zeroe4.me

November 20, 2017

My Art Portfolio and a Quick Update

Hello everyone, I wanted to let you guys know that I built a portfolio site for my artwork. Its a part of my major, so I will be updating it regularly. If you would like to see my work, the site URL is arxyuki.com

Also, if you could be praying for me, I had an interview last weekend for a job I would really like. Please keep us in your prayers. Thanks, everyone!!!!

The image at the top is from Mt.Rainier. On of my classes went on a hike there just after school started.

Also here is a slideshow of pictures of our apartment. I had promised to post them a while back.

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September 15, 2017

Autumn Update and University Support Letter

Hey everyone, below is a newsletter my lovely wife has been hard at work on. It’s about our prayer and support requests during school and really focuses on the heart of why we are doing this. Please give it a good read, thanks.

– Daniel

Hello.

It’s been a while. I hope everyone is well and has had a fun summer! For Daniel and I, the summer flew by. It felt like I blinked, and it was my last day in Wenatchee. I can hardly believe how time has flown, and next week, Orientation starts. How crazy is that?! Starting next week, Daniel and I will be freshmen at SPU. And I’m still having trouble looking out our window and believing we live in Seattle. And we’re starting college in less than two weeks. Wow.

Here’s the thing. College is expensive. Anyone who has been past about freshman year in high school knows that, and Daniel and I were expecting that going into this. This is a crazy venture as many, many people have told us, what with both of us trying to get our degrees at the same time. Yesterday, Daniel and I got our pre-bills from school, our estimations of how everything would add up: tuition, fees, scholarships, grants, loans. We learned that we both still owe money toward our tuition, even after scholarships and loans and everything. We sat down last evening and did the math. In order for us to make ends meet, Daniel and I would both have to work 35+ hours per week, which is doable. It would probably mean me getting a new or another job and Daniel getting one through somewhere besides the school like he had planned and hoped or else multiple jobs. All of this we could do. However, as a good friend ours once said, “We want to have a vision-based budget, not a budget-based vision.”

Now, God has called us to another step of faith. You see, as we dreamed of embarking on this college journey, do you know what came to mind for us? Ministering to people, specifically young people. College is full of young people seeking identity, belief, truth, understanding. What a better place to do college ministry than from inside of college? And when we dreamed of having an apartment, we dreamed of holding gatherings, worship nights, dinners, study groups, movie nights from our living room. Making our home a place of fellowship, light, life, and laughter in the heart of Seattle. What a way to share the Gospel. Our next step of faith is asking for help. Your help. In order to make these dreams of ministering and being involved in the Body these next four years a reality, we need sponsors. Ever since we left Japan, we both felt like we would be writing this letter one day, but we thought maybe we could make it happen, and you know what? We could. But that’s not what we feel like God has for us in this season.

So we would like to ask for you to consider giving. Maybe this isn’t a conventional mission field, I get that, but this is the mission field we are called to right now. Our goal for support is $1525 per month. That is our rent for our apartment including utilities and parking. What this would mean for us is that we could both work part time to pay for school, food, books, and everything else that goes along with going to school, and God would provide for our rent. This would allow for us to have time to partner with ministries in and outside of school as well as, who knows, maybe start a few of our own. Please pray and consider giving to our work here in Seattle. And please pray for us, we could really use prayer for strength and wisdom in this time as well.

If you feel led to give, please follow the link below. If you would like to talk to Daniel or I more about our journey or about giving, please feel free to email us!

Rachel Lilly – rachel.m.lilly@gmail.com

Daniel Lilly – zeroe4@gmail.com

paypal.me/zeroe4

Thank you everyone for reading!!!

P.s. Here’s the view from our new place!!!

September 9, 2017

We moved!!! (Quick update)

We made it!!! I’ll post some pictures when we get the boxes cleared out, but for now I just wanted to let everyone know. Thank you to everyone who helped us move. It took two days, but it’s so nice to have made it, after 10 months. Thank you for your prayers and support.

September 2, 2017

We are moving to Seattle!!!!

This week Rachel and I are moving to Seattle!!!! Rachel just finished her last day of work at the Wenatchee Starbucks, and my last day of work is Tuesday. We are moving on Thursday morning.

We are both super excited, and a little bit stressed. Rachel has a job in Seattle, she was able to transfer through Starbucks and I’m still looking at the moment. We are both believing that the Lord will provide a job for me.

This picture is a view from our new place. It is less than a ten minute walk from the school. After nearly a year of living in different places and out of suitcases, we are so excited to have a place of our own. Our new apartment is a one bedroom with lots of storage, and a really nice livingroom. It has a wonderful view of the Fremont Canal, and is big enough that we can host people and invite them into our house, which has been a dream of ours. The picture at to top is the view from our new place.

Also, last month we were able to go camping near Astoria, Oregon with Rachel’s family and it was a lot of fun. And then today, we are helping with a friend’s wedding.

July 7, 2017

Midsummers Update: Jumping in the Deep End

It’s been four months since my last post, and a lot has changed. Rachel and I are both doing pretty well. Life has been busy and at times pretty stressful, but we are doing our best. We are really missing Japan and the YWAM community there. We have tried to get plugged into Rachel’s church here in the states, but it’s not really been the same. We are really excited about having a Godly community in Seattle though, as we feel like the Lord has one there for us to be apart of.

In further news, about a month ago we were able to go visit my family in Alaska for my sister’s wedding. That was so much fun. It was so great to see family and be able to hangout. We got to spend a week helping out with the wedding and a week just hanging out with everyone.

