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Ken's Tech Web log; Family Web log;  Web logs for Rhea, Mandy, Jason, Havilah, Samara/Petra/Havilah

The Burton Family Missive
Winter 2006 (Updated January 22, 2006)
Dear Friends and Family  

Finally, a post hurricane newsletter; this was ready to go and published on NoisyBoys.com before Katrina, but now there’s changes (Katrina fried our computer)…

We have had many changes this year, the most recent and most exciting is Ken’s promotion to elder and ordained pastor in our local church, Good News Fellowship. Our church is affiliated with Gospel Crusade International; they have outreach churches world wide and are a well known, very evangelistic and missions oriented fellowship. Currently our local church is meeting in a school building on Saturday nights.

The Kids attend youth group at Fullness Fellowship and I attend Bible study with the ladies of that fellowship. The pastor there, David Newcombe, is from South Africa. He is also a missionary and takes regular mission trips to South Africa. I am very excited about the connections we’ve made with missionaries here and hope the whole family will soon be going on mission trips.

In case you haven’t heard, Silas married Jeannette Stiles on April 1st this year. (Jeannette is Rhea’s husband’s sister. The couple were candle lighters together in Rhea’s wedding.) They are happily living in Mt. Vernon, Washington, close to Jamin and Havilah. Silas is an excellent musician on the bass and gaining skill on the guitar and writing music. His main job is building yachts, the one of a kind, type. The December 2005 Motorboat Magazine cover features a yacht he helped build. He got “employee of the month in December also.

We were blessed with three Grandsons within this last year. Mandy had a little boy on July 23rd, 2004 Jackson Daniel, Rhea followed with Corban Amos on Feb 15, 2005 and Jamin’s wife, Havilah, topped off our “boy run” with Devin Lewis on May 15, 2005. Devin makes 9 grandchildren for us. He broke the tie putting the boys in the lead 5 to 4. Ken turned 50 on July 15 so “5” is the number of 2005 (God’s goodness).

Mandy followed Jamin in surprising us with a decision to run a marathon this year; Jamin ran the Chicago Marathon in October of 2001, and Mandy ran in the San Diego Marathon in June. Neither of them had been marathon runners prior to this sudden decision, so we were both surprised and pleased. Mandy and her three little ones got to spend three weeks with Rhea and Jason, with the marathon in the middle of her stay. We got news that Mandy is expecting Mclemore number four in May… (which Carole declares is a girl, and is willing to suffer humiliation, contempt and scorn if she is wrong).
You can visit Rhea’s Xanga site to see photos of the race and Rhea and Mandy’s families at www.Xanga.com/sixofushanginout. Mandy’s site is www.xanga.com/mandymclemore.

Rhea and Jason recently moved back to Mt. Vernon, Washington from S. Cal.

Jamin is building houses and continuing to develop his amazing artistic and musical talents. He is an excellent guitarist and is helping on his church’s worship team with his brother. Please visit at www.Xanga.com/ havilahjoy to read the wonderful notes his wife keeps and see pictures of his family. We got to take a trip out to see them in September (they bought our tickets out, sweet kids they are).

Ken and Gandalf get their live music fix in downtown West Palm (www.clematisbynight.net) . Galdalf is very popular there (mentioned from the stage every time), and may be in a commercial for the event.
 

Jubal is learning guitar and sounding pretty good.  Jubal had major surgery on March 30, 2005, for a condition known as Pectus Excavatum. I’ll spare the description of the condition and corrective surgery to save time. Basically his rib cage was growing inward towards his spine putting pressure on his heart and lungs. He had a 5 day hospital stay and now has a steel bar in his chest. It will be there for 2 to 3 years depending upon his progress. He is now working at Chick-Fil-A and maintains his role of keeping us all laughing.  All is well with his surgery and progress.

Judah works on a privately owned yacht. It is owned by a well known businessman, who owns a car dealership in West Palm Beach (and other places). Judah worked at Camp Bighorn last summer, and will finish high school this spring. He is still home schooling, and he is hoping to begin flying lessons soon, (hopefully at Moody Bible’s flight school) and go into foreign missions.

Caleb started college in January in Gainesville, FL and plans to marry Michelle Treewater March 10th. Michelle is a bright, beautiful young lady that some friends here picked out as a match for Caleb the minute they met him (they knew her for years). We’ll have photos and more after the wedding.

