Hey Everyone,

     Well, we're well into summer and things are going great!  We've already had 4 groups in 3 weeks as well as several overnight teams and lots of missionary families.  Needless to say, we're all looking kind of shell shocked at the moment, but it's a happy shell shocked!  Thank God Kay and Keith and Carole are here this summer, or we'd never have made it.    Last Friday we had over 70 here and the next day on Saturday, we had over 100!  Keep in mind we only hold 72, so Saturday there were some sleeping on the floor of the new meeting room. 

     Yep, you heard right.  Our meeting room is usable and was ready for our 4th full week team of the summer.  They are enjoying using it for their devotional meetings and such.  They say it's much better than holding them in the unfinished girl's bathroom from last year!  Rick and Keith worked extremely hard right up until the day the 102 got here to get it ready.  It still needs tile on the floor, paint on the walls (they're only primed to this point) and light fixtures on the ceiling, but it is usable the way it is.  We even have it air conditioned!  Good thing since it's been over 100* without any breaks and very little rain for the past 4 weeks or so.  If any of you are in the flood prone areas, you can shift a little of it this way!  Back to the main subject, the girl's bathroom now has a working shower/tub in it as well as a functional sink and one bathroom stall with working toilet.  We're waiting on the funds to finish the tile on the floor and shower walls.  The boy's bath house is framed in with all the tile board on, but has nothing functioning at the moment.  We have someone willing to come down and finish the dry wall for us that remains and offers of coming to lay tile, but we don't have the funds to go much further at this point.  With the country being in such hard economic times, and we're sure you all have felt it too, there aren't as many donations coming in.  Pray with us that God will raise up those who can give to give and help us complete this project.  It's not just tile or paint, there are lots of little things that need done as well, like fixtures for the showers and such.  Not a lot by themselves, but figure valves for all the tubs and shower and it comes up to $1040.00!  We've put in a new photo album to the right with the new pics of the bath house/meeting room/construction.  Thanks to the teams who have helped us over the last several weeks, drywalling, pouring concrete, doing stippling on the ceilings, etc.!

Another piece of news is that the St. Clairs will be leaving us at the middle of August to head to Guadalajara to attend language school for 9 months.  They'll be coming back for 1 month in December to help us out with our busiest month, and then returning in May, right before next summer's busy season.  Keep them in prayer as the kids will be having to readjust again, as will they, after having been here for a year and just settling in here at LSS.  Pray that God will continue to clear the way, bring in the support they need to do school and live there, keep the support they do have consistent and help them learn easily.  Rebekah and the boys will be attending a new school YWAM is just opening there for the missionary kids and Hannah will be attending language school with her parents.  They are hoping that when they return in the spring, their house will be far enough along that they can move into it.  Slowly but surely, the groups are helping to do more on that as well.  

     Particularly pray for the kids here at LSS.  Even here, the board, because of liability issues, have decided we can't have many things that kids in a private home can have to help keep them busy and get a lot of exercise.  We've been able to put up a fort/swing/sandbox which the younger ones enjoy, but other activities like bicycling out here is difficult.  Main roads are dirt and the neighbor's dogs aren't to be trusted.  Prickers get in the tires very easily and cause flats.  As hot as it is, a pool is not an option either.  At present, they are using a large plastic tub meant to be used as a horse trough to swim in, but that's rather difficult to get 5 kids into!  As busy as we are, as far away as town is and with gas prices the way they are, it's difficult to be able to get away and take them to other activities in town as well.  It's a challenge for us to keep them occupied and physically fit.  TV, video games, etc help keep them from being bored, but don't do much to get that energy out!  Those of you with kids know what we mean.    Continue to pray for Judah as he struggles still with reading and his ADHD. We're concerned with his weight as well.  The medication has decreased his appetite and we're making him watch what he eats more, but it's still a struggle for him. 

     We want to send out our congratulations to our founder, Randy Leyendecker and his new bride, Jeannie.  As of Thursday afternoon, they are now Mr. & Mrs. Randall Leyendecker.  After spending a few days in San Antonio, they are headed for a road trip to Alaska!  Our blessings go with them.  Pray that God will bless them as a couple and always be the head of their relationship as they grow together in Him. 

    Pray for us as we head into next month and all the groups who are coming here to minister.  Oak Hills 8th graders from San Antonio, Meadow Park from Columbus, OH, 1st Baptist of Slidell from Slidell, LA and Believer's Fellowship from Lynchburg, VA.  We also have lots of overnight teams.  Pray for teams from Rob Rolison's ministry, Church of the Cross, Central Baptist, Wes Foster, Jennifer Kennedy and Danny Johnson.  In addition, several missionary families will be stopping through.  Pray for safe journey for the Davids, Lees, Jones and James families as they come to do business, rest and rejuvenate while here at LSS.  These are the ones that we know of, but others are always buzzing with just a few days' notice or emergency visits. 

