Time With Julie

I now that we have been posting a lot of blogs about what Greg has been doing at school and on the children so this time we wanted to share with you what Julie has being doing through out her days and some special moments since we arrived in Michigan!

What Julie Has Been Doing
Thankfully, my day doesn't start as early as Greg's or I would be in serious trouble because I am NOT a morning person.  So on school days I have to be up around 6:30 a.m. to start the morning ritual of trying to get the children up for school and to the bus on time.  I am happy to say that we have not missed the bus yet however, there has been two different times that the kids have had to run since the bus is waiting for them. Then comes my most favorite time of the day as I get to sit down with Franklin at the kitchen table and do school with him.  I love this one on one time with just him and helping his mind grow and learn new things.  One of our favorite things to do is on Wednesday's when we have the truck Franklin and I head to the library.  This library has two computers that are set up for children to use so of course my computer child makes a bee line for one.  There are also lots of comic books which are great for Franklin as he has a hard time with just reading so if he has lots of pictures to go along with the reading it works great for him. After we are done with his school then comes the fun time of doing normal things like tackling the dishes, picking up the toys that I have been stepping on, finding something for supper, and sneaking in some fun time by doing a little reading myself.  Another fun part of my day is keeping in contact with all of our friends and supporters.  I love answering emails (however depending on the day it may take me a while to answer), writing thank you cards, or setting up meetings with churches or friends to share with about MAF.  Since we are still trying to finish raising our support we try to spend our weekends out meeting new people, sharing at Churches, and catching up with family that we haven't seen in awhile. Then on Thursdays comes a pause from school work as I have joined a ladies bible study that I am greatly enjoying.  We are doing a Beth Moore study that I have already done so I am enjoying seeing how much God has been changing me through these past years.  I remember the first time I did this study and I thought that I couldn't possible do what she was saying but it is really amazing what God can do when you let go and really let Him lead.

Julie's Special Moments and Blessings We Have Received


At the beginning of this month our family was able to attend a Granger Family Christmas party for only the second time in thirteen years.  I was able to visit with my cousins and for a few of them get to meet spouses that I really have not met before.  Then came the fun of trying to figure out which little child belong to which of my cousins as they all ran around playing with each other.  I will admit that I was wrong most of the time on who belonged with who.  It was a great time of sharing as a lot of them had questions about our work with MAF.

A few weeks ago I was able to attend a church basketball game with Isaac and Franklin that my father was playing in.  It was the children's first time cheer for their grandpa and let me tell you those boys know how to cheer loudly.  My dad said later that it was really neat and strange to have his grand kids cheer so loudly for him.  At the game I had a wonderful surprise of running into people who I knew my last year of high school from church.  It was fun to see them and be able to share with them what I have been up to these past thirteen years.

Last weekend I had a blast directing the children's program for our Church.  It was a last minute idea so I will admit that there was a lot of stress involved with it but just so much fun.  This was a great time for me as I was able to get to know the children better and I was able to help in an area that I love working in.

A HUGE blessing that we received as a family came from a Church that we have never even meat before but has been involved with SMAT for a while.  They take all the families in Greg's school and basically adopts them for Christmas every year.  The bought all the children new coats, snow pants, and boots a month and a half ago.  Then they brought presents over for all the children and not just one gift but everyone of them had a least four packages to open.  Talk about some really excited children that night!  However, they didn't stop with that as they carried in bags and bags of food into the house.  It cover every counter in our kitchen and we had to put some on the floor.  And this Church did it for every family that attended school with Greg!  Talk about an amazing outreach!  We are extremely gratefully for them and want to thank them for all that they have done for us!

Trust that your Christmas was filled with the wonderful blessings from our Lord.
Blessings
The Dole family.

Welding, Flying, Airframe Electrical & Fabric Pics

I thought we were due for somemore pictures of what I have been doing these past few weeks at school.  We have just finished up welding, and airframe electrical, and will be finishing fabric at the end of next week.

Learning how to gas weld.

A lake between Ionia & Greenville.

Ionia at dusk.

Back side of our groups electrical project early on.

Front side of our groups electrical project early on.

Project all wired up.

Showing it off to the rest of the class

Aileron before.

Aileron's insides

Making repairs to the ribs.

Ready for fabric.

Ready for the iron to tighten it up.

First coat of Poly-Brush many yet to go.

After a couple coats of Poly-Spray which is for UV protection.

First coat of Poly-Tone for color.

Masking our registration letters Canadian style.

Waiting for the paint to dry.

All finished

US Online Donations

Just a quick update for any US resident that are thinking about joining our ministry partnership team and would like to use the internet to make a donation.  This option is now available on MAF US's new website.  We are not listed among the missionaries but we can be found by going directly to www.maf.org/dole or search for our name or project number on the Donation page under the Giving Search tab.

