2010 Wrangell Mountain Bible Conference

Our family, minus Shaughn, are with a CEF Alaska team of 13 in the Copper Center, AK. area at the Wrangell Mountain Bible Conference.

We are here for 10 days We have had 20-30 kids from 5yrs old to 15 years old in the clubs. Things are going well. We have been blessed to work with a local family as part of our team.

I am posting pictures right now on the Flikr site. It seems to be taking a while, but they should be up soon!

Please keep praying for the rest of the week. We leave Monday to head home.

Blessings,

scott

New Photos Posted

Check out our flickr sight as we have posted several new photos. Some you may have seen on our facebook sights but some you have not. It is midnight here and time for bed. We will come back and write some updates in the next couple of days. Please enjoy the photos and thank you for your prayers.

God bless you all!! Happy Mother's Day to all of the special "mom's" we know and love!!

Lela and boyz~

Family goes to Port Alsworth...

Last weekend our whole family went to the village of Port Alsworth for their Spring Family Conference. Our kids were on the team for the children’s ministry. Lela and I enjoyed the conference and met many new people as well as reconnected with familiar faces.

We ended up missing the first day due to weather. The plane could not get into the village due to the weather, so we went Saturday instead of Friday. We had about a 30 minute warning to get to the airport, which isn't far but this was at 8:25 a.m. and we were still in jammies and had to take our showers and get a couple of kiddies out of bed. BUT, we did make it and all was good. Port Alsworth has 2 runways side by side. When we landed, the pilot chose the left runway. Nobody clued him in about the condition. It was VERY muddy!!!! The airplane slid all the way down the runway. The pilot did an excellent job keeping the nose off the ground until he could get in some hard land. Otherwise, the nose wheel would have dug in and the prop woul have hit the ground resulting in $500,000 in damage. Once the runway dried a little, we tugged the airplane back as far as we could in the high ground and took all the weight we could out of the airplane, this left him with about 1500 feet of runway before the lake. He did a nice soft field take off in about 750 feet!! This was Sunday morning and the chapel is located at the end of the runway in front of the lake with HUGE windows on both sides to see all of the beauty. When the plane got off the ground the whole chapel roared with excitement!!!! The preacher stopped and allowed the Praise to continue and everyone gave thanks to God for His faithfulness. I was so excited...I met another Lela!! She spells her name Lelya...she is from Russia. It was so strange introducing her to Scott..."Scott this is Lelya and Lelya this is my husband Scott..." It sounded so weird. LOL Not everyday I get to do that. :-)

Scott and Lela leave Thursday for the village of Quihagak (Sounds like quinihawk) for the Moravian Youth Singsperation. About 330 Alaskan Natives will be flown in from villages all over Alaska. We will have the opportunity to meet many of them.

Scott and Lela have been promoted to CEF ALASKA RURAL MINISTRY COORDINATORS. The boss wanted to see how we did before he gave us the title. This just means that we are responsible for ministry that happens in every village except for Soldotna. :o)

God has been opening many doors for ministry. It has been amazing to see His handy work. We are humbled to be His servants and excited at what the future looks like.

Scott will slowly be trained in the airplane as opportunities come up. In the mean time, I am hoping to be able to use MARC’s Cessna 172 when I have a couple of bucks so that I can stay current. I can use this plane for various meetings around the State.

The boys are doing good. They loved flying out to the village and playing in the mud. Yes, we all had to have mud boots...a necessary item for living here once break up starts.

We pray that all is well with you and please continue to remember us in your prayers for safety in all of our upcoming flying and also for our boys as some of the trips they are not going on and staying with friends. We love and appreciate you all. God bless!!!!!

Lela and Scott

Shaughn, Matthew, Nathaniel and Jeremiah

Employee of the Week and of the Month!!!!

Shaughn has only been at McDonalds for about a month and a half and came home last night with 2 gift cards and 8 free meals because he was named Employee of the Week AND Employee of the Month!!!! His Dad and I are so proud!! Way to go Shaughn!!!!

My Dad still needs your prayers. His healing process is super slow and he needs the "Joy of the Lord" to shower over him during this time. If you could remember him and my mom, I would appreciate it.

Our local Wal-mart store opened today! This was a huge event here locally as they only had one store to shop at and this will give them a variety. :-) Otherwise, it is off to Anchorage...a 3-4 hour drive for most of us. Our friends in Homer has to add another 1 1/2 hours to that drive. We all went to check it out today after Shaughn got off of work.

Scott spoke today at the local native college. We all went but let him do the honors of speaking to the missions class. He did a great job speaking about CEF and the history of CEF. Each of the kids in the class took a prayer card and said they would be praying for us. They are such a great bunch of teens. We always enjoy going there. It is located just past our office a couple of blocks.

