Full Schedule, Overflowing Blessings

Hello friends and family!

 It’s hard to believe that mere weeks have passed since our last update. It seems like a lifetime ago… and in many ways, it was! A time of life without diaper changes and baby snuggles and middle of the night feeding and those funny noises she makes when she’s really excited. We’re enjoying all God’s gifts in this new season of life!

Camp News

Ironwood has hosted fifteen different camps in the last six weeks. That translates to a lot of cabins cleaned, dishes washed, coffee shop drinks sold, and people presented with the truth from God’s Word. Although a busy fall season means a lot of work for our staff team, we can be confident that God will use even the ‘boring’ jobs to impact lives for eternity.

Project season is well under way here in the Sandbox. Concrete pads for the next few staff houses are being poured. One of the shop buildings next to our house is being remodeled for housing, so hopefully we’ll have new neighbors within the next year! A crew was also sent up to Sequoia Meadows to shut down the facility for the winter. They arrived to a foot of snow on the ground and more coming down, so they had their work cut out for them.

God’s provision has been obvious in a few ways this month. A church has committed to give several thousand dollars toward remodeling the Barn, turning it into an activity space and the largest meeting room on property. This would allow the camp to serve much larger groups! Another donation made it possible for the Grounds crew to buy and plant several Chilean mesquite trees around camp.

Family News

First, to address the small elephant in the room: Rosemary Serene joined our family on September 18^th, weighing just under seven pounds and measuring nineteen inches long. Although there were a few problems with her breathing right after birth, she quickly overcame those and has been a healthy, happy baby ever since. We are enjoying her many facial expressions and smiles! Rosie sleeps well at night and loves stroller rides around camp.

At the moment, Gabe is the only member of our family sleeping through the night. This is good, because he’s had plenty of exhausting days. Due to the busy camp schedule, he spent a lot of time running activities like the rifle range, the high ropes course, escape rooms and more. Unfortunately, vehicles do not respect the camp schedule. At one point last month, he had six trucks lined up outside the shop, all needing different repairs. The tension between helping with camps and keeping both of his job areas afloat has been challenging.

This has been the longest six weeks of my life! After a roller-coaster of a labor and delivery, I found out just much I hate sitting still. But God was gracious to give me a safe, fairly uncomplicated delivery and patience for healing. My mom flew down to be with me during the birth and stayed for a week.  I don’t know what I would have done without her! (Rosie showed her appreciation by being born on her grandma’s birthday.) Our church and camp families were also a huge blessing: praying, encouraging, bringing us food, and so much more. Now, I’m feeling almost back to normal and enjoying being a mother. God is so, so good!

As missionaries, we ask people to pray for us a lot. Sometimes, we even ask them to pray for people they’ve never met. And most of us have a list of people in our lives who need prayer. But do you ever get stuck on how to pray for others? It’s hard to get past, “God, solve their problems and bless them.”

I’ve found it helpful to pick a few verses to ‘pray over’ our Ministry Crew every year. This year’s passage is Philippians 1:9-11.

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

This is a great prayer for anyone who knows Christ as Savior. But since becoming a mother, I’ve realized that most Biblical prayers are also terrifying. It’s so hard to look at my baby girl with her bright eyes and squishy cheeks and then pray, “Lord, more than safety or health or success, let her love You. Do whatever it takes to make her pure and blameless and filled with the fruit of righteousness.”

Yet this is exactly the kind of prayer God wants to hear. When we pray for what we know God wants instead of what we think is best, we can be confident of asking for the right thing.

Please, pray for us this way. Pray for Ironwood this way. Pray for each other this way!

Love in Christ,

Gabe and Cheyenne (and Rosemary) Palkki

PS: If you want to see baby pictures (or a really big rainstorm), check out the Gallery! Also, take a peek at our Pray page and spend some time praising God for His many blessings from this month!