On The Rhoads

There are lots of things on my heart today.

I wanted to share is about the training I had this past week. I was basically learning to teach people how to tell stories. It’s a technique called Simply The Story (STS) (http://www.simplythestory.com) . It’s very powerful in oral societies especially. And I’ll be working on ways to use technology, mobile phones in particular, with this technique.

I’m also excited about using STS in our family worship. Plus I was asked yesterday (I finished this training on Sat) to teach another adult Sunday school class at our church. I said I wanted to teach a multi-generational class using STS.

Finally, God gave me a renewed vision for reaching our neighborhood. I realized that God has put a group of us Christians right next to each other. Our next door neighbor and two neighbors across the street are all Christians. I just told Susan I want to have all those neighbors over for dinner to God Storm how we can reach our mostly Mormon neighborhood. I think STS might come in here too.

I should add to that I am a visionary and get new ideas all time. So besides praying for these things, please also pray that I will have wisdom in what I take on. It would be very easy to get so busy in outside ministry that I neglected my primary ministry to my family.

Thanks for praying!

What an amazing journey!  And what a GREAT God we serve!  Just two years ago we began the application process with Mission Aviation Fellowship.  As we have trusted God, he has led us and blessed us beyond measure.  We can not get over what a blessing it is to get to serve God through the ministry of Mission Aviation Fellowship.  It seemed a little crazy for Brad to quit his job and sell our house in a downturned economy, but God can do anything.  We reached out initial support goal this fall and have moved to MAF’s home office in Nampa, ID.

We had people praying for us for months about our housing and finding a new church home.  We just wanted to be where God could use us the most.

We thought we would have to rent a house, but the downturn in the economy meant a great opportunity for us.  Housing prices here are at their lowest in years.  We looked for a house for about a week and were ready to make an offer on one when our realtor attended a lunch sponsored by a local builder.  Our realtor told the builder about us and explained that our budget would not allow us to purchase one of his houses.  They discussed our needs and our realtor left the lunch.  Three hours later, our realtor got a call.  They said, “Show them this house.”  Our realtor pulled up the listing on his computer and reminded them of our budget.  They said, “Show them the house and put in a low offer.”

The builder had done a custom job for someone that fell through.  He had a BEAUTIFUL: home that had been sitting empty for a year after completion and he was willing to let us buy it for what our budget allowed, which was WAY below the market value, even in a slow market.  God clearly answered the prayers about directing us to the house he wanted us in.  And He blessed us with a home more incredible than we could ever imagine.  We moved in December 20^th.  We go to bed every night wondering when someone is going to knock on the door and tell us to get out because this couldn’t possibly be our house!

Our new house is very close to the site where our new church is building a new building.  We had people praying for us to find a new church home quickly and it happened.  We are very excited to be a part of this body.  Between friends from MAF and our new church, we had over 30 people come to help unload the moving truck that had been in storage since we left Illinois.  It was completely emptied in only ONE hour.

We also asked for people to pray for friends for our kids.  God has covered every detail.  The house across the street has a Christian family with a ten year old boy and they just moved here in September.  We also have MANY new friends both at church and through MAF.  Sarah has a little playmate who has been over several times already.

We want to thank you for praying for us and encourage you with the news of how God has answered your prayers.  Here are our current needs to lay before God:

1. Brad’s work:  How exciting it is to be working as part of the learning technologies team!  Here is Brad’s technical update on his work:

I’m working on two main projects right now. The first one is our DEViewer program. It’s a program for presenting training that has a very simple user interface. I’m trying to make it available to a wider audience by getting it to work in another web browser (Firefox). The current program only works in Internet Explorer and so limits its use to machines running Microsoft Windows. After my update is released it will be able to run on computers running other operating systems, such as Linux and the Macintosh.

The other project I’m actively working on is called Flash Lit (pronounced Flash Light). It’s a program I’m starting from scratch that is a kind of digital card catalog. It’s an index for digital libraries. For example, we have a missionary in Thailand who is building a library of theological resources in the Thai language. Whereas we might not be able to freely distribute all of the resources (many we can), Flash Lit will make the availability of these resources know and at least provide information on where the resources can be found. A neat feature of Flash Lit is that it can be given to other people to develop indexes and then all of these separate indexes can be aggregated automatically. So our missionary may have the master index that brings in information from other people all over the country.

I’d love to talk to anyone who’s interested in hearing more.

1. Susan’s Trip:  Jan 4 will be one year since my dad went home to be with the Lord.  I got a bargain ticket (yeah southwest!) and am going to fly back to Illinois on New Years Day to be with Mom for a week.  Please pray for God’s comfort and peace at this time.  Pray for Brad as he is home with the kids by himself.  Thank God for our new friends who will watch the kids while Brad is at work.

1. Financial Support:  Praise God for providing for the financial needs of our ministry!  Pray for our ministry support to be maintained and grow a little to cover rising costs.

Thank you again for your prayer support.  Without you, our ministry would not be effective.  We can’t wait to see what God does next!

Happy New Year!

Love,

Brad and Susan

Please help us unload our truck at our new house on Sat 12/19/2008 from 9:00-1:00. Details and directions are here: Dump The Truck

Thank you!

Dear Family and Friends,

Dad (Richard Kinnamon) went home to be with the Lord this morning. We consider it a blessing that we had the privilege of caring for him at home these last two weeks. While we miss him greatly, we celebrate his life which was lived in service to Christ. Dad is in no more pain, but has a new body and we rejoice with him as we praise God together.

Visitation will be Thursday, January 10th from 5-8 pm at Norberg Memorial Home at 701 Thomson in Princeton, IL
Funeral Service will be Friday, January 11th at 1:00 at First Baptist Church, 1719 S Euclid, Princeton, IL
Internment following at Greenfield Cemetery in LaMoille, IL

Thank you for your prayers and support over the past few weeks.

God’s Love,

Susan Rhoads

Princeton—Richard Lee Kinnamon, 75, of Princeton passed away at his home on Friday, January 4, 2008.

The son of Irving and Velma Kinnamon he was born June 8, 1932 in Independence, IA and married Nancy Anne Steele of Mendota, IL on September 16, 1956. She survives.

He was raised in Wyanet, IL where he graduated from high school in 1953. He served in the United States Army for two years as an Engineer Construction Foreman stationed in Okinawa, Japan during reconstruction after the Korean War.

He began his career in service technology working for Conkey’s in Mendota, IL and retired in 1993 from Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3Ms ) as a Master Technician.

After marrying Nancy he started his family in Mendota where he was active in First Baptist Church and Masonic Lodge. In 1975 he moved to rural Princeton to raise his family in the country.

He is survived by his wife Nancy, five children and thirteen grandchildren: Richard (Jane) Kinnamon of Essexville, MI; Laurel Hand, Kevin (Michelle) Kinnamon, Leland Kinnamon, and Susan (Brad) Rhoads all of Princeton, IL.

He was preceded in death by his parents and two sisters Evelyn Baumann and Juanita Cain as well as two brothers and a sister who died in infancy.