Hands Headlines

May 16th marked the 6-month anniversary of the Hand Clan living in Orlando.

The moving truck unloaded all our stuff on November 16th, 2006. And, after we finally installed some shelves in the garage and freed up enough floor space to actually park the vehicles, we’re happy to report that about 95% of the boxes have now been unpacked!

But moving is a process that involves much more than arranging furniture and unpacking boxes. For us, it has been a relational process of getting connected with neighbors and new friends.

Back in November we had several specific prayer requests related to this relational process of transition. Amazingly, the Lord has answered every single one of our concerns, even beyond what we asked!

ANSWERED PRAYERS! . . .
New Relationships for Spiritual Growth:
A few other couples with young kids who are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ live in our neighborhood! After meeting them, one family decided to begin a small group Bible study for all of us. Now the weekly group meets in our home (see below)!
These new friends have really helped ease the transition for us. Shannon connects with the wives at a weekly Jazzercise class (see more). I ride my bike over to the office with a couple of the men. We see each other often and our kids play together.

Kids’ Friends:
Avery, Addison and Toby have each made good friends right here in the neighborhood. It has been a real blessing to have friends and a playground within walking distance! Shannon got connected with a homeschool co-op called HIGH Day, and during the school year took the kids there to participate on Fridays.

Church Home:
A big answered prayer. For a few months, we were visiting several churches but now we’re in the process of joining Crossway Community Church. Already we’re getting involved there.

So, how do we like Orlando?
The Lord has made the transition much better than expected. A lot of it centers around new friendships and the kids enjoying things here. Of course we miss Atlanta. And, no doubt, Orlando is NOT the South (culturally). But, hey, there’s still hope: Several restaurants here have good sweet tea, people DO understand our accents and even occasionally say “ya’ll,” and opportunities abound here for fishing, bbq cookouts, car races, cow tipping or a variety of other redneck activities. So, I think we’ll stay.

Notice anything unusual about the above photo?  Many Americans do have a 2 car garage, yet it was only a couple of weeks ago that we actually began to utilize ours as such. 

It seems that many homes in Orlando bill a “2 Car Garage” as a space that will theoretically fit 2 vehicles . . .with only a foot or less to spare on each side!  Getting both of them to fit required building several shelves to contain all of our “garage stuff.”

Toby and I have a birthday a few days apart in May.  For a good part of both of our birthdays, I spent time chasing Toby on his new bike!


The “rocket cake” custom made by Shannon was a big hit too!

Bridges International is the arm of Campus Crusade that reaches out to foreign students studying in America. Many of these students come from closed countries. It is an extremely strategic opportunity to reach the elite of the elite future influential leaders.

The staff of Bridges International want to share the gospel with foreign students here, yet hope to see life-long disciples sent back to their home countries to spread the Kingdom there. Very creative strategies and multi-cultural resources are needed for their unique ministry.

Bridges offers the Four Spiritual Laws and other evangelistic material in 25 different languages, allowing foreign students to connect with the gospel in their native tounge.

A couple of years ago, Bridges staff member Dean Waldenmaier was put in charge of re-designing the Bridges International web site. Dean said, “We were inches away from developing our own web site, at a cost of several thousand dollars and hundreds of hours of my time. We then heard of GCX and it has more than met our needs. The Resource Center has been worth its weight in gold. It saves us from mailing multiple versions of documents to our staff and saves me countless hours. GCX will greatly increase our effectiveness in future years.”

Bridges public site (screen shot below) is at www.BridgesInternational.com To visit the private GCX Community Resource Center for Bridges staff and volunteers, you will first need to log in to GCX and then: www.mygcx.org/Bridges_Linc