Grateful and blessed!

…….because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4(KJV)

Greetings friends and family!!

About a month ago we have finished our 10^th semester here in New Zealand and we are blessed!!!

July 15, 2015 marked celebrating 5 years since we have moved to New Zealand. I remember, as it was yesterday, when we first set foot unto this beautiful land. It was like awakening from a dream into another one. Spectacular, picturesque mountains, vast plains, rolling hillsides, subtropical forest, volcanic plateau, miles of coastline with gorgeous sandy beaches--it's all here part of this dream. The ride home was running through gentle rolling farmland on both sides filled with white, soft patches-the sheep!!! As we got closer to Rotorua, the city we live in,  the view (and our J noses) started being dominated by the Volcanic Plateau, an active volcanic and thermal area…when we arrived at Lakes Ranch, the home of CCBI, we found ourselves filled with gratefulness to the One that had called us to serve in such a place.

My heart grows within me, thinking of these past few years. The joy, the opportunity, the blessings and the hardships, the hearts we got to share with, the souls we got to worship with, the tears and laughter we got to share in, the 1000’s of bellies fed J ……...all this to say that there is a testimony within us, not for our own glory, but to His Name alone!!

For those that have walked/served/supported/prayed alongside us, thank you!!!! For your grace and mercy. For all that you have invested in us! Again, we are blessed beyond measure!!

We had a great semester, soaring through it. Great bunch of students! We are thankful for the privilege of being part in the lives of those sent this way.  The body here at CCBI is growing. With growth comes opportunity and difficulty and we pray we embrace both with faithfulness.  The end of the semester was bitter-sweet. The thoughts for the break were nice, but it was sad to see the students leave, especially one of our dear interns and one of the families on staff. The heart grows fonder in their absence looking forward to The Day of Jesus Christ’s coming!!!

We are on break now and we love having some down time for the family.  Both of us picked up a few days of work in town, which brings us out into the community.

Our upcoming semester looks like we will be maxed out. Please continue to keep us in prayers to be diligent and vigilant. To always follow in His footsteps.

We pray that this letter finds you well; blessed to be under His tender care, rejoicing within His new mercies.

Love, the Wilmoth family

October News Letter

Newsletter

Wow!! Two months already… just gone by…Romania was sooo much fun! Such an adventure, and when I say that, I mean it.  The night before the wedding we woke up with literally rain in the apartment. It was 1 or 2 in the morning so Jake and I were still half asleep. We couldn’t really figure out what was happening, till I went out in the corridor where people were running up and down the stairs in their pj’s yelling about getting the plumber guy to come over to shut the water off. This is the story: we were blessed to use our friend’s apartment the entire time spent in Romania. He lives on the second floor. Well that “rainy” night the neighbour on the 4^th floor had one of the HOT water pipes break. The water was gushing out in enormous quantities for something like 40 minutes; so he flooded all of us under him. No joke, water was just running down the stairs in the corridor and down our walls like a little nice river…when I jumped out of the bed my feet were half in water ….it was nuts…they shut the water off and told us the only thing we can do is go back to bed and worry about it next day when it will dry off a bit. And that’s exactly what we did. ☺

Anyhow here we are two months later telling stories. Time flies by.  We got to seize the day!! When we got to New Zealand we had about 2 weeks of getting done with jet-lag, and set our focus on the upcoming semester. One huge adventure for our family: Jade started kindy!! Please keep her in your prayers to adjust and find her place at kindy. It is a little nice Christian kindy up in the hills of Rotorua.  Pray for us as well to keep showing Jade Jesus’ love and patience.   

 Our 9^th semester here in New Zealand started on September 1, 2014. Altogether staff, interns and students make up 34 people. With more numbers we get new prayer requests as: bigger kitchen, one more car, commercial size dryer and washer, chicken and all other kinds of awesome things. And we all know when we pray exciting things happen: we moved into a bigger kitchen to be able to feed and seat everybody.  The staff on the ranch eats with us as well so we feed approx. 50 people every day. Please continue to pray for all us on staff for wisdom and patience in the daily routine. To be vigilant and seize the day. To honour Jesus in every little step we take and to never give up to bring glory to His name through the ministry that takes place here in New Zealand. 

