The Roberts Family

8053 US Highway 160, Walnut Shade, MO 65771

417-561-2074

October, 2004

Dear Friends and Family,

What a blessing it is to be able to write to you some good news from a distant land! As I sit here at my desk, Scott and Jessica are ministering in China. We have been able to stay in touch via email and chat, and the reports coming back are very encouraging. Scott has been able to meet with some new groups of house church leaders, and they are excited to begin using Scott’s resources to train leaders in other parts of the country. They were so eager that, on the day they met with Scott about the possibilities, they wanted him to start the training right then!

In addition, Jessica has been able to speak to a number of young people and several of them have become believers!!! She was nervous about that, but God has graciously overlooked her concerns and drawn people to himself. Scott’s mom is there with them, and she has been a huge blessing in many ways – not the least of which are cooking and laundry. Unfortunately, they have all been sick with some nasty cold virus, but they have not let that keep them from making the mission a success.

By the time you receive this email (at least the hard copy versions), they will be home. Much of our time since the last newsletter has been devoted to the preparation for this trip. We had a newsletter to produce and mail, we hosted a banquet to raise financial and prayer support for the ministry, and we had to deal with all the logistics of planning an overseas trip for two: passports, visas, luggage, miscellaneous purchases, and a number of "lectures" on my part that Jessica patiently endured. This was her first trip abroad, and I suddenly realized that there were a lot of things I needed to tell her.

Prior to all that, however, our family enjoyed a super vacation in Gulf Shores, Alabama, with Scott’s brother Stu (and his wife and four children) and Scott’s mom. Mom lives in California and flew into Pensacola. Stu and his family live in south Florida and drove up over two days, picking up Mom at the airport on the way. We drove down over two days and learned a number of things. We like learning; after all, I am love2learn!

We learned that two boys can make more mess in the back of a van in two hours than two adults and two girls can make in the rest of the van in two days. We learned that it is not possible to efficiently get to Gulf Shores, Alabama from Walnut Shade, Missouri. On the way down, we went on all the back roads – and I do mean all the back roads, so that we could use a voucher for a free hotel room in Greenville, Mississippi. One, the average speed on back roads is probably 43 mph, and two, you do not ever want to go to Greenville, Mississippi (the most depressing city in the South). Our drive time for the two days totaled fourteen and one-half hours. On the way home, we went on freeways as much as possible, which required us to go about one tenth of one degree of latitude out of our way. This was deeply disturbing to Scott, but he humored my desire to travel more miles at a higher speed. We did the homeward trip in one day, and it took fourteen and one-half hours. Some battles cannot be won.

We also learned that a week at the beach with fun people that you love can be very enjoyable and quite memorable. Our kids had loads of fun with their cousins; Grandma enjoyed seeing eight of her thirteen (plus one on the way; no, NOT at this house) grandchildren all at once; I enjoyed having virtually no responsibilities, sleeping in, not having to cook, beach combing, skipping my diet for a week, and visiting with Mom and Susie (my sister-in-law); and Scott enjoyed watching everyone enjoying everything else.

None of us wanted to come home, but we did, as mentioned above. The one thing that made this trip easier than others – well, besides staying in a very nice, fully equipped condo – was that we pulled a U-Haul trailer. No, I’m not kidding. We had reserved one that was four feet by eight feet, but they ended up renting us a five foot by eight foot jobbie for the same price. When you travel heavy, as we do, the van is packed to the gills and therefore rather uncomfortable. We’ve noticed that our children have also been growing, and the larger they get, the less room there is for everything else. By putting the bikes, the luggage, and lots and lots and lots of other gear in the trailer, we were able to have more leg room and thus a larger portion of our sanity intact upon arrival. I also found the trailer to be a refreshing way to pack. Once the bikes were in, we just stood at varying distances behind the open trailer and tossed. It was a bit like making free throws, only with no accuracy requirements. (There was a period of time when we considered tossing Andrew in there, as well, but for some reason that I cannot now recall, we decided against it.)

Speaking of Andrew, he is in contention for the gold medal award in the solo whining event. He has done lots and lot of practicing, and should stand up well against world-class competitors. When he is not whining, he is cheerful, charming, and brilliant. As you can see, he is a boy with much potential, and evidently God thought we had what it takes to find that potential and develop it!

Josiah has taken to exploding rocks (his term for beating them senseless with a sledge hammer). He is in search of crystals, and I can therefore find piles of rocks in various places from time to time; including, but not limited to: the dining room table, the buffet, the kitchen sink, and the bathtub. For my birthday he created a science fair, and it was really neat! In the playroom, with some help from Katie, he set up a series of truly amazing chemical and physical demonstrations, which I got to "do." I was totally surprised and greatly impressed. He had looked up experiments in lots of books and collected and tested all the necessary supplies – including most of the soap in my shower! Wonder of wonders, everything did what it was supposed to do. Well, that’s not quite true. The egg wouldn’t fall into the bottle, but that was only because the book listing that experiment was one that I had had as a youngster, and it called for "a glass milk bottle." Since we don’t have any of those on the premises, a cheap imitation bottle was substituted, and that caused the failure.

I received another birthday present that was equally surprising and equally appreciated. Katie, the boys, and I took a little trip to my parents’ home in North Little Rock. While there, I was the recipient of some of the best homemade peach (my favorite flavor) ice cream you can imagine. You will have to imagine it, because it is all MINE. While I obliviously relaxed with a puzzle, my mother, only fifteen feet away made ice cream for me, and wait till you hear why: Katie wanted to give me peach ice cream for my birthday. However, it is very hard to find. She even looked into having some shipped here from out of state (isn’t she a sweet daughter?!?!), but that was cost-prohibitive. So, she asked Grandma and Grandpa to help and they graciously did! Not only that, but they packed the leftovers in dry ice and sent it home with us. If you come over really soon, I might share a spoonful of it with you; but then again, I might not.

I almost forgot to mention one other blessing. Before Scott and Jessica left, we were honored to have a Chinese gentleman stay with us and then speak at our banquet. He brought his toddler son, and we had loads of fun with them. He cooked for us, and trust me, you have never seen such work go into producing a meal. He worked for hours and prepared many different dishes. He taught us a bit of Chinese, and his son laughed at our attempts at Chinese pronunciation. He rode his first upside down roller coaster, played in his first softball game, and got a little insight into the life of a typical American family. Well, maybe we’re not so typical. . . In exchange, we learned about a whole different way of eating, talking, living, and thinking. We are very thankful for the time we shared with him. He is precious to us.

Each of you is precious, too. You know, we don’t write these newsletters for our health or just because we’re bored. We write to stay in touch with you, so that we can develop and maintain relationships that matter. Although we see most of you rarely or not even at all, you are important to us. Thanks for reading all this, and thanks for being our friends!

Much love,

Scott, Patty, Katie, Jessica, Josiah, and Andrew