Everyone is doing great. We are preparing for all of our summer projects both with CEF and personal. We have many projects here at the home front...any volunteers to come and help??? :-) Love hearing from you all!

Bless you!
Lela and boyz~

Teeth...

The latest with the Lazaros Family...

Jeremiah lost another tooth. On the bottom. He was so excited to receive a visit from the tooth fairy. He made sure I took photos. :-)

Matthew lost his front tooth...again!! That was last Sunday. I called a dentist on Monday and got him in on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. Totally God!! After 2 hours and $212.00, it was back in. The dentist said he is going to baby this tooth until Matthew is 18 and at that time probably do an implant into the bone. He doesn't have any real tooth left to work with. After 4 different dentists and 4 different crowns, there is nothing left of the original tooth to hook the crown onto. So, pray that we can make this last until he is 18 or stops growing. The dentist is afraid that if they do the implant too soon, that it will cause other problems due to his bones are still growing.

Shaughn has made it 1 month at his job. He just finished working 42 hours this past week. He is pretty tired. He has decided that this is not the career he wants to do for the rest of his life. :-)

Update on my dad: His surgery was Wednesday, March 3rd. They had to take out more than they thought they would have to. He came home the next day with two bags. He went in the following Monday, March 8th for a check up. They removed the drainage bag but found that he was extremely swollen and that it was very unusual. The doctors were very concerned. They had him come back this past Wednesday, March 10th and removed the 2nd bag and he was still very swollen. His blood pressure is pretty low too. He has had some really bad days for pain and is healing slowly. The results came back and showed that it was a good thing that they took out extra because the cancer has moved into the fatty tissues around the prostate. The doctor feels he got all of it but will know more once he is able to do more testing. Dad said he almost wishes he had not gone through with the surgery as the pain is so intense. The rest of his treatment will be talked about next week (I think) at his next appointment.

Scott & Lela are almost done with their on-line class. Only 2 weeks left. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, that is pretty much it for the moment. Bless you all!!
Lela and boyz~

A time for prayer....

Thank you everyone who has been praying for my dad. I was able to go to NC last week and be with him during his first surgery. The results came back before I had to leave and they were negative. The cancer has not spread yet. Praise the Lord!! He is now scheduled for his BIG surgery on March 3rd at 10:00 a.m. NC time. Please continue to keep him in your prayers. He will be laid up for some time afterwards. He is not allowed to lift anything over 5 lbs for 6 weeks.
I flew there on Saturday, Feb 13th and returned to Anchorage on Saturday, Feb. 20th. I was suppose to sit at the Anchorage airport for 8+ hours waiting for my commuter flight into Kenai but my wonderful & romantic husband tracked my plane from Chicago into Anchorage and planned an arrival at the same time. He flew to Anchorage and picked me up!!!! How sweet!! He and a friend from M.A.R.C. (Mike, who owns the plane) flew in and "swooped" me away! I was home by 10:30 p.m. How cool is that??? They landed at Lake Hood. Our favorite place to sit and watch the planes take off and land...off and on the water. VERY COOL!! After a 22 day, that was such a blessing!!

Other news:
Shaughn got new glasses. He loves being able to see again. :-)
Scott and the boys did well with mom gone but where very glad to have her home again. :-)
Native Musicale is next week. We are in charge of this and need your prayer coverage.
Scott and I are in the middle of our online class, please keep us in your prayers as we continue to complete the course.
We are loving having our own place again. We are very blessed to be able to live in this home and bless the owner with fixing it up. It really fits our needs. What a blessing!!

Everyone is doing well and loves it here. Bless you all and again, thank you for keeping us in your prayers.

Lela and boyz~

Shaughn has his first job!!!

Shaughn the morning of his interview.

The morning sky

The evening sky

That's right, Shaughn went for his first interview yesterday and was hired on the spot. He went today for his orientation and starts on Monday!! He will work M-F 8-4. He is excited to have the opportunity and to be able to put something on his resume. It was a little bare. He applied at a place where he wouldn't be tempted...(his favorite place is Taco Bell and he didn't apply there because he didn't want to end up not liking the place after a while)...the only temptation he will have is their milkshakes...and he gets 50% off of anything (for himself only) whether he is working or not...have you guessed it yet??? They gave him two uniforms and a hat. They are ordering his shoes which will come out of his check. Jeremiah is super excited....yep....McDONALDS!!!

He has applied at several places but being a smaller town than Brighton but bigger than Coshocton, we are excited for him. I was hoping for Walmart since it opens up in March but they said there is like 35 openings and over 700 applications (his is one of them) that we are not sure of his chances. We do know with God all things are possible but we also feel this is an answer to prayer.