Thankfulness

        This past week our family celebrated our first American Thanksgiving on American soil!  So staying true to what most women do I spent the first few days this week cleaning my house from top to bottom before my parents arrived for the big event. My parents were able to come on Wednesday night and stay with us until mid-morning on Saturday.  Then my brother arrived like all true college students around 1:30 AM on Thursday morning for a couple days.  Since my brothers bed is on our couch he made a great landing site for three very excited children when they woke up on Thursday morning.  Which I might add that meant that Greg and I got to sleep in because the children where busy with their uncle and grandparents and never noticed that their parents were missing. Then much to the children's great joy my sister and her husband came up for dinner and topped off the meal by bringing two tasty chocolate pies.  As we were about to thank our God for the wonderful food my mother pointed out that this was the first time in thirteen years that all of her children were under one roof for a Thanksgiving meal. As most family dinners go we spent the day eating wonderful food, watching a football game, and laughing at the children as they tried to figure out games that their uncle had brought for them to play.  And of course walking into the kitchen and facing down the mountain of dishes that always appear at the end of a meal!  Then on Friday we braved the crowds and entered a mall and then got even braver and entered my brothers college apartment (shared with two other guys) and decorated it for Christmas. And then we headed over to were my brothers new job (Arby's) and watched him make us all supper for a change! Over all it was a great time for our family as we spent time sharing time with each other and being thankful for everything and everyone that God has brought into our lives.  Since I have never lived close to my family I will cherish these memories and always be thankful to God for allowing this precious time with family before we head overseas. With our minds focusing on thankfulness our family wants to extend a heart felt thank you to all of those that up hold us in prayer and invest in this ministry, as we continue to study and serve here in Michigan. Our family could not do what God has asked us to do without all the wonderful support that you have shown us and our family.  We are so thankful for each and everyone of you that God has brought into our lives and are so blessed by how you have enriched our own lives!  Thank you and God bless!!

Quick before Dad sees us with his computer

Our First Michigan Christmas Tree

Grandma Time

The life of "some" college students

Arby's right hand man

Working hard or hardly working?

Lookout Michigan, now have wings and ready to use them

Preflight complete, ready for departure.

Stop at Plainwell for lunch.

Support Changes

This past week God has open the door for our support team to grow even more than before.  You may have noticed that our support levels appear to have lowered however they have rather changed due to the following letter we received from our head office this weekend.

As we march forward with the commission to which we have been called, we are taking measures to ensure the health and sustainability of our missionary support system. Our Ministry Partnership support target is currently $6,000 per month for our families and $4,000 per month for singles. During the last five years that these targets have been in place, the costs of most goods and services have risen. We have also consulted with MAF-US which recently raised their targets to $7,200 per month for families and $6000 per month for singles. To address the increased cost of doing mission, we at MAFC have decided that it is prudent to adjust our missionary partnership targets by ten percent to $6,600 a month for families and $4,400 a month for singles, effective January 1, 2012.

In general our family is doing well.  The kids are done with school now for Thanksgiving holiday.  Julie is working hard at getting our house ready for thanksgiving as we have the honor of hosting Thanksgiving supper with Julie's family.  I have had the chance to do a little fling recently, it's felt good to be back in the air again.

Thank you for being apart of our team, blessings
Greg, Julie, Franklin, Isaac & Jaclynn
  

Crunch Time

Well it's hard to believe that we have been here almost 3 months now.  And in a couple weeks from now we will have the General portion of the course complete and will be able to get the first of our three written exams done and out of the way.  I'm looking forward to finishing up the General as we move into the Air-frame course I believe we will find ourselves in the shop more doing hands on projects and less in the classroom working through theory related things.  Some of the different things we have been doing over the past couple weeks.  We have been weighting a lot of different types of airplanes and calculating their empty weights and where the centre of gravity is on each one.  Also just finished up a drawing class which is not a strong subject for me other than it was more of a old fashion drafting course so I didn't have to do any free hand drawing thankfully.  I ended up doing okay in the class as drawing straight lines with a ruler isn't so bad after all.  Thank you for all your prayers and support this couldn't be possible without you standing with us.

Getting the helicopter ready to weight.

Someone forgot to tell Phil that Empty Weights don't include the removable ballast.

Our drawing assignment.

A beautiful sun rise a couple mornings ago.

Blessings

October Highlights

Greetings
      It seems hard to believe that October has almost come and gone already.  It seem like it was just the other day that I started my course here at SMAT and today marks the 2 month mark.  Through this month our family has enjoyed some wonderful experiences and fun times!

Highlights

I've spotted the enemy!

- Franklin picked up a book the other day while we were traveling into town and read it to his brother and sister all on his own initiative which was a wonderful thing to hear.  After he had read it to them a couple of times he started to teach Jaclynn how to read the words.  We are seeing some good improvements with his school work and this was a wonderful highlight for us as parents.  Our family would also like to thank everyone who has been helping us with purchasing extra reading materail and for all your many prayers for Franklin.

- I got a check out in a Cessna 172 from the locate operator here at the airport.  It was nice getting back in the air.

Are we ready troops?

- I have also had the privilege of sharing about the work of MAF and working on my preaching skills at a couple churches this month.  At one of these churches Julie ran into an old school mate that she has not seen for many years. It was fun to reconnect with her and meet her family!

Taking time to smell the flowers

The Local Biker's Gang

- Franklin and I were invited on a Sunday afternoon bike ride a few weeks back with some of the families from Church.  Well, this nice bike ride turned into  three and a half hours of riding on some beautiful bike travels.  The trails were full of brightly colored trees and we even found a few snakes along the way that needed to be looked at!

Beautiful Fall Day

See dad this is were I spend my time at school

Sporting the symbol of Canada on my US Locker

- Isaac, Jaclynn, Franklin, and Julie joined all the students at Clarksville School on afternoon for a walk-a-hon to raise money.  It turned out to be a wonderful day and a great time of laughter as the children enjoyed getting out of classwork time. Actually they should of called in a run-a-hon because all the kids did was run and the parents tried to keep up by walking really fast!

Mmm Mmm Good

- Isaac and Jaclynn's school had a carnival this past weekend that we got attend as a family on Saturday. Even Grandpa and Grandma came up for the big event for the weekend.

Hands up Mister

-Julie has even been able to set up a daily schedule for the children which is starting to make life a little easier for her.  After a whole year of constant change and not having any kind of schedule it feels good to have one again!

I Got it!!

I Don't Got it!

The Dole Monkeys

Blessings

The Dole Family