December 2004

Can you believe it has been 3 years since we moved to Madison?

Although we haven’t been as good about keeping in touch as we should have we have not forgotten you.

So you may wonder what is new in the French household theses days. Well we have been in our first house for about 17 months now. That has been really good but also adds lots of work to our already busy lives. We did quite a bit of work painting bathrooms and shutters over the summer as well as just trying to keep the lawn mowed.

Summer vacations

Our summer was full of beautiful warm days and several vacations with family.

We were able to spend the Forth of July with Wesley’s mom and dad at our house. His mom then drove with us to Washington, DC and we saw many of the nation’s historical monuments and several museums. We were able to visit Gettysburg, the Capital building, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR and WWII memorials, and a couple of the Smithsonian museums. It was great to see these sites and for me to see more of the country. It was the furthest East I had ever been in the US.

I also went the furthest North I had ever been (in North America) when my parents came to visit later in the summer. We were able to go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is a beautiful area, we were able to visit “Big Springs” state park and go to the top of an old lighthouse (Point Iroquois) on Lake Superior. Then we crossed the border at Sault St. Marie into CANADA. The weather was nice and we really enjoyed the time to visit with our family.

Over Labor Day weekend took a short trip to Las Vegas to go to a wedding of a good friend of our family and to see my parents again. It was a short trip but we did include a trip to the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton! It was good once again to see family and good friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time.

We ended our summer of traveling with a couple of camping trips. They have a lot of beautiful state parks in Wisconsin where we were able to camp. Not being too experienced with camping it was good to have some friends who are seasoned campers help us learn the right things to bring. Although it rained pretty hard both times it was refreshing to be outdoors and get away from all the business of life and just enjoy God’s creation.

InterVarsity

As Wesley’s three year anniversary of working for InterVarsity draws near (December 17) and mine (in March) we have both seen God’s hand at work.

Kimberly’s work

As I look back on the last three years I had no idea what God would have in store for me. A couple of months after we moved to Wisconsin I started as a part-time secretary in the Executive Office, for the President of InterVarsity. Other than babysitting this was my first “real job”. When his assistant left I temporarily took on that position. That was quite a leap of responsibilities and faith. While doing that I began working for another department as well, Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF). Once a permanent assistant for the Executive Office was hired I decided to work only for NCF.

“NCF is both a ministry and a professional organization. We bring the Good news of Jesus and Christ centered nursing to students, faculty and nurses thorough relationships, education, publications and a professional institute.” --www.ncf.jcn.org

Part of my job is to help keep our database of about 42,000 names up to date, send out brochures and publications for conferences, retreats, new student outreaches etc. We keep track of schools and nurses who have groups of people meeting regularly for Bible study and prayer. I have also helped my supervisor with prayer and fundraising letters, PowerPoint presentations and basic filing of this information. Needless to say although my work is part time I have plenty of work to do. It may not involve much one-on-one contact with nurses but I do know it is an important part of the ministry of reaching nurses and nursing students for Christ.  It has been awesome to see how God used the skills I had, and developed even more as I needed them. He has been faithful and has really helped me to grow through these experiences.

Wesley’s work

It has been a great year. I wish I could tell you all the things we have done in Information Services (otherwise known as the computer department) in the last year.

The first big thing was we had our Missions Conference (Urbana) last December. That took a lot of our time for a long time! Even after it is all over there is a lot of clean up work to do, and we are already one-third of the way to the next conference. After that I worked on the donation receipts. If you have donated to InterVarsity since September then you have gotten a chance to see some of my work. It’s great to know that some of my work goes out to so many of the people that support our ministry.

The big new thing we have been doing is involving the internet. We have been moving a lot of the things we do onto the internet so that InterVarsity’s staff all over the world can get the information they need whenever they need it. Instead of having to wait for the staff mail to come once a month with information that could already be out of date our staff can get it up to the minute.

Other ministry

Besides our work at InterVarsity we have become involved with our church (Gateway Community Church). We have made some close friends with people in our small group where we are currently studying the book Purpose Driven Life.  Wesley has taken on the job of running the sound system and I help out with nursery. We also help out with youth group activities and other ministries as we have the opportunity.

I also continue to be involved with Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). This year I am studying Acts. It is an awesome experience to study in depth the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the disciples and God’s Church. I have also been helping out the leaders of the group by watching their children (once a month) while they meet to prepare for leading us in our study. It is nice to be able to give back something to them, as they give up their time to help the rest of the women in the class learn more of God’s Word each week. This is my 7^th year in this Bible study and I cannot begin to imagine what my life would have been like had I not taken this wonderful opportunity I have had to study God’s Word.

Thanksgiving was spent in Colorado with my family. My two aunts, cousins live in Colorado Springs and my parents met us there to celebrate this occasion. We had lots of yummy food, and a really relaxing time with our family.

Christmas Eve we plan to go back to the Southwest to visit our family, and celebrate Christmas together. We are looking forward to this.

We haven’t been back for Christmas since our move north.

As soon as we get back to Wisconsin we get to do more traveling. Wesley and I will be attending Staff Conference in St. Louis.  This a our chance to enjoy the ministry, a chance for us to recharge, to meet others in InterVarsity and spend time in worship.  There will be lots of teaching and time for fellowship and really just connecting with the whole of InterVarsity.  This is especially exciting for us, because three years ago Staff Conference was the very first thing we did.

Pray for us

· Pray for us as we travel by plane to NM/TX for Christmas

· Pray for and as well as all our staff as we travel to St. Louis, Missouri January 5-9, 2005.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Blessings to you all,

For more about us visit our website www.wesandkim.com. We have finally updated this with new and exciting information about life in Wisconsin. Okay maybe it’s not that exciting but check it out anyway. Also, can learn more about our ministry at www.intervaristy.org If you are interested in supporting what we do you can do so online at www.intervarsity.org/donate. We appreciate your prayers as well as any financial support you may want to give to help us reach students for Christ. .