So stink'in excited!

We are getting so excited for the start of Calvary Ellensburg. We are hoping that if all goes well, we will have CalavaryEllensburg.com up by the end of week. Then it will be just in time, so you can all check out pictures of our very first sunday. We will be starting May 31 at the community center and then having a "Open house in the park" on June 7th. We are so stoked to see what the Lord has in store. We are still unpacking boxes and trying to fit everything in a smaller house, but every time we eat a meal on our shaded porch in 80 degree weather

or hang out with all of the wonderful people here in Ellensburg, we wonder why God has been so good to us. We are so blessed to be here and so unworthy to be a part of what the Lord is doing. Kenya and Elijah have settled in and are so enjoying having a sidewalk outside their front door.

We have been going on long bike rides to Dad's work or to friends houses and the kids love it. The highlight of the house though, is that is came with lots of out building that have all sorts of little gates and stalls in them for all sorts of animals.


One building had 3 large hutches and so daddy blessed them with 4 bunnies, one of which is about to have more bunnies.


They have been spending most of their waking hours feeding, grooming, cleaning and loving on "Jack, Chocolate Chip, Snowball and Powder" We have a huge backyard that the kids love to play in and Tadd loves to mow and groom. We also have a "wine celler" that is being used for a camping stuff celler and a "fruit celler" that is being used for a throw all celler. To the kids they are play areas that can be anything from a store, a house or a hiding place. We also have a large field overgrown with mustard weeds that is really fun to crouch down and play hide and seek in.


They have also been decorating our porch area with sidewalk chalk.


Needless to say, they have worn themselves out most every day. We would really appreciate your prayers over the next week as we prepare for our first sunday. Also, we just got a call that the trial for the 2 ladies who kidnapped Kenya and Elijah is the week of June 22nd. Kenya and possibly Elijah will have to testify. Please pray that they are not anxious and that they recall all that they need to. Also, please pray that through it all, these ladies would find the Lord and come to a saving knowledge of him. Thanks so much for covering us with prayer. We will update you next week on our awesome first sunday.

All moved in!

Has it really been almost a month since we last posted? I am so sorry, we have been living between 3 different houses, none of which had internet until now. We have so much to catch up on.

We are all moved into the house that the Lord has blessed us with. We are so amazed at what the Lord continues to do. I will share just a small portion of the crazy ways he has blessed us over the last couple of weeks.

In the first week of May, we drove down for the thursday bible study and then to drop off Charity at the regional woman's retreat that Yakima Calvary Chapel puts on every year. Tadd and some of the guys from the church had been looking at a abandoned chuch in town trying to get a hold of someone who had information about it. About a year ago some of the guys from the church had tried to do the same thing with the same church, but after weeks of trying to research who owned it or had previously owned it, they had no luck and gave up, figuring the Lord must not be in it.

2 weeks or so ago one of the girls from the church was getting her hair cut and the person cutting her hair asked if she knew of anyone who wanted to buy a church? She was refering to the same church they had tried to find a contact for. She apparently knew someone who may have had a connection to it and wanted to spread the word. She directed us to a man who lived next door, after a whole week of knocking on his door with no answer. Tadd decided the day of the retreat that we should just leave it alone, the Lord must not have this for us. Charity went up to the retreat and with in 3 hours of being there, the man who ran the retreat center, asked if we knew of anyone who wanted to buy a church? Apparently, that day the retreat center had taken ownership of the same church we had been inquiring about and they were ready to sell it. I don't know if the Lord will work this all out, but He definantly has a way of letting us know He is thinking about us and that He is definantly for us.

The same weekend Tadd had gotten a call back for an interview, for a part-time position at Bi-mart, (a lot like a Fred Meyer), we weren't really looking for part-time but we were walking through whatever door the Lord put before us. He went into the interview and the first thing they did was have him sign some papers and sent him down for a drug test. When he told them he was only here for an interview, they said it wasn't really nessesary and asked if he would be interested in a full-time receiving position that opened the next week. It would mean full benefits, vacation and store discount. The hours and days off are perfect and he started on Wednesday. So in one week God provided us with the perfect house, the perfect job and possibly a perfect church. Can I ever say it enough....GOD IS SOOOOO GOOD!