Right now all the students, interns and part of our staff are out and about “making disciples of all nations” or we call it outreach time :). The students were given 3 locations to pray about: Melbourne, Wellington and here at Lakes Ranch. Jake is leading the one outreach to Melbourne, Australia. Please keep them in your prayers. 

Jadee and I stayed home. While Jade is at kindy, I am cooking for one of the camps here at Lakes Ranch.  Please pray for all the moms that stayed back with the little ones. 

Upcoming events: 

• The school is hosting a “mini-conference”  It is called Equip, based off of Eph 4:12. Well a bit of background for this: for the past couple of semesters our Speakers Week became bigger and bigger as we had different other groups, from all over, come and join us. So for this semester we have opened it to anybody, (mostly to the churches in New Zealand and Australia), that is interested to come and fellowship…so please keep it in prayer as it is new, exciting pioneering work ☺ yayya!!
• Jake’s family: mom-Katrina, Mandy (Jake’s sister) and her family, Christian, Olivia and Magnum ( the new baby boy) are coming to visit for two weeks. Keep them in your prayers as well.

Love you all!! Thank you for all your prayers and support.

Romania or Bust!

Dear Friends and Family, 

We have one huge praise report; we are currently in Romania visiting Tecla's family.  We have been praying for the Lord's provision for all of us to visit. About a month ago we started to just settle for the fact that Tecla was going to go by herself, due to a lack of funds.  All of a sudden the Lord provided enough money for our plane tickets out here.  It is a true blessing and we pray that The Lord will bless those who blessed us, so very much!

These are the juicy facts we promised to reveal on Facebook: Jake purchased Tecla’s ticket on a Friday with Malaysian Air, traveling through Kuala Lumpur (Yes the same airline that has recently had 2 airlines crash/ shot down)  Monday, Jake was going to fix the tickets so Tecla would fly with a different airline.  By Sunday night we were gifted almost the remaining sum of money needed for our tickets. That meant Jake  and Jade could go with Tecla.  So before Jake could call on Monday to fix the tickets he got a call from the travel agents saying that the tickets he tried to purchase through Malaysian Air did not go through and he would have to repurchase some, so it worked to our benefit (Romans 8:28)!  Then after hassling with different online web sites to purchase the tickets we went through a travel agent in New Zealand and have been blessed with amazing travel arrangements.

Now we are very sorry that this is the first time some of you are hearing we are in Romania, the reasoning was to surprise Tecla's family.  They knew Tecla was going, but they were unaware that Jake and Jade were coming as well.  We arrived on July 9 and will be here until Aug. 12.  It has been about 3 weeks  and God has already been so good to us!  Not just in providing the money for our tickets, but also arrangements for us to stay and transportation.  The trip is not over and yet it has been packed with amazing blessing after amazing blessing.

The main reason for us coming was that Jean, Tecla's brother is getting married, as well as none of Tecla’s family have met Jade.  So it has been good for them to see and enjoy Jade.

             All to say that it is through Him that all things are possible; it is through Him that we live, move (3 suitcases, one family, 3 hour car ride, 3 planes, 33 hours, another crazy car  ride in Bucharest, 3 beds, and big dreams) and have our being!!! 

Also this is a little update on other things that have happened since we last wrote.  The bible college is on break.  Last semester was great and we are looking forward to the next, which begins at the end of August.  Jake's Mum visited for two weeks during the month of May.  It was a blessing to have her around to visit.  We had a good, fat (almost 10lbs) addition to the Wilmoth family, a baby boy. Mandy Jake’s sister gave birth to Magnum Wade Wilmoth earlier this month.  We ask you to keep him in prayers as he’s had some issues with his breathing.  

