Dear Friends,

Perhaps you have noticed things here gradually slowing down, but I wanted to share with you today that I am officially putting Missionary Moms on an indefinite hold. I have so very much enjoyed having the opportunity to relate with you amazing women here and have been tremendously blessed and encouraged by your faith and friendship, but God has clearly shown me that now is the time for me to say goodbye to blogging for an extended time.

The primary reasons are simply that life right now is very full and I feel like I need to devote the energy that I used to have for writing and hosting this blog to other things for a time, as well as that I just feel God leading me out of a time of sharing so frequently what is on my heart and mind and into a time more of listening and learning.  I felt led by God to start this blog and so enjoyed sharing with you here via this forum, and though it is sad for me, I feel equally as led by Him to step away for now. I hope to restart the blog sometime in the future, but God has not yet revealed to me any details about this.

I have a huge heart for all of you dear women all around the world who are living the life that you are for the sake of the gospel, and I wanted to let you know that I will still be praying for you and look forward to visiting your blogs and praying for your families and ministries! (And still feel free to email me if you’d like to talk or pray! formissionarymoms@gmail.com)

The content of this blog will remain online, and you can find links to all of the contributors’ blogs on the “Contributors” page. I will also periodically update our family blog (TheLatvalasInRussia.wordpress.com) if you would like to keep up with me there, but I confess that I am not very good about keeping it current. However, our family has just begun the adoption journey and I may share bits and pieces about that, as God’s leads, in hopes that others too might consider reaching out in various ways to the many orphaned children in our world. We are no experts and this journey is entirely new to us, but perhaps God might use pieces of our journey, as He has used the journeys of others in our lives,  in some way to move in the hearts of others for the sake of the orphan?

Lastly, I have something exciting to share with you! I have been praying that God would call other people to provide more online resources for missionary moms and had even planned a little section in this last post to ask you friends to pray and consider starting a blog/blogs to meet this need.  Guess what?! Even before I had a chance to share this need publicly, Phyllis emailed me to see what I thought about her starting a new place online for missionary moms to gather while this blog is on hold! What an answer to prayer! Also, she is asking for YOU to consider if you might like to contribute posts to the new blog to make it a place where many women can take part in ministering to one another. I just love her vision! Here is the link to her new blog, “Missionary Mom’s Companion.” Please add it to your reader and consider how you might be able to help her build this new place of community!

And if anyone else feels compelled to start any other missionary mom blogs either now or in the future, please let me know so I can share your link here! There is very far from an abundance of blogs for missionary moms, and it would be so exciting to see more spring up!

May God bless each of you tremendously as you love and serve the Lord and love and serve your beautiful families!

Much Love in Christ,

Ashley

Hello Friends!

Well, I had planned to keep things going here this week, but it looks like I’ll be taking a break for the next few days or so. I am away in Moscow, Russia right now taking a week-long intensive hermeneutics class…. all by myself! My loving husband stayed behind and is taking care of our 3 kids so I could have this chance to study, visit with friends, and even go to Starbucks! I miss my family terribly, but what a great week it has been! I thought I’d have more down time to get posts up (we have a couple of great guest posts coming up soon!), but there have just been too many great people to spend time with (and lots of homework to do) that I haven’t had as much computer time as I had anticipated. I look forward to getting things going again next week!

~Ashley

Hello friends!

Well, after a very long break, things here are getting started again! I am excited about the chances that we’ll have to share together about life as missionary moms!

I also just wanted to start with a little personal note to say once more that sharing life together and gleaning from each other is what this blog is all about. It has been written for a long time in my little bio on the contributors page, but as you probably have already figured out, I am not an expert mom or missionary.  God simply gave  me the desire to create this space for us to use to encourage one another and share about our joys and struggles in this life as mothers desiring to see God glorified in our lives and ministries.

One of the greatest encouragements and helps to me as a younger mom in a foreign place is the community of believers that I get to share life with here each day. Considering how just a few such relationships can be so life-giving, my desire was to create a place for us to gather in even greater community to learn from one another as well as to be encouraged as we share the wonderful unifying similarity of serving the same amazing God!

I look forward to sharing life with you again and am excited for you to get to hear not only from me, but also from our dear contributors who have some wonderful wisdom and experience to draw from. And don’t forget! The thoughts and experiences that you share in the comments are vital to this community! Please consider how God might use you to encourage other women around the world as you share what God has shown you and allowed you to experience in your own life.

It’s great to be back, and most of all, I look forward to hearing from you as we get going again! I hope you like the new look!

