Pushing Daisies

I had my birthday a few weeks ago, and I told Mike that I didn't really want anything. Like a good husband, he insisted for ideas, and I finally told him I just wanted something that represented this amazing past year. Something beautiful and romantic and meaningful that would represent and remind me of the past year I never could have expected when I turned 22 last year.

He bought me a DVD.

"We were going to buy it anyway," he shrugged. Oh, thanks, honey.

The DVD he bought me was the second and final (!) season of ABC's Pushing Daisies. The premise of the show is this: Ned, the pie maker, has a unique ability to bring back the dead with a simple touch. If he touches it again, it dies permanently. If he doesn't touch it again within one minute, something else nearby must die in its place.

Note: Sounds a bit morbid, right? Believe it or not, it's actually one of the brightest, most colorful (literally), happiest shows to be on television! The show is told in a storybook fashion with outlandish sets, costumes, and characters. I highly recommend it!

Bear with me here. I feel like I've been touched by Ned.

Our travels, our experiences, David, trusting God with finances, etc... I feel like this past year was a chance to come back to life, to see things new, to get a second chance. I wasn't touched again in a minute, and some many of my materialistic habits and commercial mindsets are slowly by surely dying. I feel like I am seeing everything differently, and that comes with this childish excitement that makes me want to do! I want to be like like Chuck, the girl from Pushing Daisies who has a second chance at life and is so excited about everything, so driven to make things count this time around.

So, Mike, your birthday gift was spot-on after all. And I look forward to sitting on our old more-purple-than-navy couch in our new living room and drinking fruit smoothies while we finish the season. Here's to many more.


Thank you for following us on this part of journey. We're going to leave this blog up, but we won't be posting on it for now. My hope is that God sends us somewhere again that has us needing it once more. For now, stay posted on our personal blogs. They've been neglected since we started this one, but we're going back! :-)

Our last post was titled "Home." And that is where we are. We are settled into Grand Rapids, MI for as long as our lease has us here. We are peaceful and scared and excited and nervous and just about everything else we've felt in the past year. It's exactly where we want to be.

Smitten with the Mitten

As you have probably heard by now, Mike and I are officially moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan!

The original plan was to be here for the summer, then head back to Philadelphia to get an MSW degree so that I'd be qualified to jump into some anti-trafficking work. Well, after arriving here, we've been overwhelmed by opportunities to get involved right now. It's a very long story, but, essentially, after processing all of the things we felt God teaching us the last six months, it became clear that Grand Rapids is the next step in our lives. If you want the long story, give us a call.

I'm still enjoying my internship with The SOLD Project, and we're saving money to visit Thailand for two weeks in January with the organization. Also, I interviewed with Women at Risk International and will volunteer with them each week. Also, we just met with a small group helping brainstorm for fundraising with The Hope Project, a forthcoming safe-house here in Michigan for children rescued from sexual exploitation. Yep, it's here in West Michigan, too. We are hoping this is a start of an opportunity for Heather to be involved full-time in this area of ministry. At the very least, within two weeks of living here, we've already met four other 20-something girls in Grand Rapids who have a heart for human trafficking!

Mike is really enjoying his work with Dot&Cross. He mostly works with Josh Shipp, who gives quality advice that is "in your face, but on your side" to teens. Check out the blog Mike is managing at HeyJosh.com. I'm also assisting Amy with her photography business and loving all the time she is getting to hang out with her awesome sister!

We are moving at the end of August into a house in Heritage Hill, the circa 1900's neighborhood in downtown Grand Rapids. Our new home is part of a large house transformed into apartments in the 1940's. It has beautiful hardwood floors and original crown-molding. The best part is that Mike can walk to work!

Interesting side note: Rumor has is Gerald Ford (who just so happened to be born in Omaha) lived in our house from 1948-1950. My Wikipedia research reveals that this would make it his first home with Betty after their marriage. I'm guessing their firstborn caused them to move out in 1950. (David informs us that many Grand Rapids locations claim such status, so we're looking into it.)