The next semester is approaching quickly.  We are excited to have two families come and join CCBI here in New Zealand. Please keep them in prayers as they will move across continents with kids, bags and all that traveling fun stuff. Tecla will be overseeing food and m199 again.  Jake will be teaching a bit more.  He will be teaching the book of Acts, and the books of Galatians and Ephesians for another class. We are looking forward expecting to  see great things following God into the adventures of the upcoming semester. 

Well that is all for now. Next time we write we will let you know of the rest of the great things God will do as we are in Romania.

Thank you for your prayer and support.

Love Jake, Tecla and Jade

A busy time indeed...

Dear Friends and Family, 

Here we are already half way into May, crazy!  It has been a crazy last couple of weeks but God has really given us the strength we have needed.

So last time we wrote CCBI was gearing up for Speakers Week and Calvary Chapel Hamilton church retreat.  I will start with Speakers week.  That was back at the beginning of April.  It was an amazing time of fellowship, worship and hearing from the Lord through some great speakers.  We were blessed with Andrew Russell from Calvary Chapel  Melbourne sharing with us as well as some of our local guys.  We also were blessed with a couple of churches coming and joining us and making it sort of a church mini conference for them.

The Calvary Chapel Hamilton Church retreat was also an amazing time. The students and staff at CCBI helped coordinate and facilitate the camp.  The theme of the camp was the Heart of God.  The church came to the Lakes Ranch and then we cooked for them and organized the games.  Jake was one of the guest speakers, he shared on Psalm 23, the Heart of God as our Great Shepherd.  It was a busy time but the  church and the Bible college really enjoyed themselves and are looking forward to doing it again.

During Easter we as a family just took a bit of a rest.  We were blessed to join our friends and family in the Lord at Shoreline church in  Tauranga, New Zealand in the celebration of our risen Lord!

For the time we have lived in New Zealand we have made some good friends and great connections  One of those friends and connections has been kids camp at Lakes Ranch.  Tecla has been cooking for them on and off the last two years and Jake has been teaching at the camps for about the same amount of time.  At the end of April beginning of May Tecla cooked for another kids camp and Jake taught at the same one.  It was one of the busiest ones we have done as it was during the Bible Schools semester and there were 170 kids attending the camp.  God  certainly used both of us as we did our different parts and many kids were blessed through the physical food and the spiritual food.  The theme was Toy Story in light of the Friendship we have in Jesus Christ.

The next thing on the horizon is the end of the semester and Jake's mum visiting.  The students will depart by May 18, it will be a sad time as we have come to love this batch of students, but it is also a time of rest for us as a family.  Jake's mum will arrive May 19 and we all are looking forward to a bit of down time with her.  We are going to see a little bit of New Zealand with her

Thank you all for your prayers an support, we can not  do what we do without all of you coming along side of us!  We love you all and are grateful for each of you.

Love Jake Tecla and Jade

Life at warp speed....

Hello Friends and Family,

We thank you all for your prayers and support.

So to catch you up on the past two months, we have hit the ground running in New Zealand.

So we got here just as outreach week was about to begin.  Jake lead a team to Auckland  he and the team lead a church conference.  He taught through the book of Malachi.  They also were able to experience Island life without ever leaving Auckland.  The church family, (body of Christ) in Auckland were such a blessing to serve with.  The church we helped with was named Garden of Christ, at least that is the English translation. They are a Tuvaluan fellowship.

On March15 & 16 Jake took a couple of guys to a Iconz camp.  Iconz is the New Zealand equivalent to boys scouts, only firmly based in the word.  The guys Jake took shared with the boys at the camp, about different miracles in the Bible involving water.  We pray for more opportunities to have the students serve in the community like this.

We also celebrated Tecla's birthday.  The ladies made her a cake and the school all sang her happy birthday.

This past week Jade started horse riding lessons.  Well not really, but on a regular basis she will get to have professional "riding times" I guess is what we could call it.

As usual Tecla is doing a wonderful job in the kitchen.  And the classes and other things of the school are going well.