We are so excited about our first kick off sunday on June 7th, at Mt View Park. After that we will be meeting at the community center until God plants us somewhere else. We have such a great group of people who are so willing to do whatever it takes to get Calvary Chapel Ellensburg up and running. We will post soon with our new Calvary Ellensburg Website and let you know all the haps.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers, we still covet them over the next few weeks as we get things up and running and work out all the kinks. Here are couple pics of our house. It's definantly a fixer upper but it meet all of our needs. It still looks a little bare as we have not put anything on the walls yet, but it is starting to feel like home.

T'is so sweet to trust in Jesus

We are off to Ellensburg! When we posted last time we thought we had a house, then when we got to the house to sign the papers, there was someone else was moving in. After the initial shock wore off. We realized it must have been the Lord keeping us from moving into the wrong house. About an hour later we found the perfect house, it had everything we had prayed for and was just the right price. Tadd drove down on Saturday and signed the papers. We now have a container that we were blessed with, sitting in our driveway and we are spending every waking moment packing. As soon as the container got dropped off, I was looking for some uninterupted packing time and told the kids to go out and enjoy the sunshine. When I came out later they were taking all of the extra furniture into the container. When I asked them what they were doing they said they were "the box car children" and they were making it their house. I don't know how many of you have read the book series called "The box car children" but it is one of my kids favorites. I could not resist helping them get all settled in their "boxcar" Here is a picture of their new home, (until daddy decides it is time to pack it anyway).

We also had Elijah's Birthday at the park on Wednesday and here are a couple pictures of the pinata getting a good beating. We will keep you updated when we move in to our house on the first week of may.

Bringing the tent stakes down again

We are so sorry for not posting in so long, life has been so crazy trying to live in Bellingham on Mon, Tues and Wed, then drive to Ellensburg and stay Thur, Fri, Sat, to teach and look for jobs and housing, then Sundays in Everett helping out with the church there. I think we may have found a house and hopefully can put an end to all of the time spent in the car. Kenya and Elijah's worst enemy, is their car seats right now. We would ask for some prayer for our little Elijah, he has been having some anxiety issues in the last week and I am sure it has a lot to do with how schedules and routine oriented he is, but his poor routine has been thrown up in the air since we have been traveling so much and it is taking it's toll on him. Please pray that we could get settled soon and his little heart would hold out for a couple more weeks until we can return to some sort of normalcy. It sounds like all of this would wear us out, but the Lord is blessing us so much in each place, that we have nothing but enthusiasm for where our in out life right now.

Many of you already know, CPS sent us a letter last week as a result of their investigation into our family, done right after the kidnapping, The letter said, they had ruled that Charity was a "negligent parent" and that this ruling could possibly effect her working with children in a public setting and determining if she could be licensed for foster or other care of children in our home. We are not sure what that means exactly or what the repercussions of that are right now, but it is probably not a good ruling to have when you are starting a children's ministry in a new church or adopted children into your home. We know that this is just another way to try to bring down what the Lord is going to do in Ellensburg and at home, so we are prayerfully considering what to do about this ruling. Already God has been so faithful to send us numerous people who have experience with this type of thing and can guide us through it. We so much appreciate all of you who have written letters of reference for Charity, that we will be sending to CPS to vouch for her mothering skills. We are confident that God is already the victor over this, as he has been over all of the other attempts to bring discouragement to our family and friends.

We are so excited to see what the Lord is going to do in the next couple of months, as hard as the devil is fighting to distract us, we know God must have something awesome planned in the future. It is so comforting to know that our God is "Mighty to save" (Isaiah 63:1), "A Miracle Working God" (Galations 3:5), "Greater than he that is in the World" (1 John 4:4), "Never leaving us or forsaking us" (Hebrews 13:5), "Our Strength" (Philipians 4:13) and even more greatful that he says, "Surely I am coming quickly" (Revelation 22:20) God bless you so much this week that, you can't even take it in! We love ya!

Here are a couple of random photos from the last couple of weeks, the first one is Kenya, Elijah and their cousins Cade and Lakota dressing up as bible characters with the throw blankets from the sofa. I didn't even tell them to do it, beleive it or not. The next one is Kenya at her choir concert on March 19th. They did a firefighter musical. The next one is Kenya with some of her friends at a Daddy Daughter date our church had.

