Team Pictures

Hi friends & partners,

Thursday we had the team over for one last time before everyone left. Finals ended Thursday, Graduation was Saturday, and yesterday we dropped Nguyen (the Vietnamese student who has been living with us this year) at the Sacramento airport. He got to go home to Vietnam for the summer.


We also took team pictures. Backrow left to right: Luke, Claire, Jackson, and Micah. We're in the front. Below is a picture of the four students.





I start teaching an intense three week astronomy course tonight, so I have to go and prepare for the day!

Grace and peace,
Michael & Kim Huster

We Have Tickets!

Hi Friends,

Are tickets were purchased yesterday, so the whole trip is becoming more and more real. We leave San Francisco Sunday, June 15th 4:50 PM, have a 3 1/2 hour layover at London Heathrow the next morning and arrive in Amman at 9:45 PM on the 16th. Our return flight leaves around noon on July 25th. We will spend the night in London, from 1:00 PM until 11:25 the next morning. Since Luke is from the UK (as he calls it) we hope we can get a quick tour.

Kim is also planning the English classes now. It might be structured as two 2-week classes with a one week service project in between. Our team is looking forward to being in the culture, so the service opportunity should be a great experience for us.

Keep praying for the team!

Grace and peace

Michael & Kim Huster
(Team: Jackson, Luke, Micah, & Claire)

Basics About islam

Hi Friends,

I was looking at the web site of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan. The RIIFS was founded by Prince Hassan to promote an understanding of the Christian and Jewish faith among Muslims. Both Prince Hassan and King Hussein are well respected as moderate and peace-seeking Arab Muslim leaders.

They have several informative links if you are interested. First, to counter the perception we Americans get in our news media, they have a press release about Prince Hassan. There was an article in Christianity Today interviewing him in February, 2008. Follow this link to read the interview.

Some of you may want to know more about Islam so here is a link to the basics of the Islamic faith.


Continue praying for us as we prepare to go. I hope next week to post about each of the students we will be going with.

Grace and peace,

Michael & Kim Huster

Blessings and an Update

Hi Friends,

We want to give you a quick update. One of the blessings we received yesterday was a big gift toward our account for our trip to Jordan. We are thankful for every gift we receive. We also treasure these because they are signs that people are praying for us as we get ready to go.

The second blessing was the commissioning service last night. Simpson University held a service to introduce and pray for each of missions teams going out this summer. It was a blessing to see students going to Cambodia, Chile, Haiti, Hmong churches in the US, India, Uganda, Ride for wells in Africa, and our team to Jordan. Forty-two students and three sponsors! Each team shared, and there was a time for prayer. It was a precious time as all of the teams were held up in prayer.

This morning I spent time praying about our trip and our team. I am reading through a collection of essays by A.W. Tozer titled The Cross. I am planning on leading devotionals for the team each day. I want to focus on the themes that are distinctive about our faith in contrast to Islam. One difference is the cross. The Qur'an (or Koran) reads, "They (the Jews) said, 'We killed the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God.' They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but the likeness of him was put on another man (and they killed that man)... ." (Qur'an, 4:157) I want to make sure we realize the distinctiveness and importance of the cross to our faith. Pray for me as I spiritually prepare for the trip.

I trust God will reveal the importance of the cross to you today,

Michael

First Post

Hi friends,

I want to test this blogging technology out. I can also give you an update. It looked like the cost of the trip was going to go up significantly, but Kim spent time the last couple of days e-mailing our hosts in Jordan and thinking of other ways to keep the cost of the trip down. Now it looks like the trip will be covered by the original estimate. Please keep praying as we and the students on our team are raising money to cover the trip.

It is a real blessing to us to have you guys as our friends praying for us.

Grace and peace,

Michael Huster