We've already been loving our time with David and Amy, not to mention their two cats, Pegasus and Other Kitty. We are so thankful for the opportunity to be with them and get to know our brother and sister even better. They have been more than generous in helping us get settled (and introducing us to the best local Thai and Indian food!), and we don't even know where to begin repaying them. For updates on David and Amy, visit their respective blogs at jumpdavidjump.com and blog.amywenzel.com

We'll be visiting the Philadelphia area (and getting our stuff from storage) during the third week of August. We'd love to see you! Please shoot us an e-mail at colletto.heather@gmail.com if you'd like to get together with us.

P.S. - Philly friends, if you know of anyone or organization who needs some furniture or books for whatever reason, please let us know.

Away to Grand Rapids

Hello,

After two fantastic weeks in Chaska, MN with our dear friends, Brittany and Andrew, Mike and I road-tripped on over to Grand Rapids, MI, David and Amy's hometown a few days ago.

Any suspicions that I have the best big brother in the world have been confirmed. David has worked with his business partners to provide us a great(!!) deal on a nearby apartment. Mike has started to work on some projects with David's company, Dot&Cross. I am helping out Amy with some administrative work for her photography business, Amy Wenzel Photography. We are very overwhelmed by their generosity. David has always been one of my biggest cheerleaders in life, and though this summer is under the guise of us helping them out, that's really a big lie and David and Amy are going above and beyond the call of sibling duty to look out for us!

I'm moving into Phase II of my internship with The SOLD Project. They are a fantastic CA-based organization that focuses of awareness and prevention of child prostitution in Thailand. The girls that founded and run the organization are incredible, and it has been a privilege to work with them. The next step is organizing a film screening of the SOLD film. Thankfully, I know a guy in this town who has some connections...

Mike and I are in a state of learning and wondering. How is God going to use us? Where does he want us? How do we find out? Please pray with us while we wait patiently for his guidance, because we're ready to do some big stuff for him. We just want to know where and how and when and with who. :-) If anyone gets a text message from God with this information, please let us know. We'll keep you posted!

"But we've got our love to pay the bills..."

We're "home," loosely speaking. We've already been back in the States for more than two weeks; still, it's a bit strange to be back on this side of the Atlantic in the land of cars and obesity and giant grocery stores.

Heather and I packed up our lives in Bratislava a few weeks early when we heard about David's brain tumor and caught an earlier flight back. We arrived in Omaha, met Heather's sister Angie and her two beautiful girls at the airport the next day, and road-tripped out to Rochester, MN together to spend the week with David and Amy and (most of) the rest of the family. When David and Amy returned to their home to regroup before further treatment, the rest of us parted ways.

So, for the past week, we've been living with our friends Brittany and Andrew up in Chaska, MN. It's been a wonderfully relaxing (and even somewhat productive) time--talking, reading, watching movies, cooking, wrapping up work for TWR, riding bikes for the first time in forever, and learning to play Speed Scrabble.

What's next? We're not sure. And, let me tell you, that's a very unsettling thing to hear yourself say.

There are two questions Heather and I have been getting more than any other: 1) "So, where are you from?" and 2) "What are your plans?" The first question turns out to be much harder to answer than it should be: "Uh, Philadelphia. But we've been living in Slovakia for the last six months. Actually, Heather's from Omaha and I grew up outside Philadelphia. But we met in Ohio and both ended up back in the Philadelphia area which is where we started dating and everything. So we spent the first year of our marriage in West Chester, just outside Philly. But we don't live anywhere now." Concern and surprise usually lead to the second question, to which we respond with a reassuring "We don't know. We don't really have anything lined up." Jobs? Not really. Place to live? No. Are you busy this Thursday? No idea.

So, "home" is where we are. We're vagrants. Nomads. At present, the only place we have to call our own is a Honda Civic and a storage unit on the East Coast. Which pretty much makes us homeless...save for the hospitality of others. As Ingrid Michaelson sings, "we might not have any money, but we've got our love to pay the bills."

