...we're officially WorldVenture missionaries! After a rigorous two-hour interview with a five-member committee, we're excited to announce that we were appointed as long-term missionaries in June at WorldVenture Headquarters in Littleton, Colorado. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers and support!

Our appointment was followed by a week-and-a-half of training at WorldVenture. It was a wonderful time of learning more about the organization, fellowshipping with the other seven appointee couples, and figuring out how to move ahead in this journey.

What's next? Because we're still grappling with the Lord's will for our future location of ministry, WorldVenture recommended that we embark on a survey vision trip. This trip will be in the Spring of 2010 and will take us to several locations in Europe and Africa. We will prayerfully meet with locals and missionaries at each destination as we seek to discover where we can most effectively serve.

In the meantime, we will be attending two more days of training in August here in Northwest Arkansas that will focus on developing healthy prayer and financial partnerships. After we complete this training, we will begin raising support specifically for our vision trip, but ultimately for our career on the field. We are going to do our best to keep our blog updated as well as sending out e-mail and snail mail updates. If you're interested in receiving these updates, please email us at amosandmeredith@worldventure.net with your contact information. If you are on our mailing list and desire to be removed, please contact us at that address as well.

You can learn more about WorldVenture at WorldVenture.com. You can also view our missionary profile via the dropdown "find a missionary" menu on the homepage. We would also LOVE to share more with you about this journey that we're on - drop us a line or give us a call and we'll set something up. All of our contact information can be found at the bottom of this post.

Of course, no post would be complete without some pictures of Isaiah, who will celebrate his first birthday in just a little over a month...can you believe it?!

Amos, Meredith & Isaiah Anderson

12739 W. St. Hwy. 155 Dardanelle, AR 72834

amosandmeredith@worldventure.net

479-229-1982

Time Flies When We're Havin' Fun

We're a little late with our April update, but life's just been so darn busy! We enjoyed a wonderful 10 day tour of the Great North with Isaiah in our new minivan (yes, Meredith has stepped out of her Element and joined the ranks of soccer-momhood) from April 9th - 19th. It was a wonderful trip and we loved seeing ya'll! If we didn't see you this time, we're sorry we missed you and are looking forward to planning another trip soon. Of course, the Tucker side of the family taught Isaiah about real health food - oreos, banana cream pie, Flipz crackers, chocolate cake - ya know, the good stuff! He had his first sight of snow, as there was still some on the ground in the U.P., and the Great Lakes, and also enjoyed hanging out at Silver Birch Ranch for a few days. After that, we enjoyed just a short time with some former co-workers of Amos' from Rawhide before heading back to Arkansas. The time was far too brief but the fellowship was sweet nonetheless. To those of you who hosted us: THANK YOU for your wonderful hospitality!

We managed to finish our application for WorldVenture (www.worldventure.com), just before heading north. We were notified about a week ago that our application had been accepted and were invited to WorldVenture's headquarters in Littleton, Coloroado for an official interview. If all goes well with the interview, we will stay in Littleton for two weeks for training and be officially "appointed" as WorldVenture missionaries. It's an exciting and overwhelming process. Please pray that our interview will go well, that we'll both (us & WorldVenture) feel a unity of partnership, and that the Lord will continue to guide us to the place where He wants us. We are still undecided at this point regarding future ministry location. We have a few options that we're seriously praying through and seeking the Lord about. We would really appreciate your prayers!

...and Isaiah? He's wonderful. He's growing and changing so quickly. He crawls faster than we run and he's cruising along the furniture. He'll be walking very soon! He was dedicated in a special portion of our church service on Mother's Day. It was a sweet time to verbally commit to raising Him in the way of the Lord and to pray for his future and salvation. Parenting is truly a journey, but children are such a sweet gift from God.

We hope that May finds you happy, healthy, and well. We love you all!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Ready or Not...Here He Comes!

