The Call to Ministry

Charles Spurgeon wrote in "Lectures to My Students"

"Do not enter the ministry if you can help it...If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor or a grocer or a farmer or a doctor or a lawyer or a senator or a king, in the name of heaven and earth, let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness, for man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants. If on the other hand, you can say that for all the wealth of both the Indies you could not and dare not espouse any other calling so as to be put aside from preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, then, depend upon it, if other things be equally satisfactory, you have the signs of this apostleship. We must feel that woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel; the Word of God must be unto us as fire in our bones, otherwise, if we undertake the ministry, we shall be unhappy in it, shall be unable to bear the self-denials incident to it, and shall be of little service to those among whom we minister..."
As Aaron and I were driving home from a church visit a few weeks ago, we discussed this very thing. Would we abandoned our calling if we were offered immeasurable wealth, assurance of health and safety, and guarantee of a life of ease and comfort. We both sat quietly for a few moments and then simultaneously blurted out, "absolutely not!" The deepest of desires has been placed in our hearts, one that can only be placed by our loving God, to minister and share His gospel message. No other life would touch the one we know He has called us to. Nothing would satisfy the longing that God has placed in our heart, short of accomplishing His call to ministry in Kenya. We echo the words of Paul to the Thessalonian believers... Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. (I Thess. 2:8)
On all of this we know that our God is Sovereignly in control of our lives and our calling. This is why we press on into the life that God has called us, but with open hands. He has the right, at any moment to end our journey, call us elsewhere or even call us home to heaven. What great peace and comfort there is knowing that the same God that created Heaven and Earth, extends His grace and mercy to sinful humans, and then allows us to be used as His instruments in sharing His love! Wow...that is a life worth living or dying for!

50%

We are so blessed to have family, friends and churches that are partnering with us to get us to 50% of our support needed to get to Kenya. This may not seem huge for some, but it means SO much to us. We are now in the LAST half of our support raising and that much closer to our ministry in Kenya. It is extra motivation knowing that we could be in Kenya by next year. We are praying that God continues to bring in supporters so we can move to Mombasa by fall of 2011.
Our family has had a wonderful time traveling together this fall! Elliot has been such a great traveler and her older sisters help out so much. We have gotten to experience a lot of great things and have met some incredible people. We feel blessed and humbled to share God's call in our life with so many churches. Our prayer during this time is that God would use us to encourage other believers to pursue His will on their life.
Highlights:
Elliot is 6 months old
Claire turns 4 this month
The girls got to swim in Lake Cumberland and ride on Sea-do's
Kennedy and Claire loved going to Incredible Pizza in Iowa
Aaron and I celebrated 7 years of marriage at the end of September
We are over 50% of our support needed
Got to meet some incredible people from several great churches

Books we are reading (and recommend)
-Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands
-The Unlikely Disciple
-Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ
-"The Lamb" We are reading through this with our girls-It is the redemptive story from the Genesis-Revelation!

Elliot Charlyse

On April 17th, 2010 at 1:36 am, we welcomed our baby girl, Elliot Charlyse, into the world. Elliot was 6 lbs. and 13 ounces. She was 19 1/2 inches long with very chubby cheeks and lots of brown hair! Stephanie's sister, Tiffani, was scheduled to have her baby via c-section that two days after. They ended up both going into the hospital on Friday night and having their babies 3 hours apart. It was an incredible experience for the sisters to do this together. Our family had an exciting and pretty overwhelming night with both babies being born. Tiff and Cal named their baby boy, Winston Blaise. Everything went well with both deliveries and the hospital staff was so great. They even wheeled Tiffani and Winston in to see Steph after he was born...while she was still in labor.
Kennedy and Claire love Elliot and are wonderful big sisters already. We are really enjoying this precious time with our baby girl! Aaron is officially part-time at the bank now and will be completely done on July 1st. It will be wonderful for him to be able to focus completely on pre-field and not have to juggle another job. He will be making a lot of phone calls over the next couple of months and setting up lots of appointments. We will start traveling quite a bit starting in the fall and will hopefully continue to travel full-time until we leave for Kenya. It is an exciting and new time for our family. We are so thankful that God has blessed us in such incredible ways and look forward to a busy and exciting year of traveling!

This New Year is bringing with it many new and exciting times. We will be traveling quite a bit, enjoying our new baby girl, and continuing to prepare for our move to Kenya.

Kennedy will be 5 in June and is so excited for the new baby to arrive. She greets my belly every morning and talks to "her baby" throughout the day. Kennedy is very smart and acts like a child twice her age! She has a crazy imagination, but keeps her things very organized and neat.

