Pray for Aidyn

Matt and Kristin Wooley are close friends of ours from Colorado. They taught our MarriagePlus course. We got some horrible news yesterday that Aidyn, their oldest daughter, has a tumor at at the base of her brain. The doctors believe it is cancerous. She is in surgery as I write this. They are the greatest family and I just can't imagine what they are going through.


Please stop and say a little prayer for them.

Also, hug those around you that you love a little harder today.


I wish you a blessed Thanksgiving.

Here is a link to Aidyn's blog http://www.prayforaidyn.blogspot.com/

Will turns 6!

Our family celebrated Will's 6th birthday at the St. Louis zoo Build A Bear workshop. It was a chilly day, but the cold couldn't dampen our son's enthusiasm for exploring the zoo and visiting all his favorite animals. The memories made that day will surely stay vivid in our minds for some time. Typically on Will's birthday, Barry and I reflect on God's goodness for changing our lives and making us parents. Parenthood has stretched me and challenged me in ways I never thought possible. I often reflect on what God teaches us about His character through the journey of parenting.
Ephesians 3:18-19 says "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

Isn't it true that we as parents can't quite understand the depth of our love for our children? God's love for us is perfect and the model we are to take in loving and raising our boys. What a gift! What a privelege!

Trick or Treat

I hope you all had fun trick or treating. Our boys are at a perfect age. They still think it is cool to hang out with mom and dad and I can still convince them to give me half of their candy. We had a blast going from house to house. Our boys practiced their "trick" all week to get ready for Friday night. Will pulled his thumb off about 50 times and Luke perfected the amazing talent of hopping on one foot. Pretty awesome stuff.

For the parents out there, cherish "big moments" with your kids. Even though our kids are only 6 and 4, I can see how fast our kids grow up. I figure we only have about 6 more Halloweens with our kids. I hope they never forget these times. I hope we are doing the right things to make their childhood something they can look back on and remember all the laughter.

update - An amazing encounter on Sunday. We visited a church in St Charles for the first time. I overheard the pastor talking to another new couple that said they just moved from Parker, CO (same place we lived). I introduced myself and we ended up sitting next to them. After several questions we realized we went to the same church and after more questions realized we had several mutual friends and finally realized they had been through Marriage Plus. About 100 people in the entire country have been through Marriage Plus. I imagine there are only two couples in all of St Louis and we just happened to walk into the same church for the first time on the same Sunday and run into each other. Pretty amazing "coincidence". We look forward to following up with them.

Marriage Links is Officially Incorporated

Fed-ex delivered all of our paperwork today. We are official with the state of Missouri and completely filed on the federal side (that portion will take up to 3 months).

It may not seem like a big deal but it feels official now. We have a legit non-profit ministry. We are talking to several people about starting a pre-marriage class.

Just wanted to post a quick update.

I'm off to the Acts 29 bootcamp and assessment this week. I'm excited about this conference as we continue to seek God's direction.

MarriageLinks

MarriageLinks.org is a work in progress. It is up and running and we hope to add content to the site often. We will use this blog to keep you up to date about what's going on with us and what's the status of the ministry. We've been in St Louis for about 4 months and are realizing that things never seem to go as planned, but that is okay.
We have talked with a ton of people and our hope in impacting marriages hasn't changed. The way we will be doing it has never been certain and that is a good thing because it has changed several times.
All our paperwork has been filed with the state and federal offices and MarriageLinks will be its own 501-C-3 soon. This step will hopefully allow us to go out and secure some funding to help us make this dream a reality.
Thanks for reading. We'll be writing again soon.
Barry and Sue

Settling in St Louis

We are settling into our new location and so far, so good. We are living with Sue's mom (Thanks MaMa) and having a blast with the tennis courts and pool right across the street.

I've been getting a few projects and I'll start building my first table here this afternoon.

On the ministry front, we continue to be excited as we meet with folks and talk through our future. The idea of working with couples in the area is more exciting than ever. The need is evident and the support seems to keep building.

We hope to use the next few months to meet with pastors from the area and continue to develop the program. We really feel like pre-marital classes will be our niche as we get our ministry started.

I'd love your feedback and we really need a name. Send us your ideas by either adding a comment here or emailing us at sckraft@gmail.com.

Thanks for your prayers.

Go Cardinals!

Making a Move

So we have finally done it. We are making the move. After much prayer and talking and soul searching and tears and laughter and on and on we have decided to make the move back to St Louis. Sue and I have moved a lot (that's an understatement) in our almost 12 years of marriage.

Just for fun, let's retrace our steps. Prior to marriage Sue was in Houston teaching and I went there for student teaching. After graduating, we lived in Story City, Iowa. We moved from there to Nashville, TN. We then went to Cedar Rapids, IA. Parker, CO was our next stop. From Parker to St Louis, MO. On to Charlotte, NC and now we are loading up for a trip back to St Louis.

You may think we are crazy (and you'd be right) but I stand here today and say I wouldn't trade it for anything. The most important thing we have in this world is relationships. Sue and I have friends all over the country. We look back on our moves and in every city we've lived in we have memories of close friendships. We are blessed with the chance to look at each move and see an impact that God allowed us to have in someone's life.

As great as it has been though, we are ready to settle. We are ready to settle for our kid's sake (Will starts Kindergarten) and for our sake. Sue and I look forward to forging strong friendships. We look forward to investing in an area and having an impact.

St Louis has it good and bad aspects (every place does). Those good aspects though are really really good. We love being close to family. We love the fact that Grandma is right there and Uncle Greg and Aunt Kerry (and of course Thomas and Colin) are close. Iowa is less than a days' drive away for all of my family.

We have close friends in St Louis. Sue's friends from years ago (KHS days). Sue's aunts, uncles and cousins. Our friends from Trinity. Our fellow dog lovers.

We Love the Cardinals, the zoo, the spring, summer and fall (winter stinks). We love the friendliness of people.

Overall it is just a great place and we are excited to be moving there (again).

As we pack up and leave Charlotte, we are sad too. We were here a little over two years and we will miss our friendships. We'll miss our small group that has met nearly every week for the past 14+ months. We have gained friends for life and for that we are so grateful.

To those of you who think we are crazy for moving so much, most likely you are a friend because of our willingness to move. We wouldn't trade our friendship with you for one less stressful move.

Thanks for loving us. Thanks for your prayers.

Barry, Sue and the Boys