These are some pictures of our time we had to leave town shortly after the kids got kidnapped. We were blessed by some people who let us stay at their time share in Lake Chelan and between the pool, the fireplace and Elijah's Birthday, it was definantly a hit.

Taking up our Tent Stakes

Well, it has been a while since we posted, but we have been serious sojourners for the last couple of weeks. We have spent about 4 days at our home in Bellingham and then rest in our new home town of Ellensburg. I gotta tell ya, we sure do miss our friends in Bellingham, but Ellensburg is starting to feel like our home more and more. We came down 3 days after our kidnapping adventure to get away from interesting people at our door wanting to express their view of Charity's parenting skills. So we decided that these things usually only last untill the next thing comes along, so we will skip town untill the next thing comes along. We spent some sweet time focused on the future instead of the past adventure.

We came home for a couple of days and then the Lord blessed us with a free place to stay in what we effectionatly now call E-burg, while we look for a job, housing and a church building. We have been so blessed by the people the Lord has already brought to the fellowship and are so excited to see what He is going to do. Tadd is now regularly teaching the Thursday night bible study, which we hope to move to Sunday mornings as soon as we can make the move down here. There are already about 25 people on Thursday nights and a few more waiting until we start sundays, to jump on the band wagon. God is so amazing to provide, when we give it all up to Him. Kenya and Elijah are being troopers as the car is not there favorite place to be these days, but has become our makeshift home away from home.

We are so greatful for all the support we recieved during the difficulties in the last month, but another amazing way God worked in this trial, is that Tadd was out of town the night the kids were kidnapped. He was on his way back from California and had stopped to spend the night in Oregon. He went to a church service there where the pastor was talking about St. Patrick (since it was on St. Patties day) and how St. Patrick was kidnapped from England, taken to Ireland and instead of wallowing in self pitty he decided to use the experience for the Glory of the Lord. This was the message Tadd was hearing as Kenya and Elijah were being taken. The really cool parellel was the Lord definantly used the kidnapping of Kenya and Elijah to His Glory! His hand was so evident in every aspect of it, there is no way anyone could deny it. We are so thankful for all of His blessings and provisions and look forward to what He will continue to do in ours and others lives.

Please continue to pray for the work in Ellensburg. Also, we would be blessed if you could pray for a job and house for our family. God knows the perfect one, we just need prayer for patience and wisdom until He reveals it. Also, we would appreciate prayer for our adoption. Our paperwork for the kids Visa applications expires in July. If the kids passports and visas are not ready by then, we will have to have Tadd or I take a trip to Haiti in May or June to file a type of extention or pay another $800.00 to file a new application here in the states. The Lord know this of course and we know He has a plan. Please just pray Tadd and I will continue to seek the Lords wisdom in this matter instead of stess out about it and try to interfere with Gods perfect plan.

Thanks again for all of your prayer and support, we look forward to sharing more awesome things that the Lord will do. May He bless all of your socks off this week and may you feel His love more than ever.

Our Awesome God!