Believe it or not, we're fairly content. Don't get me wrong, we hope to find an apartment somewhere and unpack our bags at some point. And we hope to receive some clue or direction about what cause or causes we should dedicate the next phase of our life to. But we're confident that God will provide for us. In the meantime, there's no need to worry. There really isn't.

We have all we need.

P.S. God is continuing to answer the prayers of many regarding David. Why are we surprised when God works miracles? Read the updates at jumpdavidjump.com

Note: Thanks to Mike for letting us steal this post from his personal blog. -Heather

"Home"

Dear friends,

We cannot quite believe it, but we are writing this from Omaha, Nebraska. Through a lot of prayer, hard decisions, and tearful good-byes, we decided to leave Slovakia two weeks early to return home to the States to be with my family during this difficult time.

As you know, David, my older brother, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He will be in a lot of important tests this week at the Mayo Clinic and, hopefully, will be having brain surgery this week; his tests Tuesday will tell us more.

Though it wasn't easy, we feel at peace about this decision, which was made over a lot of prayer. Of course, my immediate desire was to return home, but it just didn't seem logistically possible. We couldn't see how we could work out all of the details on time. Still, I couldn't get it off of our mind. I spoke with our old boss, Barbara, who recently moved to TWR in the States. She traveled extensively with David and Amy in 2006 for the Epic Stories and is lifelong friends with our own, the Amstutz family. We felt she would be a good person to speak with, knowing both the TWR side and the family side. Her words of encouragement were so helpful. We called the travel agent to see if a flight-date change was even possible. With only two seats left on any possible flight from O'Hare to Omaha, she could book them if we told her right away. Yikes!

That night, Mike and I talked things over and went straight to prayer asking God what on earth was the right thing to do. God knows our past and present and future like it is all on the same page; we serve a loving God that cares about these details of our lives because He is absolutely crazy about us. After praying, Mike said, "I think we should pack." Heck no, I wasn't packing only to unpack after we decided to stay--that would be so hard! But I felt like God was asking me to take a step of faith. We packed; we were even already half-packed because we did some while my parents were here. We packed, looked at our bags, and said "Now what?" We prayed again and asked friends to pray with us. Because of the travel agent's timing, we needed to make a decision in thirty minutes! We prayed, both feeling uncertain, and knew God would answer. Sure enough, with about 2 minutes to spare, our friends in Bratislava messaged us and (not knowing our personal concerns at all) and encouraged us to not worry so much about our responsibilities here. Coming from a couple who just made a tough decision to stay one more year in Slovakia even though a lot of tough things are happening with their family back home, this meant a lot to us. Mike and I looked at each other and pretty much at the same time said, "We need to go home." We immediately felt peace!

Things came together beautifully, proving God's provision. I had randomly cleaned up my messy office last week on a whim. We had some guys from AIM's World Race missions team staying with us who assisted us in cleaning our apartment, finalizing things there and (I'm sure this part is a lot of sacrifice) eating all the food in our cabinet and fridge. Our dear church, CityLight (Calvary Chapel Bratislava), held a small good-bye gathering the very next day. Heather, my best friend in Slovakia, was able to spend the whole day with us. That last night, we sat in the beautiful Bratislava Main Square eating at our favorite place and soaking it all in as the sun set behind the clouds. Amen.

We apologize for not letting you know sooner. We made our decision late Thursday night, worked like crazy for our suddenly "last day," then made the rounds on Saturday for a wonderful last day in Bratislava with dear friends. We were in Omaha by Sunday night local time. Early Tuesday morning, we are driving up to Mayo Clinic with my sister, Angie, and her two daughters. Tonight, we are having dinner with our dear, dear Omaha family who have always been there for us.

We'll post more later, but we have to run to the airport to pick up Angie. We just wanted to let our friends and supporters know about our decision. Remember those earlier blogs whining about why God won't let us stay past June? Ha. He truly does know the past, present, and future. I am so glad we are in His hands.