Havilah, Petra and Samara like to collect critters - Birds, fish, lizards, turtles, etc. They even recently caught a stray kitten, which they named Pippin. They also like building things with wood. (Havilah asked for her own hammer and other tools for her 13th birthday in June.) They sew, swim, draw, dance, read, and cook. They do not like to clean their room, do dishes, laundry or basically any other household chores besides cooking and baking occasionally. This doesn’t mean they don’t have to do chores anyway. The girls have recently joined the worship team as dancers at church. Ken is a project manager with a landscaping company. He’s learning a lot about plants and the particulars of weather and such in Florida. His crew is comprised of mostly Spanish speaking immigrants.

I (Carole) can’t begin to describe what I do – it makes me dizzy trying to think of how to put it on paper. A major accomplishment for me this year was forming a teen group within our home school support group with a friend. Formerly the teens who were home schooling didn’t do anything as a group. We were able to get them together for numerous events (usually fundraising) and take them to Tallahassee for our end of the year field trip. It was awesome. We saw museums, the governors mansion, the Old and New capitals, the state archives, the film dept of FSU, the Senate and the Supreme Court. This year Carole is helping organize a teen trip to Washington, DC. If you are interested in helping us raise money for this trip, visit the girl’s web site, http://www.xanga.com/HARPS5 and buy tickets for our quilt raffle (signed by state governors).

Carole has a new job – one she loves – as a counselor in aftercare at a public elementary school (she started on Jamin’s birthday, Sept. 27). She works afternoons after our homeschooling day ends. To each of you receiving this letter, we think of you often and cherish our memories of you. Time does not permit me to go into detail about how we value the input you’ve had in our lives. We have learned so much from each of you and we are able to help and bless others because of your investment in us. Our God is amazing, steady and unchanging; our God is a mountain, firm beneath our feet…
Love, Carole
For more pictures and information, go to www.NoisyBoys.com. There are links to many Burton and Family Web logs there. Blessings, Ken and the Kids.
 

Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings from the Burtons in Florida (November 2004)!

We are finally getting back on track from the Hurricanes. Many of you have asked how we weathered the storms so I thought I'd give you a detailed report. We began preparing when Charley was headed for the west coast, not intensely, just storing water. When Charley went north we kept storing water because the season was just starting. The biggest need after a hurricane is water. Flooding usually contaminates the drinking water so you have to boil it before you can drink it. However most people are without power so you have no way to boil it. Storing water proved to be a wise move because then came Frances.

If you've watched the news you realize Frances made landfall only about 15 miles north of us. Frances was a slow moving hurricane that put out power to 1.2 million people. We were without power and phones for 9 days. Being without power was hard because we have a well and had to use some of our drinking water for flushing toilets. We didn't travel anywhere that wasn't necessary because it was nearly impossible to buy gas. Some of our friends had power so we let the kids stay the night else where for comforts sake. No A/C in south Florida that time of year even made the natives whine.

The eeriest part was having no streetlights or stores lit up at night. All the traffic signals were down so it was dangerous to drive. No one knows how to do a 4-way stop in futuristic 6-lane traffic. The police drove around announcing curfew; it was like a Sci-Fi movie. At night we had a 7 o'clock curfew. Anyone out after that would be arrested to prevent looting. Many people had boarded up and left town.

Our house is on a barrier island so we had a mandatory evacuation order. If Frances had come in at high tide we would have had a 15-foot storm surge, which could have flooded the whole island. We stayed at Jon and Lisa's (our pastors). During the storm we prayed, had a worship service and took turns sleeping and checking to see if anything was flooding. Water came in under the door and through the ceiling for which was a little unnerving because the windows were boarded up and we couldn't tell if the streets were flooding or the wind was blowing the water in under the door. We didn't know if the roof was going to fall in or blow away. We weren't scared though. It was amazing.