     We can't forget to mention Kay.  She's been such a blessing this spring and summer.  It's hard to think she's been here since the end of February and will be leaving us to go back home to Oregon at the middle of August.  Our interns mean so much to us here.  We couldn't do what we do without them.  Local volunteers are great and we have some VERY faithful ones but the fact is they are only here for a few hours for one to a couple of days a month.  We're not trying to minimize what they do at all, but full time interns are a huge blessing, because they are here with us 24/7, working along side of us all the time.  They know the ins and outs of working here at LSS and fall in love with the ministry more and more every day.  When surprise things come, like an unexpected group or missionary family, we can count on them to jump in and help out, no matter what time of day (and you'd be surprised how many times one of us is up til 2 or 3 in the morning or later to accommodate those surprises!)  We thank Kay with all our hearts.  She's in the kitchen with me (Kim) cutting up the tomatoes for the group for supper right now and has been up since early this morning when she helped Rick with breakfast.  Our days and our intern's days can go from 5:30 in the morning till 9:00 or later at night!  Remember all of us in prayer that God will grace us with His strength and stamina, especially during this summer season and as some of us are not spring chickens any more!  Satan loves to throw in those aches and pains to try and keep us down!  Pray for Kay and our other summer interns that will be joining us in the next few weeks for a couple of weeks at a time.  Alicia Wallace, Jayme and Stephanie Brown w/ children Eden and Calen and Tristina.

     Pray for Rick and Kim as after September, it's back to just them to run LSS.  The St. Clairs will be in language school and Kay will be back to Oregon.  Rick has several weeks in September where he'll be out of town as well.  It's not as busy in the fall months, but there is still plenty going on, and the ministry continues to outgrow us.  Pray that the Lord will send us more full time staff and that the board will approve them to come work here at LSS.  We claim the verse for the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into His harvest field and that the ones who belong here and will fall in love with LSS as we have will be sent here.  We and they have to know that we know that we know they belong here!  It takes special people with a special call to be missionaries and especially to work at a place like LSS.  It's not a 9 - 5 job, you have to raise your own pay (which is tough to do, especially in times like these!), it takes a toll on you emotionally, physically and spiritually every day.  You have to be willing to leave family, loved ones and friends, your comfort zone, and come to a place where you are not part of the culture.  You struggle to make a new friendship base because you're so busy, as does your family, learn a new language, we could go on and on, but we think you get the picture.  Pray that we'll all have wisdom and certainty when those God has called here come.

     Of course, there's always more going on at Stepping Stone than we can tell here.  But it's already 11:30, we've just finished cleaning up from a late dinner and we're still waiting for a late overnight group to arrive, so we'll close for now.  Continue to keep us in prayer for those requests listed above and an unspoken for the Halls.  God bless you all, and once again, thanks for keeping up with us!  Your prayers are the backbone of this ministry!

 Hey Everyone,

     Welcome to the spring newsletter.    We can tell it's spring because we've had our first 100 degree days here!  I feels SO great to walk outside and feel the moisture sucked right out of your skin in seconds!  Things are blooming, like pollen, so a lot of us are struggling with allergies right now, but it's nice to see some of the flowers starting to peek out.  The cactus are getting ready to explode, something we look forward to here.  The desert truly does bloom and has it's own beauty.

Construction Progress

     Well, we've really been busy since Christmas time and there's been a lot of changes.  January was full of building as Hero Makers and two groups of POWER ministry stopped in and worked diligently on the new bath house and the St. Clairs house.  PTL for all that's been done!  We've put a photo log off to the left where you can check out all the progress.  Needless to say, it's considerable!  Check out Rebekah in her room at various stages!  She's very proud of it and the girls can't WAIT to get in their own rooms and out of their little brothers!

                  This all happened in one month!

As you can see, those two groups put us light years ahead and we can't say thanks enough!  If any of you have groups or churches looking for missions work projects, we'd love for you to come down and help out!  We have some other individuals and churches who have offered their services and we're waiting until we get to the point where we need their specialty to do that.  We thank the Lord for people who have willing hearts and willing hands to help us in this way.  Pray for the financing to come in for these projects as well.  We're estimating just the bottom level of the bath house will cost around (in man's estimate) 30,000.00 to finish (including the outside of the building and landscaping.  After seeing what God's done in the past 5 years with LSS, we have no doubt it will get done in His time and His way!

BIG BIG BIG praise!  We now have a ceiling!!!!!!!!!  Thank you thank you thank you to all who helped us get this in!  It was a long time coming, but now....

tada!!!!!