Stay posted on David at his blog jumpdavidjump.com and enjoy Amy's own blog, blog.amywenzel.com. We'll post again here.

By the way, NO idea how this changes our summer plans. No job plans in the fal for Mike, we don't know where we're living, etc. But we don't care. We're praying God brings things when they need to come and we're open to them. This life of trust is wonderful and scary and fantastic.

Prayer for David

Dear friends,

Please pray for our big brother, David. He was diagnosed this week with a brain tumor, and he and his wife are on their way to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for a biopsy and treatment with (praise God!) the head of Mayo's neurosurgery department. He has his first appointment Thursday morning.

David was in California on business when he hit his head and started to feel strange. The next morning, he had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. Subsequent tests revealed a brain tumor in the front of David's brain that has been growing slowly for the past couple of years. His "accident" saved his life! Amy, his wife, was able to be at his side in California several says later. Check out David's blog for the full story and updates. Amy's blog will post updates as well.

We are praising God for so many ways that he has already shown his sovereignty and goodness. Just last month, David and Amy felt led to move into a smaller home. Our dear, lifelong family friends from Omaha just "happened" to be in the next town over from David's hospitalization; their family has been through a very similar circumstance in the past. My parents, visiting us in Europe, were able to fly back early at hardly any cost to them. The best clinic possible for David is just a day's drive from their home. Facebook got hundreds of people praying immediately. Skype enabled our family to be in contact and stay updated, even across the world. From a TWR perspective, what a reminder that God uses technology for his purposes!

God is using David and Amy for his good and perfect work, and though it is a challenge, they are not shying away from sharing their love for God in and through all things.

Thank you,

Heather and Mike

Growing up in Communism: Our Colleague's Story

Tina is our dear friend and colleague here in Bratislava. She is a native Slovak and does a fantastic job as our photographer and print journalist. (Her photos are amazing!) Tina was here last time Heather was in Slovakia in 2006 and really made her time here memorable.

It was Tina who told me when were in IKEA that she couldn't believe they were selling red kitchens. I asked her what she meant, and she explained that, under Communism, even the colors of their rugs/carpet were chosen for them; for example, they could choose yellow with red dots or white with yellow dots. Tina says she and her father used to go hiking to the top of the mountain, and her dad would point to Austria and explain about the Western world. The things we read about in history books, you know?

We asked Tina to write a bit about her history, and we are SO thankful she obliged. In her own words...

"My grandfather was a Baptist minister from Ukraine. After World War II, he came to live in Slovakia and joined a small church where he served as a lay pastor. I can still remember the smell of his aftershave—saved for special occasions—and the smell of his freshly-ironed white shirt as he prepared for church each Sunday morning. One day, during my summer vacation, I remember opening a cabinet where I found many smuggled Bibles and Christian literature. He explained to me to keep quiet about what I saw.

"My parents were also actively involved in church work during Communism. At that time, any Christian media was forbidden, but the TWR´s radio waves from Monte Carlo were still able to cross the Iron Curtain. I learned about TWR radio by watching my parents and grandparents secretly listening to it during the night. Now, each time I host a music radio show on a TWR´s [National Slovak Partner] Radio7, I feel very privileged that we have the religious freedom to do so. Only 20 years ago, it wasn´t an option and I could have ended up in jail for doing so."

For more about the work TWR did to pierce the Iron Curtain, read about Mike's trip to Bulgaria. Or meet Albert, our Albanian Partner, who first learned about Jesus through Monte Carlo's TWR broadcasts in the 80's while he was scanning the airwaves for enemy radio signals working as leader in the Communist Army. Olexander, TWR's director in Ukraine, tells a similar story of the government placing radios in each home for Communist propaganda. Olexander's grandmother and her church were frightened, but their pastor was confident that God's word would one day come through those waves. Olexander's programs are now being broadcast through his grandmother's radio.

P.S. - Sorry for the delay in writing. The Wenzels' are here visiting and keeping us busy!