Ken kept going out between feeder bands to let Gandalf swim in the pond and whatever else. I was sleeping when the eye came through so I didn't know until the next day that they went out and walked around. (Most people who die in hurricanes die from going outside and stepping in water that has a downed power line in it somewhere). Power usually goes out near the beginning of the storm so we couldn't tell what's happening from the TV; we had a battery-powered radio, but the broadcasters didn't really have a good idea what was happening
.
The day afterwards we went home to see what damage had been done. Other than the loss of power nothing happened to us. There was no flooding on our block, although there was just a few miles north and south of us. We noticed many large commercial buildings were missing roofs and walls on the way home. The closer we got to home to worse the damage was. As we turned on to our street the very first building (6 houses down) had a tree uprooted through the asphalt parking lot blown into the building crushing the edge of the roof and front side of the building. As we continued down the block we saw similar things all around. When we got to our house we found all the neighbors' trees in our yard. Our avocado trees were pretty much stripped clean. As small as our yard is, nothing hit our house. We didn't even board up our house. And we had no leakage or even a cracked window. While we were preparing to leave I had to call two different friends. Both of them had just read amazing testimonies of situations where people had read and prayed Psalm 91 and been miraculously spared. One was a woman who had a tornado coming and only had time to pray before going into her basement. When the tornado had passed she came out to discover her farm had been untouched as the tornado made a circle around it and destroyed everything else in its path. My other friend had read a story of a battalion in the First World War who faithfully read Psalm 91 together, daily, and they prayed. In the time they were together they went through three of the bloodiest battles in the war and not one of them was injured or killed. I figured since the two people I had to call had both shared that, that God was telling me something. I gathered the kids and we read Psalm 91 and prayed. Then we went to the computer and printed out enough copies to put one above every door and window both inside and out. I had been reading Exodus and felt like the Israelites leaving Egypt; we anticipated losing everything and not even having a house to return to, so we were very careful in deciding what to take. I took everything I thought would be necessary to help after the storms, towels, sheets, food, water, matches, candles, blankets, and flashlights. I did not take my family photographs; at that point I wanted living people and the pictures just didn't matter. My intention when putting up the scriptures over my house was to be a testimony to our neighbors, where we were putting our trust and hope. It was not superstition or a good luck charm.

When we were finally leaving I saw our landlord across the alley boarding up one final window on a commercial building he owns. Caleb and Judah ran over to help, and then we left. I had the strangest feeling that he was going to come over and tear down all our scriptures on the outside, so I prayed once again for his salvation. Our landlord is a very kind, hardworking generous man; he believes "the Lord helps those who help themselves." He has not been open to the gospel so far. He has never faced anything he couldn't handle in his own strength. We believe God placed us here to be a witness and to witness to him so we are still praying. When we began cleaning trees from our back yard I found many of our scriptures wadded up under the debris. I don't know if he tore them down, but they had been torn down. In spite of this, our house and everything we have had been protected; many of his other properties, including other ones on our street, had extensive damage. Lots of places locally lost entire roofs.

After this came the long nine days of no power. We spent the time looking for ways to help. We went with friends to clean up the damage to a Christian school in Jupiter and various other things. We got to know our neighbors and spend quality time with the Lord. Then came Jeanne. Now Jeanne was fast moving and very scary since she had already been killing so many in Haiti and the Bahamas. Of course for a while in between we were watching to see where Ivan was going to go. At first we thought that he might hit us too. Ken and they boys all felt very strongly that we should just stay home when Jeanne came. I was concerned about flooding, but I was concerned when at Jon's too. So we stayed and prayed -- which we had been doing for weeks. Our Psalm 91's were still up everywhere and we had been reading in Job. Ken had read from Job 38, that morning in devotions, following his regular reading schedule. Job 38 is where God speaks to Job, "out of a whirlwind." In verses 8-11 God says, "Who shut up the sea from behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?'" He shared this with us and we all prayed and felt like God was telling us to not fear, we'd be safe at home. The winds raged all night and we watched out the windows. We saw things blowing and heard the wind and watched brilliant blue and green flashes from power lines hitting and transformers going out. But it was mostly that and nothing extremely exciting happened, so we went to sleep. The power went out around 10:00 pm.

We were expecting another long wait because all the electricians were in the panhandle fixing up thing after Ivan. But we regained partial power after two days and all of it within a week. Before it was all back on the kids and I went to Bradenton to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles at a Christian retreat center. We had an awesome time and met a pastor and ministry team from the Bahamas, who we would like to go help with outreach over Christmas break. When I heard his wife speak she was sharing about when Jeanne was coming and she said the exact verse Ken had read. She said, "I wasn't scared because I knew the flood had to stop right where the God told it. And it stopped at the house across the street from me. As soon as the storm was over we went to the parks and handed out food water and clothes and led people to Jesus."

