Time Together

These past 4 days Rebecca and I have had the opportunity to spend time with each other, without the kiddos, in Santa Barbara. We have once again been so blessed with such beautiful, warm, and sunny weather! Some of the things that we did while here was:
- go to Reality Carpinteria on Sunday morning for church. We were super excited to go and excited to see how the Lord was going to speak to us! The worship was such a blessing! And the message was right on! We were excited to hear from Pastor Britt Merrick, but he actually had another friend of mine teach whose name is Al Abdulla. He is the new guy there that will be doing a church plant through Reality. Pastor Al taught a radical message in regards to the Palm Sunday message. It was exactly what Rebecca and I needed to hear in different ways! We were super blessed!
- one of the other highlights was the fact that we just got to really just spend time with each other. We went on many walks up and down State Street, along the beach, spent time reading and laying out at the pool here at the hotel, and really enjoy each other! Thank you Jesus for my wife!

Emily and Rebecca!

Dom and I

- We also had the opportunity to hang out with some friends of ours: Dominic and Emily Balli! We were super blessed to go to there house and have a sweet time of fellowship!
- Lastly, we were able to hook up with my cousin Sean and his wife Julie! Last night we went out to dinner at a local Italian Resturant, and then went over to their new home that they have bought in Santa Barbara! It was such a blessing!


We are now on our way back to So Cal! Thank you Jesus for this time to get away with my beautiful wife! We were super blessed!o be able to catch up with them!

Update from Cali!

We have officially been in California for almost a week and half now and the Lord has really blessed our time with our families! We have really been enjoying the warm, sunny weather here in So Cal. It is still kind of surreal being here. I am not really sure how to put it into words. But regardless, we are just wanting to enjoy each day at a time!

I have to share with you all something that was pretty hilarious for me. This took place when my (Joey's) family went to our favorite Mexican food place in Pomona. You see, growing up in Pomona, we went to this restaurant all of my life. In High School I learned the Spanish language and was able to speak it quite well. But I have not been around it in quite a while. So when I went to order at the restaurant my food and drinks, you know what came out? GERMAN! It was pretty hilarious! Every time I went to say something to the waitress, only German came out! So I just thought, "Oh, forget it!" and I just ordered in English! The waitress looked quite puzzled at me, but I thought it was a good laugh. I had to share that with you all.

This past week we have been with Rebecca's family and have been able to go to our favorite beach, Victoria Garderns (a local outside shopping mall), and Disneyland! We were so extremely blessed with those who enabled us to get into Disneyland! We had such a fun time! Unfortunately Noah was not able to go with us to D-land, because we thought it would be too much and too long of a day for him, so instead he was spoiled by Grandma Shoshi :)

Here are a few of this pics from this last week:

Katie & Ya-Ya enjoying the train ride at Victoria Gardens

TIGGER! The girls were so excited to see him! They love him!

Katie enjoying the Carousel at Disneyland

Rebecca, with her sisters Amy & Kristina at Laguna Beach

mmmmmmm! Lecker! (yummy)

Update on the Roper Family

Hello Everyone
I want to apologize for not updating what has been going on for a little while! There are a couple of reasons, one of which I will share about right now!

WE ARE IN CALIFORNIA!
One of the reasons why I have not updated what is going on with us is the fact that we are in California! Now you might be saying, what is the big deal, why not write about that? Well, I needed to keep it hush, hush because we wanted to surprise my dad for his birthday! You see, he knew we were coming, but he didn't have the correct days of when we were coming! He thought that we would be coming on the 22nd of March, but we actually came on the 15th of March. My dad's birthday is the 16th of March and he had no idea that we would be in his house waiting to surprise him! Well, we did it! We totally surprised him! I wish we could have gotten a picture of his face, but we were not able to get one! He was totally shocked that we were standing in the home when he came home from a very busy day at work! We are so glad that we had the opportunity to do that!

For the past week, we have spent time with my (Joey) family going to many parks, IN-N-OUT two times already, our favorite mexican food resturant in Pomona, Mexico Lindo, and really just enjoying the very warm weather! Wearing shorts, sandals, and t-shirts everyday!

We are now spending this week with Rebecca's family and looking forward to all that we will do together!

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go to CCCH for the first time since we moved to Deutschland! We showed up 40 minutes before service because we knew that we were going to see so many people that we haven't seen in a while! Well, we did! For all of you who we have not seen yet, we hope to in the next weeks that we are here in CA! It was a blessing to sit with my wife in church together, worship, and hear an awesome message from Pastor Jack!

I will be trying to keep you all updated more and more and hopefully with some pics! We have some great ones already!

To all of our friends and church family in Deutschland, WE LOVE YOU ALL AND PRAY THAT YOU ARE BEING BLESSED!

Ich bin vertig!

Hello Everyone!
Well today I officially finished my German Course. Today was the Mundlische Prüfung, which means that we would be speaking only in this part of the test. Each of were partnered in our class with another classmate and we would each have around a 20 minute test with the both of us speaking. Catherine and I did great! We would have discussions back and forth with the two people giving us the test and then at the end Catherine and I would have to have a conversation over a specific topic that the people giving us the test gave to us!
I believe we did a great job and that we passed!

I am not exactly sure when I will be getting my test results from my complete test, but when I do, I will let you know about it!

Thank you so much for praying for me thorughout this past year! I am really excited to be done and am really excited on how much I am able to communicate in the German language. Although I am no where close to having the language completely down, I am pretty stoked on how much I am able to communicate in just 1 1/2 years!

I praise the LORD for all of this!

