After our marriage in March 2018, we started a new blog together. 

Check out our latest updates at

 

Joshautumnmiller.blogspot.com

Thanks for your interest in our ministry as we prepare 

to take the gospel to an unreached people group.

Life and Ministry Together

Hey friends! It’s been a busy 2 1/2 months since you heard from us, but we are excited to update you!

WEDDING

Just in case somehow you missed it, we are now Josh and Autumn Miller!

The story is too long to add here, but if you'd like to hear about one of the unexpected blessing
that God gave us that relates to our wedding pictures, send me an email and I'll tell you the story.
It was a sweet reminder that God cares about the little things in our lives!! 

We got married on March 24, and then went “off the grid” for about four weeks without social media or emails (or blog updates! 😉). In case you are interested, here is a link to our wedding ceremony video. It was our desire for our wedding day to reflect the true meaning of marriage, to picture Christ and His incredible love for His Church. Our entire lives are supposed to be about that, so we wanted this important day to really emphasize the right things when so much in our culture emphasizes the wrong things about a wedding! Obviously it was an amazing day for us, and we were really encouraged to get feedback from people about how spiritually encouraging the day was for them. (Check out about 6 minutes into the video to see one of the special touches we planned for our processional). 

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us as we start our marriage and ministry together! What a huge blessing and also a huge responsibility to make this life-long covenant! There are a lot of unknowns ahead of us, but we continue to be reminded that we have a faithful God. (And to answer our most-often asked question,"Married life is even better than we expected!").

LIFE ADJUSTMENTS

One of our adjustments has been moving. After our honeymoon, we moved in a small apartment above a garage/shop in Orrville, Ohio. That’s about 2 hours from where I (Autumn) lived before. We’ve spent some time getting settled in, arranging our stuff, figuring what things we needed to put into storage for later when we go to PNG and what stuff should just go! (Pretty sure a garage sale is in our future).

We are also praying and seeking God’s will for how best to get involved as a couple at our home church here in Orrville. It might seem obvious to just “jump in” and get involved as much as possible, but since Lord-willing, we are only here for another year and a half, we want to make sure we are getting involved in ways that will benefit from our short-term help! Thank you for praying for wisdom and leading for us in this area.

NEXT STEPS TOWARD THE MISSION FIELD

The next big thing in our missions timeline is for Josh to take his ordination exam. Right now, he is working 2 days a week and taking 3-4 days each week to focus on studying and writing his paper for the exam.  This is a huge undertaking (60-100 page paper and a 6+ hr oral exam with a panel of pastors) and it can be difficult to come home after an 8.5 hr work day and then sit down and study for 2-3 more hours, much less to just sit at a desk and just study and write for 8-9 hours some days. Please pray for him for focus, encouragement, and that the study will be profitable! 

Josh spends 30+ hours each week studying and working on his paper
for his theological examination with our national fellowship.  

I am working one day a week at the church, helping out with secretarial work, which is a nice way to get a better feel for my new church. We had also been praying and trusting God to provide a job for me as well, if that was one of the ways that He wanted to meet our financial needs.  We specifically needed jobs that would be quite flexible, since Lord willing, in the fall after Josh’s ordination, we will start traveling again on the weekends to speak in churches and raise support. Josh’s boss has been a huge blessing by giving us so much flexibility, and God answered our prayers by giving me part-time work that also is flexible. I am also working right now on getting prayer cards, our blog, brochures, and other such materials made and updated for us as a couple.

I am enjoying working one day a week in the office at church. It has helped me
get a little more connected as I'm getting to know my new church family as well. 

NEW BLOG ADDRESS

Speaking of updates, from now on you'll be getting updates from us from a new email address and our blog will have a new URL. Since I'm no longer Autumn Arp, our blog URL will be changing to

joshautumnmiller.blogspot.com 

(This will be active in the next two days.)

and our new email address is

joshandautumnmiller@gmail.com. 

My former email autumnjoyarp@gmail.com still works and I'll still be checking it, but we are working to transition over to this new email for ministry-related stuff.

HEALTH

Many of you have been faithfully praying for my health, and that means so much to us. Just wanted to let you know that I have healed really well since the surgery and there haven't been any outward signs of the cancer having spread. We had a meeting with a specialist this month to be able to ask more questions, such as "Do you have any recommendations for us as we look at needing to have check ups in Australia after we move to PNG?" We are thankful that the doctors don't see any reason at this point for us to change our plans for living and serving overseas.

COMING UP...

July
       - We'll be attending our fellowship's National Conference and facilitating a presentation for our future teammates who are overseas.
       - Lots of study for Josh!!!
       - Josh's district theological exam
August
       - Josh's second district theological exam
October
       - Josh's first national theological exam
November
       - Team building and time with our teammates who will be home from Papua New Guinea

Thank you to all of you who are supporting us through prayer, financial support, 

and encouragement! It means more than we can possibly say! 