~Ashley

(Also, one of the many areas where cannot claim expertise is the area of technology. My desire is to continue getting the word out about Missionary Moms to women who might be encouraged by it, but time and know-how are my greatest limitations. Feel free to share this site with your own missionary mom friends if you think they might be encouraged by it. Thanks!)

I just wanted to stop in and say hello! I haven’t been online much this summer but just wanted to write a quick note to say that I am looking forward to getting things going again here in the coming months! You have been in my thoughts and prayers!

Our time in the States, in God’s sovereignty, was extended beyond what we had originally anticipated, so our break here is also being extended perhaps longer than it would have.

Like many of you, we raise our own support for our ministry in Russia, and this summer we ended up needing to raise quite a bit more than we had expected, thus the delay. It has been a chance to grow in our faith through trial, but in the end, God has blessed us so incredibly. Yes, he has blessed us by providing the finances that we need, for which we are in awe and incredibly grateful, but it seems just as much that His plan has been to bless us through trial, thus testing the genuineness of our faith (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Our forced absence has been a great reminder of the blessing that it is to be able to serve God in a place that we have grown to love so much and where God has grown us and shaped us so much over the years, both through joys and struggles. The thought came to me a number of times amidst this time of trial of how heartbroken I would be if I were never again to have the chance to serve God in Russia.  God has called us there, but for how long? Only He truly knows!  Life can be difficult in the places that each of us serve, but I really do believe that it is a great blessing to see God at work in these countries and cultures that He has created! None of us knows when we might unexpectedly need to move somewhere else, or be called back to the US by hardship, or illness, or political troubles, etc., so let’s not take this time or our ministries for granted!   I am excited to get back to Russia to make the most of my time there, knowing that my days there are numbered, even though I myself have no idea what that number is. Have you ever considered how you might view your time and your ministry differently if you knew that this would be your last year/month/week??? This was a new thought to me, and it has really jarred me and caused me to think and pray!

I hope each of you are doing well! I can’t wait to hear from you more often once things get going here again!

I am so excited to introduce you to our newest contributor! Actually, if you often read the comments here, you have likely been blessed already by the wisdom and experience that she has to share. Richelle is a blessed mother of eight who lives and serves in ministry in Niger. I have so often been blessed by what Richelle has shared and have been so encouraged by her faith in the Lord that I am absolutely thrilled that she has agreed to share more with here us by becoming a regular contributor.

Richelle’s first post will be up tomorrow, so be sure to check back! In the meantime, feel free to visit her blog “Our ‘Wright’-ing Pad.” Also, I have already added her to our contributors’ page here, but I wanted to included her bio below as well so she can introduce herself to you in her own words.

Richelle, we are so excited to hear the things that that the Lord puts on your heart to share with us!

Howdy! I can’t tell you how excited and delighted I am for the invitation to become a contributor to “Missionary Moms,” because, simply put, that’s just what I am: a missionary wife and mom who strives to love and follow Jesus with my whole heart. He IS my One and Only Savior! There’s nothing better than being married to my best friend, my fellow adventurer and explorer in raising our 8 marvelous gifts from God on the backside of the desert. In addition to baking bread and doing loads of laundry (my two favorite household chores – seriously!), I write scripts for children’s radio programs and teach lots – my kids at home, ladies’ bible studies at church, swimming and water polo at the MK school, special education and effective teaching strategies, whenever and where ever. Spare time is reserved for blogging, scrapbooking, reading and learning a third language. I’ve often stopped by “Missionary Moms” for ideas and encouragement and hope, in God’s grace and strength, to give back just a little of what I’ve received.

Sorry for the sudden lag in posts! There were two causes. First, my whole family has been quite sick for the past week and we’ve spent much time resting, taking care of one another, and going to the doctor, etc. Secondly, the blog server suddenly fell ill as well and would not let me post anything for a few days.

I have been hoping to get a post up here to let you know that Missionary Moms will be taking a break for the next month or so as I try to get myself and my family healthy again and as we are expecting our 3rd child next week! If I could add a quick personal prayer request in here, I’d treasure your prayers that I’d get over this illness before labor. I am sicker than I remember ever being and can’t imagine giving birth like this!

I may put up a post or two in the next month to say hello and to introduce our new baby, but other than that, there won’t be anything new until mid or late August.

If you have any prayer needs that you would like the women here to be in prayer for, please leave that request in the comments so we can all be praying for you!

Farewell until August! I’ll be praying that God richly blesses you in the coming month!

(Post by: Ashley)

Since the beginning of this blog, the hope has always been to provide community, encouragement, and resources in a way that YOU enjoy and feel blessed. It is my hope and prayer for this site to be used by God as a place to provide a little bit of extra encouragement to help you thrive in the work and life that He has called you to. That is why I wanted to take a minute in the midst of some  future planning to see what you would most look forward to seeing more of here at Missionary Moms.

