Merry Christmas Eve!!

Merry Christmas!

We are so happy that we have friends like you to share our holidays with!
It really has been such a wonderful year. Last Spring we moved to Ft Collins to start a brand new YWAM ministry called “Catalyst.” Our focus is on helping young people tap into their potential for positive change in local communities. In May we made the big jump and haven’t had time to look back since!

FAMILY
It is so great to be close to home. We are making up for lost time. We stayed at Teresa and Kelly’s house during the summer so that we could find a nice place to live that would fit within our budget. We did! We leased a great older house right across the street from the Public Library in the heart of Old Town! It is an awesome place for ministry and we have been hosting Bible studies ever since!
Becca and Jessica spend almost every Friday night over at Aunt Teresa’s house with their cousins Kelsey and Brant (Kort and Bobbie’s kids). They come back worn out with and full of great stories! On days off from school, Grampy and Grammy usually take them on some educational adventure.

SCHOOL
We decided to try out public school this year and the kids are doing great! They have both been featured in school assemblies for their good behavior and achievements. Jessie is in the violin program and she can make Kona, our golden retriever, howl like no one else! Becca was selected for the district honor choir. It is so nice to see the investment we have made in their character paying off in the way they treat classmates. They are growing like weeds and having a lot of fun along the way!

BANK
Denise went to work at the 1st National Bank where she had worked when we lived here in 2000. The extra income and health benefits have been very helpful. She has quickly been given a number of responsibilities and she was even featured on the FNB internal website for her customer service skills!

NINE70
Over the summer we integrated into the young adults ministry at Timberline Church (called “nine70”) where made about 250 new friends. In partnership with nine70 we have started:
• a campus organization at Colorado State University.
• an outreach team focused on reaching students at CSU.
• an intensive discipleship program for college students and young professionals.
• a leadership development course for about 25 young leaders in nine70
• meeting one-on-one for ‘life coaching’ with various young adults
All of this dynamic stuff is happening trough the context of a local church!

TIMBERLINE MISSIONS CONFERENCE
One of the reasons we move to Ft Collins was to develop stronger relationships within our home church. Less than three weeks before the annual Timberline Missions Conference an unforeseen situation occurred and the church leaders asked us to take over coordinating the whole event. It was a mad scramble but with the help of 50 volunteers on 8 different teams we ended up pulling off the best event ever! It was a full weekend event with a dozen represented ministries and international guests… ending with a catered banquet for over 850 in multiple venues with streaming live video!! Crazy! What an opportunity to establish new relationships! Since then we have been invited to be on an advisory team to help determine the future direction of Timberline Missions and Outreach programs. Really crazy!!

ONE
We have been mentoring a small group of campus organization leaders who run an event called “ONE.” This semester’s ONE brought about 400 Christian students together from various campus orgs for a night of worship and prayer focused on unity. There were 9 ministries represented in the worship band alone! It was AMAZING!

YWAM
In addition to this we have continued to work with YWAM, mostly helping with communications teams and research. Denise did thousands of dollars worth of free translations for YWAM Latincom.
We have three CSU students that are interested in doing internships with YWAM Catalyst. One young lady is working on a BA in organic agriculture and wants to work with sustainable nutrition in developing countries. We may already have a project in Sierra Leon in the works and she has recruited another organic ag major and a nutritionist to help too! We have a young man doing a BA in business who is interested in helping us with Organizational Development and another is interested in an internship doing construction management. We also looking into working with a PhD candidate in Environmental economics who has experience in sustainable agriculture in developing countries.

THESIS
There isn’t much time to add anything else in, but it is in there anyway. I am working on the research for my Master’s thesis which needs to be finished next spring. I have looked into a PhD program focused on “Religion and social change” at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, but may have to wait another year.

RECESSION
I know that this is a worrisome time for many of you. As a family walking by faith, we can tell you that GOD IS FAITHFUL. No matter how crazy the economy seems, God is able to take care of you.
We have also noticed a drop in our financial support in the past few months. If you would be interested in joining us as a financial partner, we sure would appreciate it! We are in the process of redefining how we do financial support so that we can be much more relational. Exciting changes are coming soon!

Have a very "Merry Christmas!"

We love you all!

Dustin, Denise, Becca and Jessie