September Newsletter

Internship

The month of September has been spent in study and in teaching. Jacob has been leading the Life and Doctrine Study (LADS, the midweek study for Providence Church) on the book of 1 John. Teaching this has been very convicting for Jacob. Much of 1 John is about asserting who are in Christ and what their actions should be. It is nigh impossible to study 1 John without questioning our own actions and our own motivations.

In addition to teaching LADS, Jacob has been preparing to teach Biblical ethics for 6 weeks in adult Sunday school at Providence church. The upcoming class will focus on topics like the 10 Commandments, definitions of ethics, and good works.

Jacob's sermon in August at the Rescue Mission went well. There was plenty of constructive feedback received to encourage further preaching. This sermon was on 1 John 1:1-4.

Jacob's sermon in September was on Genesis 11:1-9. The Tower of Babel is a wonderful example of God’s ordering all things for His glory (just like how He is ordering our journey for His glory). Preaching at the mission has been a wonderful opportunity to practice this highly important part of ministry. Jacob is constantly reminded of Romans 10:13-15:

¹³For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." ¹⁴How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

In addition to our web blog about our journey together, Jacob has a new blog,  which is specifically focused on seminary, and God’s Word. http://tomanstome.blogspot.com/  

Family Fun

This month we went on our first trip alone as a married couple. We spent the weekend near the beach in a beautiful hotel.  We had a great time relaxing, spending time together and remembering our past year of marriage. It was such a great time and one I am sure we need to continue yearly.

            The other family event we had this month was attending the Tigers baseball game. We received tickets for Jacob’s birthday and were thrilled! Neither of us had ever been to a major league baseball game. We had a blast, and are so thankful for the tickets. 

 

Seminary

The two courses Jacob is involved in at the moment have been incredibly helpful to personal discipline. One class (Calvin's Institutes) requires a detailed journal be kept of quotes, ideas, and questions. This journal assignment has forced Jacob to spend more and more time in reading, a good discipline which has been conceived during the last year, and now is going through birth pangs. The other class (Early and Medieval Church History) has been fast paced and fun. Currently the class is studying Constantine, the Arian controversy, and the Nicene Creed.

Jacob's class schedule is all set for the spring of 2011. Please continue to pray for employment which would be conducive to the upcoming duties of Seminary. 

Good Morning Girls

I wanted to share with everyone a group that I am a part of this fall, Good Morning Girls. Good Morning Girls is a blog that focuses on inspiring and promoting quiet time with God. You create your own group and hold each other accountable for reading as well as being an encouragement and friend. Since I did not have a group of women already, I went to their message board and found a group looking for members. The group that I am apart of consists of Pastor and Missionary wives. We communicate daily through discussions on facebook about our daily Bible readings and studies we are involved in, as well as how they apply to our lives. This has been such a great blessing to me. Before this group, I was spending quiet time with God but had no women in similar situations whom I could discuss my thoughts with. This group gave me women from all over the world in similar situations as me, pastors wives and dealing with challenges in the ministry.
I am so thankful to have found this blog and been able to create connections with women all over the world. I hope that someday I may be able to meet some of my friends in person.

I have learned that quiet time with God does not have to be an hour long, or even a half hour, or consist of reading as much as you can. Quiet time with God is whatever you want it to be. For me, most days it includes reading a chapter in the Old Testament (currently Proverbs) and New Testament (currently Galatians). I then try to find a verse or verses that stuck out to me and write then down along with a few sentences on how they apply to my life. Some days I only read 1 or 2 verses and some days I don't read at all. My goal in all this is to have quiet time with God 5 days a week and be held accountable and have friends that I can go to with my thoughts. 

I pray that all of your would consider how you spend alone time with God everyday, and if you don't to maybe considering working it into your schedule. You will be amazed at how much just a few minutes in God's Word will do for you.

Anniversary

     This past weekend we had the privilege to finally take a trip! Since we got married right out of college last year, we did not take a honeymoon and instead went right to work. We were determined to take a trip for our 1 year anniversary before seminary starts full time.  We only had the weekend off of work so we decided to go to Holland. I had made a plan (no surprise there) of what we could do Saturday, like go to dutch village, see the bison, play miniature golf etc, and of course we did NONE of that.