Schriftlische Prüfung

I want to give you all an update on what happened today on the first part of my test. Today's part of the test was focused on listening, reading, and writing. I believe that I did pretty good on the hearing part, alright on the reading part, and really good on the writing part. Tomorrow morning I will have the speaking part of the test. Please continue to pray for Catherine (a fellow classmate and missionary) and I, as we will be doing the conversation with each other for the test!

As I sat in the class today, before the test started, I was listening to my teacher give us the instructions for the test. I began to think of how amazing it was that I was there, about to take a test only in the German language, and that I understood everything that she was saying to us. Just one year ago, I understood only a few words in the German language, and now here I am taking a test all in German! Dass ist verrückt (That is crazy)!

So once again, please pray for my final part of the test tomorrow!
thank you so much!

Final Preparation

Ok - So Catherine (a fellow student in my class) and I just finished studying our last time for the Deutsche Prüfung which will be taking place tomorrow and Saturday! I will be honest, my head hurts from all of the reading that we just did! The test that we just studied on, we believe, is actually a little level higher than what we will actually be taking, so it was a bit harder!

I do want to ask you once again to please be praying for my classmates and I as we will be taking this test the next two days!

I can't wait until these next two days are over! LORD HELP US!

Go into all the World

Two weeks ago we had the opportunity to pray for and be a part of sending out Claudia Nickel to Peru. She has been a faithful servant here at CC Herborn for the past years and has truly been a blessing! We do pray that the Lord does a great work of His Spirit IN and THROUGH her!

Claudia sharing with the body of CCH

Pastor Edmund Sr, Claudia's parents, and Markus praying over Claudia!

We love you Claudia and will miss you!

Winter wonder Deutschland

We want to share with you some of the pics that we took during our amazing time here during this long WHITE winter. Most of the people were so tired of the snow, but regardless of how much was liked or not, we still think it was absolutely amazing! It was definitely cold and we are looking forward to the snow to be gone and for Spring to begin, but we did enjoy the snow! God's creation is absolutely amazing!
Here are some pics to enjoy!

we finally got to finish our snow man - Katie picked out the branches for the arms

our snow man (schneemann)

loving the snow! This picture was actually taken during the weekend of the Prophecy Conference. It was absolutely amazing!

Upcoming German Test

Hello Everyone,
I cannot believe it, but it has been a year now since I first started my German lessons! For me this is really amazing because I have not taken so many classes since high school. Especially the German language - which is a hard one! But I have really learned so much and am able to communicate so much more in just one year. I do not claim at all to have the complete language down, but I know that I have made some huge steps in it!

I am writing you all to ask you to please be praying for my test that I will be having on this coming Friday and Saturday. Friday will be more of the hearing, reading, and writing part of the test. Saturday will be the speaking part of the test!

Please do pray for our whole class as we are all preparing and studying for this test!

I must pass this test!

The only bummer is that I will not find out the results until at least a month later! But once I do find out the results, I will definitely let you know about them!

Please pray!
Thanks so much

Update on Noah

Hey Everyone,
We want to thank you all for praying for Noah. He is still sick, but doing a lot better than last night. We were up with him until 1 a.m. last night. He did wake up again around 6am and then Rebecca was able to put him down again. He is doing better, but we do know that he is not 100% at all. We do have a feeling that this has to do with the mold also. As we researched everything with mold, we read how the exact things that are happening to Aliyah, Noah, and myself (a little) could definitely be from the mold. We have done all that we can do by wiping it all down and all the other steps, but nonetheless, we continue to battle with sickness.
We are looking forward to our trip to CA really soon and we believe that this will be a great break for us, especially with the health situations.
Please do keep us in your prayers with direction on moving to another place. We are currently searching for a place now.
So please continue to pray that we can get healthy and strong in time for our flight to CA!

Pray for Noah

Hey Everyone
We are writing you all to ask you to once again pray for Noah. It is midnight here and Noah has been struggling all night long. I have taken him on walks, rocked him, got all bundled up and gone outside for some fresh air. He does fall asleep because he is so tired, but then after some time keeps waking up.

• Please do pray for a peace upon him
• if it is pain (we do not know) that it would go away
• a clearing up of the lungs if it has to do with breathing
• wisdom for us (as it is hard to know what to do since he cannot tell us what is wrong)
  

Thank you all very much

Love the Roper Family

Noah turns One!

We know that this is a little late, almost a month late, but we didn't want to miss out on writing about our little boy. The reason this has taken some time is because of the fact that we were dealing with the kids sickness during Noah's 1st birthday. It is kind of a bummer because we were not able to do too much for him. We still did some things, but he was so sick on his birthday, he was not able to enjoy it.
Well, it has officially been a year! We cannot believe it! Our little boy is already one year old! We are so thankful for this little boy that the Lord has so blessed us with. He is definitely a boy. He has already been playing with the cars and making the car noises while playing with them. Isn't that so amazing how God has just put that into little boys. Just the other day he and I (daddy) were playing back and forth with a little bouncy ball. He is crawling all over the house and is even now starting to walk around and chase his sisters. When he sees the little toy lion he makes a growl sound. It is so great!

This little boy of ours is so full of life, joy, love, compassion, and so much more. When his sisters get hurt, he goes over to them and pats them on back and then leans onto them to show them his love. We love it!

This little boy definitely loves his mommy! He loves to play with her! He loves it when she holds him and tickles him! In the morning, there are many times when he gets into our bed that he just crawls up next to his mommy and cuddles with her! She loves it so much! As you can see, he is so good to pose for mommy when she wants to take some pictures of him!