A little over 3 months ago we stepped off the airplane in Chicago and began a new adventure!  Even though we had been back to the US each of the 4 summers that we lived in Kenya, this felt different. This was the start of a something new.

We have new contact info!
Mark cell: 515-336-4749 & marksisler4@gmail.com
Liz cell: 515-443-2938 & lizsisler2@gmail.com

Its amazing the feelings and emotions that you go through as you try to think through starting life over 8000 miles away from where you currently live.

Ever since God began to show us His direction for this change, our family started to pray about all the unknowns.  We prayed for all of the details in moving our family, all the different transitions and logistics, even  the extra bags that would need to be taken back with us! We laid before the Lord our boys and prayed for new friendships, we prayed that God would graciously bring kids into their lives so that they would feel welcome in their new home.  We prayed that Liz and I would make new friends, that we would be known in Des Moines. We asked God for His guidance and direction with all the unknown decisions that faced us.

We want to share that God in His infinite kindness, answered each of our prayers in some unique way.  We want to share some of them here.

We had been praying for God to lead us to a new church:

Friends of ours in Kenya used to be on staff at Valley church in West Des Moines.  This church would send out teams to Kenya in past years to help lead a women’s conference for missionary women.  They sent a team in May for one of these trips.   When this church heard that we were moving to the area (Des Moines) they offered to take back our extra bags (saving us a lot of money).    We also had the privilege of meeting some of their team while we were still living in Kenya.  This gave us an immediate connection to a few people as well as this church.  We went from being completely unknown to this new city, to having a few familiar faces.  Both Jaden and Josiah had a midweek morning program at Valley church for their ages that they attended the week we moved.  Jaden made some instant connections and asked if this could be our new church.  Coming in as a 7^th grader, his reaction was indeed an answer to prayer. This was the final nudging that God gave us that this was the church he was leading us to.

We had prayed for new friends, and to be known:
In our first week in Iowa, a family invited us out for lunch after church to a brick oven pizza restaurant. For those of you that don’t know we love pizza, and we had just said goodbye to our own brick oven that we had used so many times in Kenya to provide pizza for so many.  A few days later a family we had just met invited us to their house for “outdoor pizza”.  When we showed up we walked around back to see a brick oven getting fired up!  Liz and I both sensed Gods humor in using pizza to show us that he was helping us to be known.  This was just the beginning of God using our new church to help us to feel welcome and cared for.

We had prayed for new friends for Jaden & Josiah:  After a few days of moving in we discovered some neighborhood kids that were similar in age to our boys.  Within a few weeks our boys were making new friends and getting invited to a birthday party and getting together with kids their age from church.  We kept reminding them that God was answering our prayers in very clear ways! They have also adjusted well to their new school, Des Moines Christian School, for which we are extremely thankful!

We were pleasantly surprised to find so much green space, creeks, and bike paths around our new home. God’s beauty is everywhere, we just have to look for it!

These are just a few examples of Gods faithfulness to our family.  We have been so grateful for all of your prayers for our family as we have begun to settle in to live here in Iowa.

Mark presenting to some of the Young Life staff in the region.

The last month I (Mark) have begun to travel all over Iowa to survey the current Young Life areas and pray that God would reveal to me His plans for new areas in the years ahead.  I have met most of the Young Life staff in our region and went on a fall retreat with them a few weeks ago.  I have put over 3000 miles on my car going to “the ends” of Iowa since Aug 1.  It has been a blessing to begin ministry here start the process of reaching more students for Christ.

Praising God for His faithfulness and kindness to our family through these past 4 months of transition.

Please continue to pray for Gods leading as we seek His direction and leading for the ministry He has called us to.