MiBanco Esperanza from Los Higos

Monday, February 6, 2012

James' First Birthday

The past couple weeks we have celebrated James' first birthday!!  The little guy got to have 2 birthday parties...one with the Bonzek family and one with the Holloway family.  It was wonderful to celebrate our son with all of our family.  Highlights include delicious food, watching James enjoy all of his gifts, and watching James destroy some cake and ice cream.
Wearing his party hat playing with his new Hungry Little Caterpillar jack-in-the-box

Mmm cake and ice cream!

Playing with cousin Miya

Opening presents with Daddy

reading a new book with Great Uncle Cliff
Happy Birthday James!!!

Monday, January 30, 2012

The next chapter

As you may know, the MF Site has recently gotten a major upgrade: Ryan 2.0 or, as he's more commonly known: Eric Miller.  Eric is taking my position, he bought my car, he bought all my stuff, and is living in my apt.  If we hadn't told people, they might not even have known I left.

Eric is a 2010 graduate from Bethel College with a degree in Accounting.  He and I first met back in Fall 2009 when he was my semester student here in the DR.  I joked about him coming back one day, and he mostly laughed, but now he's SI staff and committed to serving here for at least 2 years.

He has big plans for the site.  He's planning to add at least 3 banks this year and that's if we don't hire another employee, which is also in the works.  He wants to improve the business coaching aspect of the site and also better define the end of the borrower's loan cycle.

If you'd like to stay up-to-date on what's going on than you can follow Eric's blog.

It's going to be exciting, and surreal, to sit back and watch what God does with the site once I'm gone.  I'd be a little nervous about leaving if I didn't know that God put the perfect people in place.  Eric is going to do a great job, and I'm sure he'd appreciate your prayers as he learns on the fly.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Back in the US

Caroline and I enjoyed spending Christmas with our friends and family back in VA.  Christmas takes on a whole new meaning when you have a son.  He now has more toys than he knows what to do with.

Anyway, I wanted to post a video Caroline and I have been working on.  It's about our transition back to the US, to the tune of "Forever" by Chris Brown.

Holloway music video

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

SI Endgame

In case you don't get our newsletters, here's all the important details about our return home:


SI Endgame
On December 15th Caroline and I will fly back to the US with James, Booper, and 300lbs of luggage in tow.  A month later I will return to the DR for 3 weeks to train the next MF Site Director and then I’ll fly back to the US for good in early February.  SI offers all staff a ‘relocation’ period of 2 months after returning from the mission field.  Please continue to support our work through March 2012.

2011 Budget
We’re $3000 short of funding for 2011.  If you’re giving monthly, would you consider an additional gift in December?  If you gave a one-time gift to help us get started 4 years ago, would you consider another one-time gift of $50 or $100?  Make checks payable to Students International and send them to the SI office. To give with a credit card, call the SI office at 559-627-8923.  Thanks!  We're already a third of the way there!

Students International
PO Box 2733
Visalia, CA 93279

We'll be staying with Ryan's parents for most of Christmas break and we'd love to catch up with old friends.  We won't have a cell right away so use facebook or email.