Kelly and Connie’s Place

That’s right, Kelly has logged 32 flights! He now qualifies for the “A-List” which means he gets reserved boarding privileges for an entire year. Yep, we’ve been traveling THAT MUCH! And, that only counts the flights on Southwest. (I have 26 flights in 12 months.)

But this last trip was mostly “just for fun”. We flew to Tulsa to visit our sons and their families, and to see our new granddaughter. It was also Kelly’s 20^th year reunion at his Bible School. Kelly graduated from Bible School the same year our oldest son, Erin, graduated from high school in 1988. WOW, TIME FLIES

It was great to see the boys and really fun to see 2 month old Ava, our newest granddaughter. Grandma Connie would hardly let anyone else hold her.

At the reunion we got to meet up with some old classmates. One couple we were excited and surprised to see were old friends and classmates from Norway. They definitely won the prize for coming the farthest.

All in all, it was a good trip!

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So, why do Kelly & I fly to Denver each month?

First, some background information:

In March, 2007 Pioneers Int’l (PI) acquired 2 ministries that had merged into one (the merger hadn’t worked) . Kelly is now the Director of these two ministries that are operating separately under PI’s covering:

(1) ACMC, Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment (www.acmc.org) and

(2) the 2^nd ministry consist of 2 teams working out of their office in Denver:

• Caleb Resource Team (creates & distributes missions resources)

• The Encounters Group Team (provides resources like “Encountering the World of Islam” training courses and “Ethnographic Research Projects”.)

We refer to this 2^nd ministry as Pioneers’ Denver Office (www.takeitglobal.org).

LET US INTRODUCE OUR DENVER TEAM (Photo above)
Kelly returned this weekend from a productive trip to our Denver Office. During the transition of bringing these 2 ministries under Pioneers, our Orlando office has been doing the Denver accounting. Now, we are in the process of transferring this responsibility back to the Denver office.

In January we hired a part-time bookkeeper/accountant for the Denver office and we praise God for providing us with a very capable person for this position.

Kelly in The Denver Office

I didn’t go on this trip because Kelly took our Orlando Controller from our accounting team to help train the new bookkeeper and get the books set up right. They were pleased with how well everything went initially. Pray for this transition to be smooth and effective.

Connie at the Denver Office Christmas Party
…a progressive dinner held this last December. We got 3+ inches of snow that night which made traveling from house to house quite interesting. (If you click on the picture you can see a close up.)

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“…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isa. 40:31

We are reminded of this verse every morning on our drive into the office because of this wondrous event we have been privileged to watch take place…the birth of a new baby Bald Eagle.

Sitting on the top an electrical power pole along the roadside is a large wooden platform placed there for this very purpose — to provide a nesting place for eagles.

And, a pair of American Bald Eagles has chosen this location next to our office to build their nest and hatch their young. (Photo above: female eagle with her baby eagle next to her, they both have their backs to the camera, unfortunately.)

Each day we watch for them. Sometimes they are in the nest and at other times they are perched on the crossbar majestically overlooking the humans below rushing off to their own destinations. A real treat is to watch them take flight and soar against the blue sky with a wing span that is remarkable. The baby bird hasn’t been out of the nest yet that we can tell, and it is possible that there is more than one.

The male eagle is much larger than the female, and can often be found sitting in a field across the road where the water pools after a rain shower.

God’s Word says in Isa. 40:29 that, “He give strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.”

This would be our prayer request for the month of February and March; for God to give us strength and empower us to do the work of His ministry, but then to also have the wisdom to take time to rest in Him and be renewed.

NOTE: Original photos (this is with full telephoto capability of our digital camera, just to show you the distance of the first photos before cropping and editing .

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It is being held at our Orlando home church, Pine Castle United Methodist Church (PCUMC) Feb 7-10. www.pinecastleumc.org Global Impact Celebration is sponsored by our church missions team, Acts 1:8. PCUMC supports 45 missionaries and that includes the McClellands.

• Feb. 7^th—Celebration Kick-off; A spectacular music-drama by the “K.I.D.S. Zone” wowed us all and set the stage for an inspirational field report from the Guest Speaker. Afterwards, Kelly and I stood by our display table in the Fellowship Hall as church members checked out each of the missionary displays and asked each of us questions about our ministries.
• Feb 8^th—Missions Comedy Family Night; A featured film and pizza night out under the stars with added surprises by the Youth Group.
• Feb 10^th—Special speaker Dr. Wes Griffin,
  

Kelly and I joined as active members at Pine Castle 2 years ago and are very blessed to have found such a great church. Knowing the importance of giving back to our church by being involved, we both accepted positions to serve: Kelly is on the Church Council and I am on the Finance Committee. Wednesday nights we participate in the small group Bible Studies.

A Couple of Highlights:

New Worship Center featuring a 1,250 seat sanctuary is nearing completion. In the photo above, our current sanctuary is the small building in the left hand corner of the picture. The new sanctuary is the almost completed building across the street.

Pine Castle Christian Academy for grades Pre-K to 12^th grade, with over 700 students, includes an excellent sports dept, boasting a 2007 State Championship title for both the boys and girls Varsity basketball teams and 2-time championship titles for the girls softball team.

Family Life Center, gymnasium to serve both the school and the church

So, that is our introduction to you about our church and what is happening this week.

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Some of you may already know that Kelly and I are Trekkies, and all day Sunday was a marathon day of the Star Trek: Enterprise series. (OK, I’m putting in my first retraction: Kelly and & are not “true Trekkies” we are Star Trek fans. I guess there is a big difference so I stand corrected.)

At the same time, we didn’t totally ignore the BIG GAME (Super Bowl) that was going on. We did flip the channel during commercials, but it didn’t look like much was happening.

It just so happens, that we caught the most exciting and important “last 2 minutes” of the Giant’s Upset for the 14-17 win… and it was unbelievable!

Did you know?

• Inner Mongolia Satellite TV broadcasted the Super Bowl game nation wide in China.
• A 30 second Super Bowl commercial spot cost $2.7 million.
• You can watch all the Super Bowl commercials on the web…imagine that, watching commercials on purpose!
• Super Bowl Sunday is the 2^nd largest day of food consumption behind Thanksgiving…
• It is estimated that there were 97 million Sunday viewers of the game, making it the 2^nd most watched televised program ever…
• Only the final showing of Mash in 1983 had a higher viewing of some 106 million

I guess the next big event is, “Super Tuesday”…(No chads in Florida)

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