Would you please take a brief moment to help me know what types of things you would enjoy having discussed here? Are there any other suggestions that you may have that would allow this site to better serve you? Do you have any fun ideas that you think we’d all enjoy? I very much look forward to hearing your thoughts and to seeing them shape what you see here!

(Post by: Ashley)

The day has finally come to begin introducing you to some of the new contributors! I am so excited! I picked each one of these women for very special reasons, and first and foremost because the love God and are faithfully serving Him and have much to share that I think will be an encouragement and help to us all. I am soon adding a new tab titled “contributors” where you will be able to see pictures and read little snippet about each writer. I’ll tell you a bit about each one here as well.

Debby Thompson- Debby has served as a missionary in Eastern Europe for over 30 years and is the wife of the former director of affairs of Campus Crusade for Christ in Eastern Europe and Russia. They just recently transitioned out of this role at the beginning of September and are following the Lord as he leads them into their next phase of life and ministry. They have had a tremendous influence on many thousands of lives, and I personally have been blessed and inspired by Debby’s amazing heart to see mothers thrive in overseas ministry. She has a passion for the gospel, is a wonderfully loving mother,  and has years of wisdom and experience raising children overseas. She even gave birth in a Polish hospital under communism! This woman is amazing!

Addie Gerlach- Addie is such an inspiration to me! She loves the Lord and is faithful to follow Him in whatever way He leads her. God has led Addie to begin the joyful journey of homeschooling. She has a wonderful heart and much creativity to share. I know that a number of you moms are also homeschooling or may consider it at some point, so I thought her experience would likely be a very enjoyed addition to the site. Specifically for you moms of pre-schoolers, Addie has some fantastic activities! We’ve done home pre-school a bit and she is my best source of ideas!

(I hope to soon have some women sharing about other wonderful schooling options as well.  National school, missionary school, international school… We’re weighing all of the options right now, as I expect many of you are, so hopefully we’ll collect some great perspectives to help guide us as we choose the best fit for our families. I’m on the look out for some more writers!)

Jami Gustafson- Jami is a dear friend and an amazing missionary mommy, but she is humble and won’t tell you that herself, so I’ll say it here! She lives and serves in ministry with SEND International in Siberia with her husband and sweet little girl. She has such a beautiful servant’s heart. I want to be like Jami! She has a wealth of wisdom and a joyful and encouraging spirit about her, and I think you will come away with much inspiration to love the Lord and love your neighbor as yourself after getting to know Jami here at Missionary Moms. I am particularly excited for us all to be encouraged by her in how to love people and serve in our communities.

Vickie LaClare- Vickie is one of the staff in charge of language learning for the overseas staff of Campus Crusade for Christ. I personally benefited greatly from her wisdom and training as we prepared to head overseas. She has a wealth of wisdom and some great resources to help you grasp the languages of your host country. She has volunteered to help with a language learning post from time to time, and I am so looking forward to it! Knowing how language helps us connect deeply to the hearts of those that we minister to, Vickie’s ministry has such a profound influence on the lives of many worldwide. May your language skills grow and be blessed by what she has to share!

(Also, I may still introduce you to one or more wonderful ladies who have encouragement to offer in this area as well!)

Amie C.- Amie is one of the most amazing moms that I know. She is loving, diligent, committed, and one of the things that I admire most about her is that she is a wonderful steward of the resources that God has entrusted her with. She is generous with what she has and makes an effort to live frugally in order to bless others. Seeing that many missionaries are on a tight budget, and as we should all desire to be good stewards of the financial blessings that God has given us, I have asked Amie to share with us on the topic of living frugally. She has some fantastic money saving tips, great make-it-yourself ideas, wonderful recipes, and more. You will be blessed!

Ana Degenaar- Ana is a loving and exceptionally talented missionary momma in Brazil. She has a beautiful heart to love and serve her family and loves to encourage other moms on the journey of motherhood as well. Not only is she a wonderful mother, but this lady has some serious technical skill when it comes to web design! One of the things that I have invited Ana to share about with us is on the topic of blogging as a way to connect with family, friends, and supporters back “home,” as well as how you can use it as a fabulous forum for ministry! Especially in today’s world, the internet is an incredible resource.

I also will of course continue to keep posting as much as always as it is such a joy for me to relate with all of you here! I am so excited also to have some others pouring wisdom and encouragement into this site in order to make it a greater resource. I hope you enjoy what is in store!

(***Some contributors may not be joining in right away due to some major life transitions, but they’ll be joining us when all is settled! )

Feel free to leave these ladies a little “hello” or “welcome” in the comments!