Matthew is doing great driving. He is a natural. He tries to drive anytime the vehicle is about to move. Unlike Shaughn who doesn't care if he does or doesn't. LOL

Scott and I are puddeling through our on-line class and trying to prepare for our CEF State Board Retreat and CEF Staff Prayer Retreat...all this weekend. We are also doing both workshops in them. We are leading/organizing them and are very excited about it. God has shown himself so much through this process. Different people have stepped up to help out and it has been just great. I spent all day yesterday writing a book for our prayer retreat. I had one of the gals at MSE (McKinley Service & Equipment) print them out for me last night and Scott brought them home...Fun to see how God puts things together.

We are loving it here and loving what God has us doing. We do ask for your prayers as the spiritual warfare has been very active.

Also, I ask for your prayers for my dad. We found out in January that my dad has cancer. He has stage 4, aggressive prostate cancer. They have done a bone scan and a cat scan and both have come back neg. so we are praying that it has not spread. They will know more when they do surgery which is Feb. 16th. He will see the specialist on Feb 10th to find out more details regarding the surgery and what to expect. They do want him to do radiation afterwards because all of his numbers are extremely high. Everything points to it not being good, but with the prayers of God's people so far, both of the scans came back with good news. He will be laid up for some time healing from surgery and all. I am hoping to be able to go and be with mom during the surgery and help her a little afterward. I am not sure if that is going to work out or not. I am leaving it in God's hands. We were not telling many people, only immediate family, per my dad's request until the scans came back and we had more information to share. He just finished his 5 years at US Airways/Pedmont and so he is now vested with them and can have the flying benefits for life now. That was something he really wanted to accomplish. God allowed for it to happen. His anniversary is Feb 7th. The week before his surgery. I have been struggling with the news and really had a hard time processing it. I am trying to leave it in God's hands and just keep keeping on my knees for him.

We are also moving!!! We have been living with an 85 year old gentleman out in Sterling but have found a place much closer to the CEF office and church that will save us a lot in gas money. We will be moving after this crazy weekend. We have already taken some stuff there now but with school, retreats, homeschooling, work, etc...yeah...priorities baby.

Scott is going to start working at the MARC hangar next week a little to help them out. They need the help really bad as they have had a lot of new projects come in and we will be slowing down a bit after the retreat until March. So, Scott will be able to go and help them out some. He is pretty excited about that. Steve took him last week flying and Scott really loved that. It was the first time he has flown since we left OH. They practiced stalls and all kinds of stuff. He was a happy man! :-)

Well, that is most the what is going on here. We are working on getting the newsletter out too, we want to try doing it email so please make sure we have your updated emails if you have changed them recently or would like to receive them. I hope I have them but it doesn't hurt to send them to us anyways to make sure. :-)

God bless you guys~
Lela and boyz~

Look Out!!!

Look Out!! Matthew is driving!! LOL Seriously, he is doing great!! He past his test on Wednesday and they took his photo and presented him with his driver's permit. He is walking proudly now. :-)
Mom and Dad are white knuckled once again. Seems strange to have 2 kids driving. He is already looking at vehicles on Craigslist and looking hard. Please pray for him as he continues to learn the ways of the road. He needs 10 hours of each: dark, daylight, snow/ice, dry of driving time and so living in Alaska you get 2 of those for part of the year and the other 2 the other part of the year. So he turns 16 in July and has to have his permit for 6 months which has to include 40 hrs of driving in those conditions...well, you do the math. He is driving in the dark and snow now and has to cram 20 hours in before we hit the daylight season...which is coming soon.

Scott and I have started an online class with CEF and, this being our first week, have found it helpful to have the other one taking it too. We find the web site a little confusing for us but we have each other to help muddle through it. :-) LOL

Everyone is doing well. We love it here and are very busy. Please continue to pray for us as we are still adjusting to all of the changes that we have encountered in the last few months. :-)

So, that is the latest with us.
God bless you all!

Lela~

Happy New Year!!!

It is 2010!!
Hard to believe it is 2010 already. We pray that each of you had a wonderful holiday season with friends and family. Our first Christmas and New Years in Alaska was really fun. We missed our families but felt we were exactly where God has called us to be.

We desire more of our Jesus in 2010 and desire to grow into who He has created us to be both individually and as a family. We updated our photo at the top of our blog with a recent photo taken in December showing just how much the boys have grown. My sister-in-law wrote me to tell me that I now look short in our family photos, I told her yes I do but at least all of the tall guys around me are very handsome. :-)

We are working hard on getting our next newsletter out and will be finishing it up this week. We will be trying to send it out electronically via email to help cut cost. Please email us with your email and let us know if you would like to receive it this way. You can respond to this post as well whether you want it email or paper form and let us know.

We pray that you seek Jesus more in 2010 and that you fall deeper in love with our Savior. God bless you all!! Happy 2010!!