I don’t necessarily like updates… but if I must:

I’m not really into normal, everyday, tell-people-what-we’re-up-to, “updating” on this blog… it gets boring, in my humble blogging opinion. There’s gotta be some sort of story or theme for me to really get interested — and I honestly censor myself MOST of the time. See, if this were an anonymous blog — if no one knew who I was (i.e. if my mother-in-law couldn’t navigate her way to this page) — this blog would most definitely be more interesting than it is.

But, I realize that sometimes people may WANT the occasional life-ish update. I mean, we are headed down the missionary road — living our lives as pretty much public as it gets — mostly due to support raising and the package that it brings — needing people to pray for us and our ministry and allowing people to “know us” (if “knowing” means blog and praying-letter-reading) in more intimate ways than the average person may let people know them over the internet…

Honestly, there are times that risk of “putting ourselves out there” feels hard and I want to divorce the blog altogether. And other times I really enjoy the “creative” aspect of posting here. Like, I liked thinking about my best friend from high school (see below) and writing a bit about our relationship. I like telling small snippets of our story of living with my in-laws (you guys have read about .03% of the stuff that goes on in this household). I sometimes/usually like letting people into our lives through these avenues. Again, I censor myself so even as I say that last sentence I know that obviously people aren’t really being “let in” further than reading some of our stories and seeing some pictures. But I really believe that God has given me the freedom to bring part of myself here to this blog, and in a way I hope it brings Him glory because he created me uniquely (even though it’s easy to feel so ordinary) and with something to offer others — and you people actually come here and read it….

I wasn’t expecting to say all of that — but before I hit “DELETE” on the the previous two paragraphs (I’m choosing NOT to censor) — I’ll just move on to posting some photos from the last two days — to give you a day-to-day update on the McMullen clan.

First, playing with Daddy Monster late this afternoon

Jeff doing his infamous cackle to get the kids riled up

Liesl, gravely concerned about the Monster

Ewan loving every minute of it

An evening out, on our way to the Missions Conference

(they’ve earned back-seat privileges)

This is our table display at the conference about our work in Vienna. Jeff even wore his Vienna “Wien Energie” soccer jersey tonight.

Do we look like we belong here?? Sometimes to our amazement, yes, we do. Not because of anything we bring to the table, thank you lordie — but because we’ve been made New by Jesus and we have that story to share in Vienna. That feels really exciting (!) to me! (when it’s fresh in my heart…). This week at Chapelgate church’s missions conference has been so amazingly encouraging for us — perfect timing for us weary support-raisers. Thank you to everyone involved there and all who have spoken words of grace to us and shown kindness to our kids.