Rachel and I are both working full-time at our jobs, Rachel is at Starbucks and I am working at her Dad’s meat shop. Rachel was just moved to full-time, and I was given a raise, for our hard work. We have spent the last few months saving up money for moving to Seattle. However, some issues came up with our car and it has nearly depleted our savings. We had to have some work done on the steering and the engine. Our tires were so worn that they didn’t meet state law, so we had to get new tires. And we still have to get our front brakes replaced. Not to mention that our car was involved in a fender bender, and Rachel got a minor concussion. She’s doing a lot better. Things with that, have mostly been sorted out. She had to take a week off from work, but has improved drastically, and just finished two whole days back at work. So, our lives have been crazy.

We are currently living with Rachel’s Grandma. We were house sitting, but our time at that place ran out. We are currently looking and praying for a place in Seattle. School starts for us on the 20th of September. We are hoping to have a place by the beginning of September since Rachel has to transfer to a Starbucks over there, and I need to find a job for the time we are in school. We aren’t really sure how all of this will work out, but we have had lots of favor up until now and we are both convinced that the Lord will provide like he always has. This is an area where we could use plenty of prayers though.

That being said, we are really praying for a place near the school, since we will have classes five days a week, and I may very likely end up working on campus. We are also looking for a place big enough to where we can invite people into our home or host visitors, as discipleship and loving people through hospitality are very important to both of us. However, both of those things make places more expensive as a medium-sized studio or a one bedroom apartment runs about $1500 to $2500 per month. We are also needing to get another computer. My Rachel and I both need a computer for school, so she is probably going to end up using my MacBook Pro and I’m currently hoping to get an iMac or a bigger MacBook Pro place so that I can use that for school projects. The bigger screen would be really helpful with my digital art, and the art department at SPU uses iMacs.

We are super excited to start school!!!! We have our schedule for the first quarter and we even have a class together. I have a communications class, a writing class, a theology class, and my first Art class!!!! I was even awarded a $1000 a year scholarship for an Art portfolio I submitted. We have both receive a lot of financial aid, about 3/4 of our school expenses are covered before loans.

One thing we could use prayer on is our mission. We are attending school knowing this is a season of training, but we feel like this is in many ways just another extension of missions work. We want to work with campus ministries and focus on building up the believers at SPU. We want to do street ministry in downtown Seattle. We strongly believe that there’s a move of God that’s going to hit Seattle, and possibly the west coast. We are wanting to catch the wave and run with it. Cause we’re convinced that this is about so much more than a couple of pieces of paper. So, please be praying for us to meet the right people and find a community for us to run with. We are jumping all in for the King and his Kingdom in this place.

Also, here’s a little video I made a few months ago.

SaveSave

February 28, 2017

WE ARE MARRIED!!!!

We got married on November 17, 2016!!!! It was crazy, and a lot of fun. It was wonderful to see all of our family and many of our friends. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen.

Life since then has been crazy. We went on our honeymoon to Orcas Island here in Washington. It was really restful and quiet. We both really enjoyed it.

After we returned from our honeymoon, we spent Christmas with Rachel’s family. It was a lot of fun, and very much of a new experience for me. I found that it was really hard to be this close to Alaska, and not see my family during that time. (We are going to Alaska in May for my sister’s wedding, so it all works out.)

We also were able to buy a car!!!! We got an Audi for $2000. And we were offered it out of nowhere. And the place we are living, we were asked to long-term house sit (until summer.) And we don’t have to pay for anything except Internet, which we don’t have right now. Then yesterday, I had my first day of work. I was given a job at Rachel’s Dad’s Meat shop. And to make things crazier, Rachel started work today, at Starbucks!!! Needless to say, things are crazy.

And lastly, we got accepted into Seattle Pacific University!!!!! We were both accepted and qualify for merit and need-based scholarships!!!! Rachel is looking to major in Communications, and I’m going into Illustration. We’re both super excited!!!!

We are hoping to move to Seattle this summer, and school starts in September. We are still looking for Christian community, but we are currently trying to get involved with Rachel’s church in Wenatchee. We visited our school about a month ago, and made really good connections with some of the staff at the school and were really encouraged with the number of people who love the Lord. We’re really excited to work with campus ministries when we get there. We even talked with some staff about leading missions trips to Japan, and about the fact Seattle doesn’t have a YWAM base. We are really excited to see what the Lord is going to do.

Kira Baron Photography WWW.KIRABARON.COM

Obligatory wedding photo

And lots of other photos below. Sorry for the late update, our lives were basically flipped on their heads.

November 6, 2016

There and back Again: Stateside for A While

We are back in the States. We landed in Seattle last Friday Morning and have been busy with wedding planning since. It’s hard to believe that we won’t be going back to Japan soon. It’s finally starting to sink in. When leaving Japan, we had to sign away our long-term visa, we were both crushed and sickened at the thought of not being able to return for a while. However, we both have peace and anticipation at what’s ahead. Japan feels so much like home, but the Lord is the one who directs our steps. He does it so perfectly, that it’s amazingly humbling.

On Tuesday, we picked up our marriage license and I became a Washington state resident. These things went so smoothly, but the weight of these decisions is a bit bigger than I had prepared for. It has been amazing. And on Thursday, we went to Yakima and got engagement photos taken.

We are counting down to November 17th, when we will be married. Next fall we will be going to school. In between, we will be working, applying to school, moving to Seattle, and trying to get settled after the honeymoon.
Well try to keep you guys posted.
Thanks for all your prayers and support. These past few years have been amazing.

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