Follow us on Facebook to get more regular updates and prayer requests.Click HERE to download a pdf bulletin insert of this update.

The "C" Word

Hi friends! You might have noticed that over the last few months you’ve heard from me a bit less than normal. I apologize, and want to catch you on what has been happening. Hopefully, this update will both be an encouragement and challenge, and also help you know how to pray with Josh and I as we trust God in some uncertain waters.

So here is a quick run through the details of the past two months.

The second week of January, shortly after getting home from Canada, I found out that I had a spot of melanoma skin cancer on my cheek. The doctors were concerned about it possibly having spread to my lymph nodes, so they wanted to act quickly. On January 30^th, I had surgery to remove about a 2 inch circle on my cheek and neck, and to remove three sections of lymph nodes that needed to be biopsied to see if the melanoma had spread. While having face/neck surgery and ending up with a 6-7 inch scar was definitely not my idea of something to do two months before my wedding, that is what needed to happen. I can trust that God had a purpose for what seemed in my eyes to be less than ideal timing (although let’s be honest, there is no ideal timing for cancer surgery.)

Halfway through February, we found out that the melanoma had not spread to the lymph nodes and we are so thankful for that blessing! The doctors told us however, that they were concerned about something else they saw in the tests so they decided to test for a perineural extension…basically, the cancer could end up in the nerves/nerve coatings in the face and then travel internally. This type of extension for melanoma is quite rare, but difficult to treat.

Our latest update came on February 26, when we found out that the test results for the perineural extension were inconclusive. Basically, the doctor thinks here is a 50/50 chance of whether or not the cancer has spread into the nerves/nerve coatings, but we won’t be able to know for sure unless/until we see certain symptoms… Obviously, we hope we never see those symptoms!

So for now, we wait. (And isn’t that just everyone favorite thing to do! 😊) My Doctor is aware of our plans to serve long term overseas as missionaries, and he has encouraged us to try to give ourselves two years to be here in the States and have regular testing. If at that point, I’m still symptom free, we can fairly confident that I don’t have a perineural extension and we’d be able to coordinate and keep up with further tests on an annual basis overseas.

So those are the basic, upfront facts. But then there is all of the messy, everyday life and emotions that go with all of those facts. They are a little bit harder to share with you all, but honestly, probably more important. So, as I learn to be transparent about something that feels very personal, I’m going to share with you a few of the things that Josh and I have been reminded of as we’ve processed and prayed together.

1.    Living life in light of eternity is something we take far too lightly. We usually live our lives and make decisions based on the assumption that we are going have many years. The reality is that a cancer diagnosis doesn’t change the fact that we are never supposed to be too comfortable or too attached to this world. The purpose of our lives is for the glory of God! Period!

2.    Surrendering ourselves and those we love most to God must be a continual decision we make. Honestly, while having someone to walk through this trial with is a huge blessing, it also increases the weight of the pain, because he shares mine, and I share his, and then the fact that my pain increases his pain only increases mine…you get the pictures. The most important truth that I need to keep coming back to though is that we are both God’s.  

3.    We serve an incredible, powerful, sovereign God, and if what he wants for our lives looks different than we would have wished, then we can trust His wisdom and purpose in the middle of uncertainty and thank Him for what He is doing, even if we don’t understand it all yet. That confidence comes because of how deeply and intimately we KNOW our God! As Josh likes to say “We have history with Him!” 😊

4.    We are all dying. It can seem trite to say that, or perhaps morbid to dwell on the fact that all of us are dying, but that is reality. It isn't changed or effected by any diagnosis or risk percentage we receive. I've realized that for me, the only difference was that before this diagnosis, I was used to living as though I was certain I had many years ahead. While I still hope I do, this reminder also makes my heart break even more for the lost who have no hope in this life and no hope in death!  And that points me back to living my life in light of eternity (Point #1).

5.    There is nothing we would rather do than spend our lives serving God together! We still believe that He is leading us overseas to reach an unreached people group, and our plan is to follow Him! Even if His plan involves something different though, there are certain things we know without a shadow of a doubt are His will for us: reaching the lost, discipling believers, growing in our relationship with Him, spending time in His Word, becoming more like Christ, and bringing others along with us! In Ohio, Canada, Papua New Guinea, or anywhere else He leads us, those things will not change.  

Thank you for your prayers for us to be faithful and bring God glory through our lives; and thank you for partnering with us to reach the unreached with the gospel!

P.S. On a positive note, Josh and I are getting married in 22 days! That is something to be praising God for and praying with us about! 😊  


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Click HERE to see a summary of who I am and what I'm doing.


Click HERE to download a pdf bulletin insert of this update.