People lost everything there and they need workers who want to share the gospel and don't mind hard work. All in all a hurricane is only slightly different than a blizzard. A blizzard is a strong wind blowing snow, which can cover a car, blow it off the road, put out your power and cause you to freeze to death. A hurricane is a strong wind that dumps enormous amounts of water on you, could wash you away in a flood, puts out your power and makes you hot and sweaty. (No chance of freezing to death though.) However, the ocean is cooler after the storm so you can go to the beach and cool off and see new interesting things on the beach. People are much more open to the gospel. It has been an adventure, though many people are in great need. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth workers into the harvest, for the harvest is ripe but the workers are few. If you know of Christian laborers, roofers and anyone in construction who needs work and wants to share the gospel, please suggest that he pray about coming to Florida. We have ahead a solid year of roofing jobs alone.

On the bright side, many of the marinas and docks are gone. That means the wealthy people from New York who come down for the winter and live on their yachts won't be coming this year, at least until well after the election. There was an article in the paper not long ago saying that it had been discovered that a significant amount of New Yorkers had voted twice in the last election. They voted absentee in one place and went to the polls in another. In all of this, I forgot to tell you that we weren't at all surprised by the storms. In July well before Charley showed up Ken felt that the Lord had placed Psalm 93 on his heart and he had been praying already. He also felt he should share it with whoever he could and he'd already been telling people we would have hurricanes this year. We rarely see a full bright rainbow in South Florida, but a few days after Jeanne we were in the back yard when we saw a complete rainbow to the east of us. It was just like God reminding us again that he's not going to destroy the world with a flood. They are talking about fire danger now. The rainy season is passed and we have huge piles of dry wood all over the place and it's still hot; a tiny spark could set everything on fire.

I know God knew about all this when he brought us here so I don't want to miss out on what he's got in mind for us. We are excited to see what he's going to do next, and trusting for revival.

You are in our thoughts and prayers.
In Him, Carole

P.S. Samara really wants me to share this with you.

The Top Ten Reasons a Hurricane is like Christmas

" 10. Decorating the house (boarding up windows)
" 9. Dragging out boxes that haven't been used since last season (camping gear, flashlights)
" 8. Last Minute shopping in crowded stores
" 7. Regular TV shows preempted for Specials
" 6. Family coming to stay with you (from evacuation zones)
" 5. Family and Friends calling from out of state
" 4. Buying food you don't normally buy - And in large quantities
" 3. Days off from work
" 2. Candles
And the number one reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas…
" 1. At some point you know you're going to have a tree in your house.

Newsletter from February 2004

Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas Happy New Year St. Patrick’s Day!

We do hope you are all well and happy, loving life and finding satisfaction in your work. We have been having one adventure after another since January 2000. I'm ready for things to slow down a little bit, but am not anticipating it in the near future.

We moved to sunny South Florida last January. This letter will bring you up to speed regarding that decision and what's been happening ever since.

We had been praying for several years about moving to a warmer climate. I have a condition called Fibromyalgia and cannot handle cold weather anymore. About two years ago Ken and I both felt the Lord speaking to us about the Miami area. This was really strange since neither of us had ever been there or had never entertained the slightest thought of doing so. We prayed about it for quite awhile. In February 2001 we went to Atlanta to visit Mandy and Jon. While we were there we drove down to Pensacola to hang out and enjoy the beach for a few days. We drove through a small town called Chippley in the Panhandle not far from Alabama. For no reason I can explain I just really wanted to live there. It's remote and offers no promising job opportunities, so Ken, needless to say, did not have any confirmation on that.