Our beautiful tongue & groove wood ceiling!  It has made a HUGE difference in the way the dining hall looks and feels AND in our power bills!  Thank you Lord.  What a blessing!  Many people worked VERY hard for this to be, and we so, so appreciate it!  Next - the tile for the floor!

Missionaries

Not only did we have a lot of building going on, but we had a LOT of missionaries come thru in the past few months! 

In January, we had visits by the Benners, Pharrisses (several times due to car trouble!), Swansons, Browns, Askeys, Bobby Bailey, Hartledges, Hansons, Davids, Marshalls, and Barnetts.  Needless to say, never a dull moment at LSS! 

In February, Jill Timmer, Rocky and Sherri Rhoades, Phill Askey & Scott Brown, Pharrises (yes, car woes again), Jerry and Alejandra  Hartledge, Nathan and Julie Terrell, Andy with WIM and wife and Jim and Caroline James came in. 

March hasn't seen quite as many. Bobby Bailey and Craig Benner came up together and Jane Hernandez and helpers from Monterrey came up.  Several new families as well, Kevin and Alma Bushnell and David and Mimi Thorpe have found LSS this month.

So as you can see, LSS continues to be a blessing to the missionary families who come up take care of various business at the border. Remember to keep these missionaries in prayer as well as us for things such as health, safe travel, favor at border crossings, our kids, spiritual, physical, mental and emotional strength, blessings on their ministries and families, saftey living in their various areas of Mexico,enough financial support and wisdom.  Especially in the financial support area.  Everyone is getting hit with these higher gas prices and price increases all around.  Some have seen drops in support and when that happens, you have to find ways to conserve.  For some, that means cut backs in how much ministry you can do, as gas is expensive and bad roads and long drives are many times involved.  We can testify that we spend a LOT of our support on gas.  It's a long drive in to town and across into Mexico and back traveling with the groups and visiting the missionaries and national pastors, and that's on fairly good roads (at least most of the time!)  Some living in the interior have 6 hour drives to get back into villages that should take an hour on good roads to get to!  Hmmm.  Add good working vehicles to that prayer list!

  Ken & Susanne Pharriss & son Eric

Groups

Well spring break means spring break groups, and this year, we've had our share.  February 16 - 18th we had about 20 students from Temple Christian School in Dallas, TX come down for the weekend.  Thanks to Mrs. Cepeda's Spanish class for a great weekend!  They did a little of everything, a typical Mex Quest group.  They helped work on the St. Clair's house, visited the orphanages, got a taste of a national Spanish church service, passed out water at Bridge One to some thirsty people (who got a little LIVING water as well) and even managed to put in a little shopping time after passing out tracts in the plaza in Nuevo Laredo.  Check it out!                

Oh yeah, and did we mention the great food?  It was an experience for all of them, one they say they'll all repeat!  Last week we were privileged to have Gene Bowman and a group of 6 guys working with Mission to the World ministries.  They were working with one of the national churches in town, helping them to build a new building.  We also have several overnight teams going into Mexico this month, and a day work group working with Primera Iglesia Bautista here in Laredo generously coming to help us out in the mornings as their work project. 

Next month we're gearing up to have Regalos de Amor teams come in from the 24 - 27 for Dia de los Niños and then a small group from the St. Clair's home church will be coming for a week to help work on their house.  We have a month with some open space for traveling and such in May and then summer hits full blast!  At the moment, we have 8 full week groups, a bunch of overnighters and several other groups tentatively booked, so looks like we'll be going full out for about 12 weeks.  Please keep these groups in prayer as they prepare to come, that they'll have flexible, teachable spirits with an ear to hear God speak to them and use them for His will on these trips.  They always find out they get ministered to more than they ministered to others and we love to see their lives changed as well as the Mexicans!  Every year we have at least someone from a team get saved themselves and everyone learns a little (or lot) more about missions and leave a piece of themselves here. Pray for our staff, for physical, spiritual, mental and emotional strength and wisdom.  By the end of the summer, we are all pretty much drained and we need His strength in all these areas!  Thank God He always sends us the people we need to help make it through and this year, He sent -

STAFF

KAY!! 

Kay came to us from up in the north west.  She was going to intern with some good friends of ours, the Snows, but they didn't have a place for her to stay, so they offered to share her if we could put her up.  We're soooo glad we did!  She's been with us for several weeks now and has been a MAJOR blessing to us!  What a servant's heart.  She and her husband were pastors before he passed away, and now Kay is off to discover what God has for her now.  Blessings for us, she's decided to stay through the middle of August so we'll have her for the whole summer.  Woohoo!!! Please pray for Kay as she seeks what the Lord has for her and her future.  We also have another really awesome young woman seeking out if God would have her come for the summer.  We're all seeking God's will at this point in the situation, so keep Chris in your prayers as well. 

