What needs to change?

As marriages are failing and couples are just surviving, I often wonder, "what needs to change?" I continue to encounter couples who are struggling. I just can't help but think the one thing that is missing for these couples is preparation. Sue and I have met with a government funded program that seems great but (sorry to say) it isn't reaching couples. When you accept government funding, you accept their restrictions as well (that's a entirely different blog).

What we feel like we need to do is have an impact in one community and for that impact to spread from that community into its city and then beyond. We want to work with couples and remind them of their commitment to one another and help them discover (rediscover) the joy of marriage. We want to train couples before they are married and continue working with them for years to come.

As Sue and I work in the "real world" our heart remains bonded to our dream of doing full-time ministry. We are blessed with flexibility but we long to focus more on Marriage Links. Funding is tough to come by these days. Please pray for God to help provide a way for us to focus.

Stay close!
Barry

Teaching at St Pauls

Sue and I just completed week three of teaching at St Paul's e-free church here in St Louis. We have three more weeks to go. There are between 65-70 people coming each week and we have really been impressed with their participation. We taught on the importance of being a good listener last week.

Good communication is linked to every aspect of your marriage. Money issues, intimacy issues, you name it, it is rarely really about that. It is really about the fact that you aren't clearly communicating with each other what your feelings are. Before you blame it on your spouse look at yourself and think about what you're communicating to him/her on a daily basis. Is listening to you a chore or a treat? Are you just unloading information and feelings or are you entering into a conversation? Are you asking good questions and providing a good vibe with your body language?

Find time to sit down and talk with each other this week. Dream about future plans together. Talk about when you felt most loved last week.

Hope you have a great week.

Barry and Sue

Ozarks Retreat

We just returned from our first Marriage Links retreat. The group included couples who have been married between 18 - 38 years. Sue and I were impressed with their willingness to learn and share. In every teaching situation we expect to learn ourselves, but I am so thankful for how much learned with this very special group of people.

We covered active listening, personality types & love languages, and intimacy in three 1.5 hour sessions. It may sound much like a fictional movie, but it is true that we experienced tears of laughter and tears of pain. A retreat creates the perfect atmosphere for breaking down barriers and making us comfortable. It was great to see couples grow closer and learn new things about each other. I look forward to keeping in touch with these couples for years and years to come.

A special thanks goes out to the Christie and Larry Tietjen for opening up their home. What an amazing setting for a retreat! And thanks to Bette & Christi for helping with preparation work and cooking & serving the meals. It was a tremendous group effort. Sue & I are so grateful for the many ways you served us this weekend.

All the best,
Barry and Sue

Sue is Awesome

Sue had a job interview yesterday with Westminster Christian Academy here in St Louis.  They are in need of a permanent sub for the remainder of the year for two English teachers.   They called her today to offer her the job and she starts tomorrow.  Nothing like jumping right into the fire.  Gives her less time to worry about it. : )  

My wife is amazing.  Hasn't been in a classroom for almost 10 years and I can say without a doubt she'll be back in Mrs. Kraft mode in no time.  She is an amazing teacher and the school and kids are going to love her.  Well.... the students will love her as long as they stay on her good side.   Trust me...I know.

You can send Sue good wishes and congratulations at sue@marriagelinks.org

Update on the Krafts:  We are sleeping in our new home tonight!  First night in the new place.  The kids are actually sleeping in their bunk bed as I type.  Ahhhhh  As much as people joke about mother-in-laws, Sue's mom has been the BEST!  We are forever thankful to MaMa for putting up with us for so long.

Update on Marriage Links:  We met with the Bridget from St Louis Healthy Marriages yesterday.   They are a federally funded marriage education organization.  Bridget wants us to consider being trainers for their marriage prep program.  It sounds like an awesome opportunity and we look forward to talking with her more.  

Update on Cedar Tree Bible Church : What is that? Some of you might be asking.  We are going to start gathering  a group of folks on Feb 8th here in Kirkwood.   We'll talk about that more soon.

Thanks for your prayers.  God is good!

Christmas Time

I hope you had a great Christmas. We had a blast. Will and Luke were "doing" advent every night building anticipation towards the arrival of Baby Jesus and Santa. Two of their favorite people arriving on the same day. ROCK ON!
We baked cookies during the day on Christmas Eve and surprised some friends and neighbors with cookies and Christmas caroling later that evening. We even made all of the firemen at the firehouse come out and listen to Luke and Will's version of Jingle Bells. It was a lot of fun and a tradition we look forward to building on every year.
Gifts were simple this year and nobody cared. Will figures the reason Santa didn't need to bring him a Wii was because Grandpa and Grandma already had one that he could play with. What a cool kid.
We went to Iowa after Christmas and got to enjoy some snow and time with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandpa and grandma.

update - - We are hoping to find a place of our own very soon. Looking at a lot of homes as we decide between renting and buying. Yikes.

Fight to save marriage

There is such a call right now to "save marriage". Prop 8 in California was a fight to keep the definition of marriage as that between a husband and a wife. While I agree with that definition completely I think this "fight" is taking our eyes off where we should be focusing.

We are fighting to save the definition of marriage but we aren't fighting to save marriages. As we are so willing to take up the torch to fight against men marrying men and women marrying women, our marriages in our churches are failing more than they are succeeding. Some couples are just going through the motions of marriage while others are just giving up all together.

Maybe we should be focusing on providing society with a good model of what marriage is. If I was on the outside looking in right now why would I want to be married? Here we (Christians) are telling the world what marriage is supposed to be but we aren't living out what we are talking about.

It just isn't right. I think Satan is having a ball with this and laughing as the Christians end up looking like hypocrites again as we tell the world what marriage is supposed to be.

Ministry Pains

Sue and I made a decision to follow our passion and make a run at starting our own ministry. It has been a journey and a huge learning experience. It has taken way longer than we thought it would take and has been way harder than we thought it would be. Aren't there a lot of things in life that seem to go that way?

We just want to have an impact in people's lives and can't believe how much front end work there is to do. Meeting with pastors, meeting with other ministry leaders, talking with couples, putting together boards, sitting with accountants, going back and forth with attorneys, on and on.

Then just as we start a ministry that counts on people donating money, the economy crumbles and people tighten their purse-strings. It makes it all very interesting.

There are great things happening in the midst of all the questions and tough times though. We have one church that has invited us to come in and do a 6-week marriage focus in February. We have a retreat in the works. We'll be starting a pre-marriage group in January. We have another church hoping to do an extended focus on marriage. We have some great meetings scheduled in the next couple of months. So we are thankful as we move ahead.

Thanks for reading. We covet your prayers and ask for God's provision.