Dear Christ Covenant,
It is a great pleasure to be writing you today.  We hope you are well and hope this email proves to be a source of encouragement to you and gives you a glimpse of what God is doing here in South Africa and we pray across the world.  We are excited to share with you about how Summit, our 6 week internship, turned out, as well as our upcoming home ministry assignment, but first we would like to share some exciting new changes in Alex’s role here at East Mountain. 

Over the past two and half years, Alex has served East Mountain by handling much of the administration, overseeing the finances, working through the logistics of ministry, working with a number of different partners both foreign and domestic, and running Summit.  Recently Alex has been able to turn over the work of the day to day finances to a South African girl that we hired and is currently working towards transitioning much of the administrative work he does to another South African.  He has been doing this because Alex has been asked to step into the role of Executive Director of East Mountain South Africa.  This is an exciting new role change for Alex and our whole family.  Because of the growth of East Mountain Global, the current East Mountain leadership is moving into the role of leading East Mountain Global and they have asked Alex to lead East Mountain here in South Africa and represent East Mountain South Africa at the global level.  Alex has already begun to transition into this new role and is starting to work on planning for 2018 with the rest of the leadership team.

Us with Michael Phillips, the Bible teacher for Summit and the RUF campus minister at Georgia Tech

This year's Summit was our largest one yet, with 12 participants from all over South Africa and the US. This proved to be an exciting challenge for everyone involved. It was especially exciting for Alex to work alongside one of our residents, Nimo, as she led the on-site operations and logistics. Nimo was a Summit participant in 2015 and it’s amazing to see how God has used her in the few short years since then.

Maggie really enjoyed co-leading the weekly debrief portion and mentoring one of the Summit girls. It was a great way for her to be able to participate and get to know the summiteers on a deeper level. It proved to be a busy 6 weeks for our family.  There were lots of late nights and early mornings for Alex, which meant Maggie was doing the nightly routine with the kids by herself.  There were also a lot of missed naps for the kids as we tried to involve our family as much as was possible and appropriate.  We very much enjoyed serving as a family to ensure that Summit ran well and that the participants left with a better understanding of who God is and what He is doing across the world.  Emma Kate and Will very much enjoyed Summit.  Emma Kate knew all 12 new names in the first week and even developed her first crush on one of the participants named Zach, who she is still asking about. Will, who seems to be more of our introvert, tolerated very well being held by almost everyone over the course of 6 weeks.  We are grateful for all your prayers for our family during this time.

Will pretending to be Simba from the Lion King

As we mentioned in our last update, we will be returning to the States in October for our first Home Ministry Assignment.  We hope to spend our time in the US reconnecting with friends and family, most of which haven’t met William and have only spent a week with Emma Kate, sharing in more detail with supporters about what we have been doing and how we have seen the Lord working here in South Africa, and raising the necessary funds in order to return and continue serving through East Mountain in South Africa.  We land in Knoxville the evening of October 5th.   We still don’t have our full schedule, but we know that we will be in Knoxville, Kentucky, Atlanta, Chicago and Pennsylvania at some point and probably a few other places.  We look forward to connecting with as many people as is possible and will let everyone know as our schedule becomes more settled.

Praise
• Praise the Lord for a successful Summit.  We believe the lives of all who participated were impacted
• Praise the Lord with Us for the growth of East Mountain globally and Alex’s new role.

Prayer
• Please pray for the Summit participants as they settle back into life at home.  Pray that whatever the Lord was doing in their lives during Summit would continue.
• We would ask that you pray for Alex and his new role with East Mountain.  Pray that he leads graciously through the Lord’s strength, not his own. 
• Please pray for our time in the United States.  Pray for the 26 hour return trip.  Please pray that the Lord would provide all the funds needed for us to return to South Africa.  Pray that our time with friends and family would be a time that is sweetly cherished by all and seen as a great gift from God.