The St. Clairs are doing well and settling in as best they can.  Please continue to pray for them and for us as we all try to find our footing and what areas God would have us use our gifts in.  Pray that we would be bound together in unity of heart, mind and purpose in regards to LSS.  Our prayer focus for this year as pertains to the ministry, the staff and the board are "Alignment" and "New Beginnings".  We're also continuing last year's of Faith, Trust and Understanding.  Pray for the St. Clair kids, especially the girls, as they are trying to get used to living in a new environment, family dynamic, ministry and culture.  Pray especially that they get grounded in a new church and develop new friendships.  Not easy when you're fairly isolated and homeschooled.  Pray for them as they raise the funds for their new home, that God would establish them soon.  They plan on moving in actually as soon as it's "livable".  Now to some of us, that means there's heat and air, the walls have drywall on them (even if it's not finished), the toilet flushes, the shower works and the electricity is up and running!  Tile and paint can wait!   They were also able this month to get their first real taste of the interior of Mexico.  They went to Jamave to help the James's with their house.  They spent a week with them and had an awesome time!  Then, they came back up to Rio Bravo at a sister deaf school of the one they worked at in Jamaica and spent a week helping them with a work team.  They came back very blessed, very informed and with a LOT of pictures!  Very cool.

At the zoo last fall.

As for the Halls, May is shaping up to be a busy travel month.  Please keep them in your prayers as Rick will be traveling to Dallas May 2 - 4, we have a homeschool convention in San Antonio from the 15 - 18, a short vacation as a family in the middle of the month to distress before summer, and a missions conference to go to as a family in Dallas the 31 - 3 of June.  Pray for traveling mercies, divine appointments, rest and relaxation, a good time as a family and opportunities to present the ministry.  Pray for Kim.  She's just finished having an MRI on her lower back (all those wonderful years of nursing!).  She has degenerative disc disease between her vertebra and possible nerve damage, so we're trying to figure out the best route to go.  In the meantime, we both see a lot of our wonderful chiropractor!  Pray for Rick's health, as he's still struggling with high blood pressure and constant pain in his knees.  We're both trying to get the weight off, which isn't easy with a food ministry!  Justin is in nursing school now at Texas A & M here in Laredo and is still working at Starbucks.  He's just been informed he is one of the top two students in the whole nursing program there!  Of course, mom and dad aren't proud or anything.  Not bad for a homeschool graduate taught by a mother who doesn't have a teaching certificate, hey California?  He's been living on campus but will be moving back home this summer and staying until he finishes in about 2 years.  Judah is being tested for a reading disorder this week. Please keep him in your prayers as well.

POWER presents
Randy and Jeannie with donated sweatshirts for the homeless ministry.  Read about it in more detail on the website  www.laredosteppingstone.com

FOOD MINISTRY

Speaking of which, check out the new food ministry page on the website.  There's some exciting stuff going on there.  Pray as we look at fixing our warehouse situation.  We need to change out of the railroad containers we're using and find more room.  We're also praying for a new refrigerated trailer and box trailer to be able to pick up the donated food.  We have companies who are looking at donating large amounts, but we need to be prepared to recieve it.  If anyone knows of someone who could donate these types of trailers, please let us know.  We're still not sure exactly what's going to happen, but through little glimpses here and there, we're seeing God beginning to put some things together.  Pray for LSS's other recurring events and outreaches.  The missionary fellowships continue to go great guns and are a blessing to so many who are doing ministry here in this area and in Mexico.  We continue to have somewhere between 50 to 80 people the last Tuesday of every month.  The dispensa (food bank) here in our area also continues the first Friday of every month, supplying 120 or so families with food.  The Tuesday food ministry to the national churches and ministries also continues to go wonderfully!  We're supplying upwards of 30 - 40 ministries every Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. with food and supplies to use in their ministries. We're also getting more people volunteering to help us with both of these, PTL!  Pray for some volunteers with strong backs!  Those 50lb bags of beans and rice are heavy! 

Well, we could go on forever, but hopefully, now that we have the blog site more "user friendly" and our email list straight, we'll be able to post more frequently to let you all know what's up.  This site has been really great.  Note that you do NOT have to get a Xanga site to view this page!  It's great getting the updates from those of you that do and great seeing the posts in the "chat board" on the side of the page!  We love hearing from you!  We also enjoy being able to put up the photo strip and albums for you all to "flip thru".  Hopefully, you'll enjoy it too.  God bless all of you. Thanks for taking time to listen to our ramblings and seeing what's up here at LSS and keeping us in prayer.  Give us a yell if you have any problems with the site and we'll see what we can do to fix it.  Love you all and thank God for you every day!!!!!!

Rick and Kim and all of us here at LSS