Beautiful Friday Evening

     It ended up raining all day Saturday so instead of the outdoor activities I had planned, we went bowling! We haven't been bowling in over 3 months and were thrilled to finally have the time to go. Jacob picked up just were we left off 3 months ago bowling well over 100 and even into 200. I on the other hand, had only used my new ball once before and was trying to get use to the new way of bowling and bowled HORRIBLE! Now, I am usually a fairly decent bowler usually getting over 100 every game, but not that day. That Saturday we played 4 games and my highest score was 101. I attributed my horrible bowling to the fact that I was on vacation and just wasn't thinking about anything and bowling requires a lot of thought.
    Other then bowling we spent the time sitting in our hotel room watching cable, (never would have thought I'd miss cable that much) playing computer games and spending quality time together doing nothing. We did have quality time together that involved more then just watching tv and playing games, but a lot of the time was spent quietly relaxing with each other.

Pizza!!

We finally took the plunge and made homemade pizza. We spent Labor day making the traditional family homemade pizza. I have never made homemade pizza and never had much of a wanting to until recently when I learned how much cheaper homemade pizza was.  So around 11ish Monday I got up to make the dough required for the pizza. This was the part that I was worried about the most due to the fact that I have NEVER made anything using yeast. I followed the directions exactly and put the dough in a bowl to rise, and let it sit for an hour. That hour was so hard! All I wanted to do was take the towel off and look at the dough and make sure that it was rising, but that was a BIG no no. So I got busy and prayed that the dough would rise and turn out ok. When the time came to take the dough out it had risen and looked great!! Now the fun part! Down came Jacob to help toss the pizzas.

 After abour an hour of rolling and tossing pizzas to get them semi how we wanted we began adding toppings. Yummy!! Here is a picture of 1 pizza sauced. (I forgot to take any of the finished product, we ate them too quick)

 

Doesn't it look so good? My pizza consisted of cottage cheese mixed with sauce, cheese and peperoni, while Jacob's was cheese, peperoni, olives and pineapples. We had such a great time making pizza and it was so much better then store bought.

For Next Time:

• roll the dough out thinner it was a little too thick
• try to find a good pizza sauce recipe
• look into freezing pizza dough
• get a better rolling pin

August Newsletter

Announcement:

     We have decided to move to St. Louis at the end of the year and start classes full time at Covenant Seminary in January. We hope all of you will pray for us as we make this journey to follow God’s call. This will be an exciting but stressful time as we look for an apartment, a job for Amy and organizing our finance . 

Upcoming Events

o   Our First Anniversary (September 5^th)

o   Beginning of Fall Semester

o   Jacob’s teaching Lads

o   Tigers Baseball Game

Prayer Requests

o   Work for Christ in and out of the home

o   Our friend Brandon and his family as his father passed away

o   Funds for seminary

o   Daily motivation

Internship/Seminary

Jacob’s internship this month consisted of designing and implementing Providence PCA’s new church calendar and newsletter. The calendar was made for August through December, while the newsletter will be monthly. Jacob preached once this past month at the mission and got some great constructive feedback.  He is hoping to preach more frequently and is currently writing sermons from Genesis and 1 John.

One class down 3 years left! Jacob has completed his first seminary class (Christian Ethics) in which he received a B. If you are interested in reading his final paper on Masonry and Christian Ethics send us an email and we will get you a copy. We are so thrilled to have this first class completed. Currently Jacob is taking two classes at Covenant through the distance learning program; Ancient and Medieval Church History and Calvin’s Institutes.   

Family Fun

This month we went on a short but fun trip to Mackinaw, MI with family. Due to Jacob’s work schedule we were only able to go for one night, but we had an AMAZING night. We arrived shortly before dinner, and had great conversation. Later that night we ventured to the park to watch the sunset. The rest of the time there was spent playing games and talking.

Another fun event was attending the Civil War Reenactment in Jackson. We went with family and friends and had a wonderful time! Jacob has been going for many years but this was Amy’s first time and didn’t quite know what to expect. It was a great history lesson and provided for a most enjoyable afternoon.

Family Ministry

     This month we have been ministering to our immediate family and circle of friends. Jacob hosted a game night with some men from church, which consisted of Battle for Middle Earth, and Lord of the Rings risk (can anyone guess a theme?). Snacks, caffeine, and good fellowship, what better way to spend an evening?

Ways you can Help

Prayer! If you would like to help via prayer, prayers can be sent to the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit.

If you would like to help with tuition please mail a check to (please write “Jacob Toman tuition” in the memo line) Covenant Theological Seminary 12330 Conway Road St. Louis, MO 63141

If you would like to help with living expenses please contact us.