Claire-bear is growing up so fast, but still our little baby. She turned 3 in October and is still the smallest one of all her friends, weighing just 26 pounds. She loved helping put together the baby crib, but prefers to sleep in it herself. Claire loves to be (and dress) like daddy and is definitely our little comedian and tom-boy. They are both going to be great big sisters, possibly a bit overwhelming, but they will give lots of love!

Now introducing ::TEAM 200:: Check out the video and go to www.team-kenya.com/boons-team200 for more information.

Wrapping up the Year

We can not believe that it is already December! This year flew by! We finished up our 11 weeks of traveling for pre-field and will have December off! Steph took the month of December off of photography, which was a MUCH needed break! We were so blessed by some wonderful churches that were both encouraging to us and excited about the ministry that God is allowing us to do in Kenya. Each church was a new opportunity to share how BIG our God is and how exciting it is to be part of His plan for missions. Although our hearts are in Kenya, it is a blessing to be able to minister to churches here in the states. We are looking at these couple of years in pre-field ministry as way to get people in the states excited about what God is doing in Kenya through our church in Mason and what He can do through their own church!

God is really teaching Aaron and I reliance on Him through these times! We are quickly learning that it is not about us or our human abilities...but ALL about what God is doing through us. We are completely inadequate to do anything of eternal value apart from Him. This ministry is not a partnership with God, but a radical reliance on Him and on what ONLY HE can do! We find great comfort in this!! "Self-sufficiency is life's greatest barricade to intimacy with God." Joseph M. Stowel



Our family is so blessed to be having another girl! We are so happy for our new addition and can't wait to see her! Kennedy and Claire are so thrilled to be having a sister! They are constantly asking about her and wanting to know if she can hear them. They enjoyed the traveling this fall, but are very happy to have a break from driving and hotels for a while. They were both so good while on the road and enjoyed their job of setting up our missions table at the churches we visited. Kennedy took this job very seriously and enjoyed greeting people at the table. Claire is pretty shy and stayed by our side (or hiding behind our back) most of the time.

I promised myself that I would not start off one more blog by stating how busy we are, but I just don't think I can start it any other way! We have had a great month, full of exciting times of traveling, my sister Brittany and Joe's wedding, Kenya-Cincinnati Association Banquet, NANC training, our friends Bobby and Lisa Bechtel visiting in from Mombasa, Kenya, Swahili lessons, pregnancy sickness, and lots of photography appointments! I would mention our 6th wedding anniversary in our list of business, but unfortunately both Aaron and I forgot about our anniversary until 6:00 pm that day. We had to laugh at it, although we promised that it wouldn't happen next year! I try to look at our October/November calendar as little as possible, so I don't get overwhelmed! It is such a crazy time, but an amazing time of growing in our Lord.

Our girls are still loving the pre-field process of traveling and being at different churches. They both enjoy meeting new friends and especially love the hotels. Daddy got a hotel with a pool this weekend, so they are especially happy about that! They both know that at each church their job is to help set up our display table. They are very serious about their jobs and take great pride in making our table look nice! They like going to the children's classes, although sometimes they opt to stay with us in big church. Kennedy said that last week a boy told her that they were both very bossy little girls! She said to me "sometimes I'm bossy, but I really wasn't being bossy that time."

Aaron is feeling the strain of working full-time and traveling on the weekends, but we are so thankful that God is allowing us to do both this fall. We were able to book a complete schedule all with churches in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan. This allowed for Aaron to keep his job a little longer and be full-time in our pre-field ministry.


I have been very busy with photography and feel like I am living on my computer, editing, confirming appointments, etc. My very best friend Alisa Leek was able to come in town for a week and came to my first sonogram appointment with me. Alisa, Kennedy and I were very excited to see the baby via ultra-sound. Kennedy was very proud of the picture of "her" baby and couldn't wait to get home and show Claire-bear. The ultra-sound showed some concern about the babies central nervous system being too large. We don't have a lot of answers right now, which is hard, but we have an appointment with a specialist in December. In the meantime we are trusting God to keep our baby safe and know that he has a plan for our baby, whether healthy or sick. We are praying that we stay focused on Christ and His truth and not be overtaken with the temptation to worry.

We continue to be SO thankful to God for allowing us to take part in His plan for Kenya and grow a deeper yearning to reach the Kenyan people each day. Our hearts long to be there and start the work that God has for us in Mombasa. As anxious as we are to get there, we wouldn't trade what God has taught us and is continuing to teach us while we are here in the states. We have a greater understanding of what Paul meant when he wrote in:

I Thessalonians 2:8
So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us..
~The Apostle Paul to the people of Thessalonica