Our update letter!

OUR APOLOGIES!
We are so sorry! We have not communicated with you, our dear supporters, in such a long time. While there has been a lot going on, we feel bad that we have not been consistent in sharing with you all what God has been doing. In effort to keep this letter shorter then our last one =), we have a brief summary below. Please feel free to call us or ask us for more details.

OH BABY!

Heike is 25 weeks pregnant with a baby boy. She was very sick for at least 4.5 months, and pretty much lived on the couch with ginger ale as her dearest companion. Thankfully the past couple months have been better, and although she hasn’t felt wonderful, she is doing much better. We are very excited and looking forward to a new addition to our family in August.

MOVING AGAIN
We need to be out of the house we are in by the end of June, so Heike has been slowly packing up the house. Please PRAY with us as we search for somewhere to live.

NEW JOB
Doug started a job with the census as a supervisor a few months ago. He is enjoying the challenge of leading a crew of enumerators (the people who go door to door and ask you how many people live in your house). Even though Doug ends up working 50-60 hours a week, which limits our time together, this job is such an answer to prayer financially and we are thankful for the income it provides. Working with the census is temporary, however, and not guaranteed past July, so we would appreciate prayer in regards to where Doug should work next.

GERMANY/SUPPORT RAISING
Our new estimated departure month is January. We long to be in Germany in ministry with kids, but God is apparently not in a hurry! We are slowly making progress on our deficit with Cadence and truly appreciate your support in that area. We did speak at a church in SC a month ago, which went well. We are still planning to visit many of you, we are just not sure how to plan with a baby on the way. God has been teaching us a lot this past year and we are looking forward to seeing what He has in store for us!

We love you!

Our new cheap form of transportation! (Don’t worry, Heike isn’t riding it anymore)

PRAISE
- Our baby boy!
- God’s provision for us through a new job for Doug as well as other random checks which got us through a tough couple of months.
- Our Discovery Group

Our church “Discovery Group.” We meet three times a month, and these people have become family to us!

PRAYER
- Heike and baby’s health and wisdom as we prepare to be parents
- House to live in that we can afford
- Support situation: We feel like we are both constantly battling exhaustion in day-to-day life which makes it hard to focus on anything else.
- Finances after Doug’s job ends
- Heike’s dad is in town for a month, as her brother just got married last weekend. She had some really good times with her family.

We’re moving! In two weeks we are moving to a new house here in Columbia. One of our favorite families has offered to rent their four bedroom house to us for the same price we are now paying for our mill village duplex. We have been looking for a new place to live for a long time due to the 100 year old, uneven, and steep steps in our current dwelling. Many thanks to the Franklins, a family who has blessed us in so many ways already, for this amazing blessing! Our new address (as of 6 February) is:

Doug and Heike Riddle

226 Steeple Dr

Columbia SC 29229

Other than that, we are continuing on as normal. Doug is still working as a delivery driver, though he is looking for a new job that has the same flexibility but better hours and pay. If you could pray for God to provide in this (or another) way, we would greatly appreciate it.

On the Partnership Development front, we have gone from a $16,000 deficit to an $11,000 deficit with Cadence in just the past three months. God is amazing in providing for our support needs and is well on His way in moving us to Germany. We are still around 45% of our monthly need, though, and are looking for individuals and churches to come alongside us in that respect.

Thank you for your prayers and support for us, they are always greatly appreciated! If there is any way that we can be praying for your family, please let us know.

Sudan Trip Letter

Hey, sorry for the LONG silence. It's been a busy time for us.

We finally finished and sent out our letter on our trip to Sudan! If you'd like to get it by mail or e-mail, let me know. If I get a chance I'll just transpose it on here, but I don't want to guarantee that....

You can also check out: www.xanga.com/wordscrossedout (Doug’s travel blog) for more stories and pictures! He did a great job.

Traveling

God provided all the money for our Sudan trip!!!!  We stand amazed at how quickly and thoroughly He provided. All we have left to do is acquire some supplies as well as donations for the Sudanese and we're ready. We've even got Visas stamped in our passports. =)

Christmas was fun. We enjoyed our new cat, Shakespeare:

(Doug did not enjoy the Redskins losing--as you can see on the TV in the background)

Shakespeare 'helping' me wrap presents:

We had a lovely Christmas Eve with my family: 

Christmas Day with Doug's family (which is all on our new video camera that Dad gave us)

and then a late Christmas with my aunts and uncles and cousins in Illinois.

We are now up north, on a fundraising trip. We visited people in IL, PA, and are headed to NJ tomorrow to speak at Doug's home church.

We head home next week, and I have to say, I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again with my fuzzy cats on top. =)

Halloween and Missions

We're hoping to be able to go to Sudan next year in February for a 2 week medical mission trip. Heike went on this trip last year (see www.xanga.com/for_love_of_Akobo).  We wanted to go this year too, but we would have gotten back two days before our wedding.  We decided against it. =)  However, raising support for a mission trip as well as to go to a different mission field is proving to be a difficult challenge.

We had a halloween party at youth group tonight.  The group has grown slowly over the past couple months, which is exciting.  The two girls on the left were new tonight, they are two of three kids in the group who are not chaplain kids.  Check out Doug's new pirate hair-do:

Slowing down

Well, it's been a while since I wrote, but thankfully, life has slowed down so there hasn't been much to write about.
Doug and I are still struggling with being sick a lot. We're both busy at work: me at the hospital with newborns and he at Fort Jackson with his youth group. Other then that, we've been doing some work on the house we're renting (when we feel up to it).
So, if you're reading this, please pray for our health. We really need to get moving on visiting people and trying to raise support.
Thanks!

More camp, Boston, and the Red Sox

Doug is currently at camp with his Fort Jackson kids. It's a Young Life Camp in NC, Windy Gap. It's pretty impressive. I miss him, though, and can't wait for him to be home again. =)

The last few weeks have been busy with him getting ready for camp. I also took a trip with my parents-in-law up to Boston to see Doug's older brother, Keith, and his wife and 2 kids. I'm enjoying being able to be an aunt and getting to play with my 2 nephews.

We also played some games...

...saw some sights, and went to a Red Sox game!
Here we are standing in line for tickets:


We all had a great time, including Joseph. It was his first time going to see a baseball game.


On a side note, my arm is now better. After going from its previous state to this:


It's now almost back to normal!