This past weekend we took the students to a dry stock farm.  The pastor of Calvary Chapel Hamilton has a couple hundred head of cattle.  We were so blessed to go camping on the farm, the only thing separating us from the cattle was our tents and a little wire fence.  It was awesome!  The students got to experience milking a cow, by hand!  Then drinking the milk straight from the cow, oh it was fun.  We were there to help with a “Sausage Sizzle” that is an outreach to the community where we hand out free sausages and do a bit of witnessing.  This is the 3 year that the city of Hamilton has asked us to do this.  It is always good fun, this time 5 people committed their lives to the Lord.  God is truly doing a work in the Land of the Long White cloud!

That is enough for now, there is plenty coming up.  Thank you all for everything and please pray for the up coming Speakers Week, April 7-11.

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

If you can continue to keep us in prayer for....

Fiancees for a trip to Romania

Raising Jade in the ways of the Lord

Direction and vision for the next step with the Bible College

Speakers Week

God is Good!

There is nothing like birth, marriage and death close to you to make you take a look at your life and desire to be better, to do better, to run this race on earth with all that you are. You desire to leave behind a legacy that leads people to worship the only name worthy to be praised, Jesus. The thought of eternity becomes a longing for the promised home in the Heaven with our Father.  

On December 2nd 2013 we landed in the business of LAX. Our bodies were exhausted from traveling and jet lag, our minds were preoccupied with thoughts of our dear dad, but our hearts were so glad to feel the sweet embrace of our family.  

6-7 weeks later we had experienced highs and lows, light and darkness, joy and sorrow. We lived through all these events as each one impacted us forever: the excitement of my sister in law finding out she will have a little boy, my sister in Romania giving birth to a sweet little girl, Jake's dad going to meet with The Lord, followed by 2 other close friends; our sweet friend, Josh Hughes getting married and last but not least, my little brother getting engaged. 

The only thing we can say is by God's grace: The Lord gives and The Lord takes away, blessed be the name of The Lord. 

We are to return back to New Zealand on February 9th. We will be arriving a week after the semester has started, so we'll hit the ground running, but this is what we were created for, and we love it ;). God has amazing works He has prepared for us to walk in and we know He is faithful to equip us for whatever comes. Eph. 2:10

Once back, Jake will be teaching through Genesis, along with overseeing Friday Lectures and vehicles.  Jake will also continue to help out with Steadfast at Calvary Chapel Hamilton, they will be going through the book of Hebrews. 

Tecla will be doing the same stuff, cooking and overseeing the M199 class. 

Please be praying with us for: 

His love to shine brighter than ever in and through us as a family 

God's wisdom and grace as we part it with the students

Jake will be leading an outreach to Auckland, New Zealand in March

We need $8,000 dollars to be able to go to Romania to be part of Tecla's brother's wedding and also it would be an opportunity for her family to meet Jade for the first time. 

Acts 20:24 “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

"God's past faithfulness demands our present trust."

Dear Friends and Family,
I have had this letter on my heart for some time now, and now the time has come to write it.  We will be heading home to California for some time to spend with Jake’s family. “The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater”. As many of you know Brian (Jake’s Dad) was diagnosed with lung cancer about 3 years ago. Even though it has been a tough roller-coaster, Dad’s love for the Lord has encouraged us and has been a great example to all of us. He has fought a good fight but his time in this earthly body is quickly coming to a close.  We all thank the Lord that he is a strong believer in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we share in the hope that we will see Brian again in heaven 
So Jake, Tecla and Jade will be leaving for California on Monday, Dec 2nd to be with family in this difficult time.  We appreciate your prayers. Not only for our family, but also for the ministry we serve with in New Zealand as we are leaving about 2 weeks before this semester ends. 
Romans 5:1-5 tells us that through difficult times we gain hope.  Now this hope is not wishful thinking, like I wish I had more money or I had another car.  “Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words  And never stops at all.” This hope is our hope in Christ.  It is an assurance that Christ will make good on His promises.  This hope is a true statement that whatever is promised will come to pass.  I hold on to that Hope in Christ, knowing I will see my father yet once again in Heaven.  
Thanks you all for your prayers and support.
Love Jake Tecla and Jade