It was after that we felt the Lord leading us in the direction of Miami, so I put Chippley on the shelf and sort of forgot about it. The next October we were hosting our second foreign exchange student From the Former Soviet Union, when I suddenly started feeling like we needed to get back in contact with Jon and Lisa VandeRiet (They went to Willamette Christian Fellowship, a Salem church, the first year we were there). Jon was on Staff at YWAM at the time. They moved to Moscow when the opportunity came, and started a church in a theater building in Red Square, right in the shadow of the Kremlin. They pastored there for six years until a pastor was raised up, and then they returned to the U.S. We had somehow stopped getting their newsletters and didn't know this. I was hoping that Caleb could return to Moscow and spend the summer helping out with Jon and Lisa in Russia. At the very time I was thinking this, Ken was in Miami. I got a phone call from him, that literally interrupted this thought and all he said was, "Go downstairs and check the e-mail that I’m sending you. I'll call back in 5 minutes." I thought he had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom or something.

The email was a response to a letter he had sent to a church we had known in Portland, Oregon (Bible Temple) two weeks earlier asking if there any MFI churches (a ministers’ fellowship) in Miami. It said, there was-- a small one, just starting in West Palm Beach -- about an hours drive north. Jon and Lisa VandeRiet pastored it. I was stunned, really. In addition to that Jon was fighting with the church’s computer and printer because the church was having a grand opening in two weeks and he was trying to make brochures. Ken drove up and got everything working for him and told him what we were thinking and praying about. Jon had been praying that God would send a couple to help them: someone who could teach, do practical things and help with the worship team. When Ken got home the last day of October, we began praying that we could get good tickets again so I could see the place as well. We got round trip tickets for $200.00 - the same deal Ken got in October, so we both came down the first week of Dec. We spent our 26th anniversary in the Keys. It was awesome. The church was great, we both were very pleased and felt this was God's leading.

I could not begin to imagine moving until summer. We had bought an old church building in the summer of 2000 and had three businesses going and were living there. We got back to Montana on the twelfth of December. (And prayed that if this was God's will, he would open doors and make everything work.) He did. Ken even sold his customer list to a friend just starting in the consulting business, and got him connected to his clients. We left Jamin there (he was engaged and wasn't going anywhere) to watch things. We sold everything we could and flew down with 6 kids, Caleb through Samara (ages 17-7 years.) We stayed with Jon and Lisa for 10 days and God led us to the perfect rental house and a wonderful and gracious landlord. We have had an amazing year of ups and downs. But God has been doing great things and we were excited and thankful to be part of it. We got here on Jan 18th 2003, so our 1st Florida anniversary is recently passed.

I got a job as a teacher assistant in a school for kids with autism two weeks after we got here. It paid well and had benefits but I didn't go back this fall; I injured my back in May and still have not fully recovered. Ken and I had shared the responsibility of home schooling last year. But it was impossible for him to do that this fall, with four jobs and his responsibilities with the church. (After trying to pursue a consulting business to no good result, Ken had started working for Home Depot; he then started selling advertising for a Christian newspaper, the Home Times -- www.hometimes.org -- and got a job teaching computer repair Saturdays at Palm Beach Community College. He’s also now doing some computer consulting.)

We are doing quite a bit of teaching. Most the people are young, married couples just starting their families, and eager to learn, so it has been busy but we are enjoying it. We have started a Bible study on Tuesday nights, studying Genesis and seeing where it leads.

Silas had been in Atlanta with Mandy and Jon for 4 months when we came down here. He drove down, and stayed with us until June. It was great having him here and also in the church on the worship team. This was a blessing because Jamin's wedding was to be April 5th and Ken didn't get his Home Depot job until the middle of March. I had two weeks off work but Ken only had a weekend off, so Silas and I drove the crew to Montana in a 1988 Plymouth Voyager.

We weren't sure it would even make it back to Florida when we left, but we prayed it wouldn’t break down until we were close enough to Montana to be rescued .Our prayers were answered. It died in South Dakota. We hung around for a day and a half until it was fixed but made it home in plenty of time. The wedding was wonderful and we are very grateful for such a God-fearing daughter in-law, Havilah Joy (Murphy) Burton. Yes, there are now two Havilah Burtons in the same family. Jamin and Havilah live in MT Vernon, Washington about five blocks from Rhea and Jason.

Silas helped me drive back to Florida. It was great; we each drove until we needed to refuel, then we would stop, fill up, eat, walk the dog and go again. We got home in 56 hours. Judah stayed with Rhea and Jason for the summer, and Caleb was staying with the Murphy’s to help get things ready for the oldest Murphy girl's wedding. He had planned to work at Camp Bighorn for the summer after that. Two weeks after leaving him, Caleb got a 3 and 1/2 inch long spiral fracture on his tibia playing soccer. It required surgery: metal plate, pins -- the whole nine yards. We had to fly him home, because Ken’s insurance was not effective for another month and no one in Montana would see him without half the cost of the surgery paid in advance.