Daffodils & Snow Flurries

As we watched the snow flurries fall softly yesterday, like one of those snow globes after you shake it, it was hard to believe that we had just cut fresh daffodils from our yard on Friday in warm sunshine...only in Arkansas! Of course, the snow didn't last and the forecast is predicting 70's this week. That's more like Spring in Arkansas.

Like the crazy weather, life kept us crazy busy in February too! Isaiah is growing and changing so much. He sits on his own now, loves to eat a variety of pureed fruits, veggies and meats, babbles like a brook, and gets around by rolling or army crawling just about any where he wants. Crawling and walking are on the horizon. He is such a joy to us!


We are knee-deep in the extensive career-missionary application process with WorldVenture. We continue to ask for your prayers regarding our future. We are fervently seeking the Lord for specific direction as we delve ahead in this journey.

Growin' Boy

Arkansas was recently hit with a major ice storm. Thankfully, our area was relatively unscathed. Mostly, the ice just made for a beautiful landscape of shimmering trees. Here are a few pictures from our yard and the mountain by our home.

And of course, we couldn't post without adding a few pictures of our pride and joy. Isaiah will be six months old in just two weeks. Enjoy!

Happy New Year

We wrapped up 2008 without too much excitement. We enjoyed a low-key, relaxed Christmas here in Arkansas with Meredith's family. We spent 4 days staying at Mom & Dad Tucker's house. Isaiah got lots of great gifts for his first Christmas and of course was spoiled rotten by everyone.

Isaiah started eating "solid" food just a few days before Christmas. So far he's enjoyed rice cereal and green beans...yummy! He's growing so fast and is very busy. He's gotten two teeth already and we're sure more are on the way with the amount of drool that he's producing! He's in the stage of putting absolutely everything in his mouth and one of his most favorite things to suck on are his feet. As soon as you take his socks off, his toes go right into his mouth. Quite the acrobatics!

The weather has been beautiful lately with the temperature hanging out between 50-70 degrees during the day. This has allowed us to finally work on raking up all of the leaves in our back yard. We took Isaiah outside to play with us in his excer-saucer. He absolutely loves being outside.

We do have some exciting news to share regarding our future. The Lord has prompted us to start the application process to become career missionaries. We are applying with WorldVenture (http://www.worldventure.com/). We are not sure at this point exactly where we're headed, but we know that God is leading us to take the next step in our journey. The process from here to our final destination may take 2-5 years. We covet your prayers as we move forward. It's exciting and a little overwhelming as well. God is so good though and it is a joy and a privilege to serve our King.

Happy 2009! May you experience God's richest blessings in this new year.

Smiles & Coos

Our sweet baby boy continues to thrive and grow and bring us much joy! He weighed in at 14lbs, 2oz at his two-month-old doctor's visit. He regularly smiles and coos and loves "talking" to anyone who will converse with him. He also enjoys sucking on his hands or anything else he can get into his mouth. His favorite friend is his cousin Eli - who hasn't quite figured out how to be gentle yet, but enjoys hanging out with Isaiah, nonetheless. I'm sure they'll get into much trouble together in the years to come.

Things continue to be very busy at church, and as we gear up for the holiday season, the schedule will grow even more hectic. Amos recently enjoyed a camping outing with the junior high boys in his youth group on Mount Nebo, near our home. He also continues to minister to a Men's Discipleship Group, Adult Sunday School Class, and leads our Outreach Team.

Our church just celebrated our annual Fall Festival at one of our member's farm. It was a fun celebration with horse rides, hay bale jumping, a petting zoo, hayrides, a bonfire, pumpkin decorating, and of course a trunk or treat with lots of candy. Isaiah dressed up as a pea in a pod - check out the pictures!

We will be stealing a few days away around Thanksgiving to introduce Isaiah to all of his relatives in Minnesota. We're looking forward to spending time with friends and family in the great north!

Happy Autumn!

Much Love,
Amos,

Meredith

& Isaiah