I am posting tonight to remind everyone what an awesome, comforting, caring, all knowing, all powerful God we have!
Tonight after Kenya and Elijah's gymnastics class, we headed home to have dinner and decided to stop by Bellingham cost cutter to turn in some glass milk bottles that Kenya and Elijah had been given from a feild trip a couple of weeks ago. The kids were still in their leotards and short and I didn't want them to freeze outside so I decided to park the van right outside the front window of the store and run in to the cashier really quick to get Kenya and Elijah's deposit money from the bottles. I jumped out of the van and told Kenya and Elijah I would be back in 2 minutes and they could see me right through the window. I left the van running and ran into the cashier. There were 2 people in line in front of me with very little to buy so I waited in line keeping my eye on the van. When I got up to the cash register, the cashier was not sure how to payout the depost, so he conversed with the other cashier quickly, when he gave me the deposit money, I looked outside and did not see the van.
I called 911 quickly and told them my car was gone with my kids in it. They dispatched 3 cars very quickly and with in minutes got a call saying the car was north bound on I-5 heading for the canadian border. After giving a descriptions to the police of both of the kids, I sat in the back of the police car calling everyone I could think of to tell them to pray. After the 2nd call my battery on my phone died. After what seemed like an eternity of praying, they said they had stopped the van shortly after passing through the canadian border, the kids were fine and the people driving the van had been arrested. They took me to the border where I was reunited with the kids who were not harmed in any way, but very happy to see mommy. We went to the police station and gave our report, then came home exhausted, but oh so blessed because of the manner in which the series of events had just unfolded. I am sure there are many more ways that I have not seen yet, but I would like to list some of the most amazing ways that the Lord was working in what seemed like a horrible experience:
1. My kids were taken by 2 older ladies who I don't beleive were really sure what they were doing. Therefore did stupid things that caught attention really fast.
2. These ladies were so pre- occupied fighting with each other, that they did not really speak to, or even touch my children in any way.
3. They were driving at speeds of over 90 miles per hour and in Kenya's word "banging into stuff" and my kids were not hurt or involved in any kind of accident.
4. Kenya and Elijah were able to remain calm and aloof through the whole experience, so the already irratic woman in the car, did not get more irratic due to upset children.
5.The availablity and response time of the police, border patrol and canadian police were so amazing. This whole process took place in less than an hour.
6. As Tadd was on his way home from being in California for a week and had stopped for the night in Oregon. He was in a church service where we could not get a hold of him until we were able tell him, his kids were safe.
7. Because the body of God is so vast and so wide we had over 100 people (probablly more I don't know about) praying for my kids in a matter of minutes.
8. God has given our family people to surrond us, support us, love us and pray for us and because of this, His peace resounds in all situations. We are blessed beyond what we could have ever imagined and we owe it all to a God who we could never deserve. Thank you so much for all of you who prayed for our family. We truly feel your prayers and are so thankful for a God who hears and answers them.

We are finally done with the wait!

We finally feel we have received a firm direction from the Lord! As you know the Lord has put outreach very heavily on our hearts. We had originally felt that the outreach He had for us, was mission work in Haiti. But after several encouragements and also some setbacks, He suddenly opened another door, we would never have seen, had we not been following His leading to Haiti. We have been so blessed by the outpouring of love that all of you have shown the Lord and to us with your support and prayers.

During these tough economic times, we have been so amazed by the monetary blessings that those of you who were able, have provided. As we will feel the Lord has opened a new door for missions in Ellensburg and closed the one to Haiti, we would humbly ask, that with your permission, you would consider allowing us to use the resources to help in the new mission field the Lord has put on our hearts.

To explain a little more about the new adventure the Lord is taking us on, I will tell you about how he brought us to it .

In early February, a friend who had been staying with us to rent the house while we were in Haiti, had matter of factly told us, that some people very dear to her in Ellensburg were looking to find a Pastor, for a group of people desiring to transform their Bible Study into a church. “Pastor Tony” from Yakima, had been helping them to find the right person to shepherd them. He happened to be a friend of our Pastor in Everett. Our Pastor encouraged Tadd to talk to Tony. Tadd gave him a call and He asked if he could come and teach on February 5th. We went down and were so blessed by the people and what the Lord was doing there. Tony called and asked us to come back on March 5th and teach again. We were even more blessed and after the teaching, Pastor Tony came and told us they would like to have us come down and Pastor their group! We were so blessed, overwhelmed, scared, humbled and excited, but very comforted by the fact that the Lord is capable, even though we are not.

We are now in the process of looking for a house to rent in Ellensburg, a job for Tadd (as the Church is just starting out, this is currently not a paid position). We are so thankful for those of you would were able to support us and would be so grateful if you would consider allowing your support to be used to relocate our family and aide in the start of this fresh new work that the Lord is doing in Ellensburg. We of course would understand if you had intended the finances to be used for missions abroad in Haiti. We would love to direct you to viable ministries in Haiti or if you have a different ministry you would like to support, we would be happy to return your check to you. We would very much appreciate a timely response, as we are anxious begin the new work the Lord has laid in front of us. You may contact us by phone at 360-398-7112 or e-mail at tncscheffer@hotmail.com also snail mail at 5556 Guide Meridian, Bellingham WA 98226. As always you can stay updated about what the Lord is doing in our lives, by going to www.gracecasechronicles.blogspot.com Thank you so much for your willingness to serve the Lord and be tools for His work.

In Him,

Tadd and Charity Scheffer