For most of the summer I was in bed with a severe back muscle strain, and could hardly walk. Caleb was on crutches. Ken had a knee injury and was out of work for two weeks during this same time. All these proved to be a trial at the time, but a blessing afterward. Though this was a severe disappointment to Caleb and it foiled his summer plans, God used it to redirect his life. Instead of staying in Montana, he decided to take another senior year at a public high school and get a scholarship to a university in Florida. (He will get at least ¾ and perhaps a full scholarship.)

Ken got his job at the paper while he was injured, and my decision was not to go back to work in the fall, and to continue home schooling -- largely based on my back injury. So far all seem like good decisions.

Silas left in June to Jessica Murphy’s wedding and stayed the summer in Montana. Then he moved to Washington and is living with Rhea and Jason. He has been working on his music, writing songs and hopes to be playing on the worship team soon.

The house will seem really empty when Caleb goes to college this fall; I haven’t had five kids in the house since 1987.

After all these ups and downs we’ve had this year we found ourselves wondering if we had missed God. But something awesome happened over Christmas break. I met a couple that has 9 kids, all less than 12 years of age.

We got together at their place and were having a nice visit when I randomly brought up how I wanted to live in Chippley, Florida, having only been through it once. To my surprise, they own 40 acres there, in the trees on the second highest natural hill in Florida (350 feet high!). Just the day before, they had been discussing whether or not they should sell it, but because they always wanted to make a Christian retreat center like Camp Bighorn (in Montana) there when their kids are older, they decided against it. Then she, (Carlotta) said: “Chippley is like Nowhere; no one wants to live there; I’ve been praying that God would send me a friend that wanted to live in Chippley. Then Michael said, “What would you do for a living?” (Same thing Ken said.)

Michael is a professor at the Palm Beach Community College in Lake Worth (close to us) in electrical engineering. He was looking for someone who could teach computer repair on Saturdays at the college (that’s how Ken got the teaching job). Carlotta and Michael, our new friends, have started their family ten years after ours, so they have had college and career before kids. They have a music ministry in their home church, Calvary Chapel. We’ve had a great time taking the kids to sing Christmas carols at nursing homes, and we are doing some home school unit studies together.

We’ll just have to wait and see if I make it to Chippley when I am old; in the mean time I’m looking to bring the Lively family on a vacation to Montana sometime. They are up for it so maybe we will see some of you this summer. I sure hope so; we really miss all our Montana friends very much.

Jamin and Havilah just had their first baby; Arundel Gwynn Burton was born Jan 10th at 5:45. She weighed 7 lb. 11oz.; you can see her pictures at www.computerhate.com under “personal info.” Cutest little baby you ever did see. She doesn’t look at all like Winston Churchill (like her father, at that age).

Rhea and Jason have 3 little ones: Hallie (5), Bronte (3), and Damon, almost one. Please remember Bronte in your prayers; she has recently been diagnosed with a bladder reflex problem. This causes little ones to get kidney infections, so after a while, because of scar tissue, their kidneys don’t grow, and by the time they are 9 or 10 they shut down; she will be having surgery this month.

Mandy and Jon live in Gainesville, Georgia. Jon is working for Crown Financial (of the late Larry Burkett) and singing with his group, No Joe. They have two little ones: Addie, who is three, and Rufus who will turn one in October. Mandy is expecting #3 on July 27.

Judah goes to school with Caleb at Inlet Grove high school. He would like to go to Bible College when he finishes high school. Jubal, Havilah, Petra, and Samara are currently home schooling, We are praying about Jubal going to Inlet Grove next year, to study art.

Carole was just offered, and accepted the position of volunteer coordinator at Inlet Grove high school. This is very exciting and an awesome opportunity to bring Christ into a public charter school. We would appreciate your prayers.

I hope this brings you up to speed regarding our very busy, adventurous, and crazy life. Please let us know what’s happening with you.

Love and blessings to you all,

Carole (primary letter writer), Ken (letter editor), Caleb, Judah, Jubal, Havilah, Petra, and Samara