Home
Welcome to our family news web site.
As many of you know, our family (native Texans) moved to the south coast of England in 2006. We are currently on home assignment in Texas. Keep up with what is going on with us by viewing the updates to this site monthly.
The banner photo is a view of the English channel in southern England.
- Big news -- our youngest son Scott turns 12 this month. Congrats to Scott. Where does the time go? He is finishing up 6th grade and is ready for the summer break...that means lots of time in the Texas sun in a pool or at Six Flags amusement park.
- Shannon June is traveling to Colorado this month for a Communications Dept meeting at OC headquarters to work with the team to plan improvements to online communications for OC worldwide.
- For more news read: Kittlitz family ministry goals
- We're enjoying our new local CARES ministry with a senior adult apartment community. The seniors here have a very busy schedule. Our boys are especially loved, bringing lots of smiles when they attend the monthly dance and see people at other events too.
- Bryan has been studying for a license exam so he can work a local job in addition to his work on the CARES team.
- Shannon worked with the OC Colorado team to help design monthly newsletters and put them into a new interactive email system to improve communication with OC supporters.
- With the other OC work going on, OC decided to put together a Letter of Appreciation from OC staff worldwide to express their thanks to supporters. Read it here: Letter of Appreciation
- We've moved into our new apartment. Now we are starting to attend events and get to know the residents, as we serve as the new CARES team at this senior adult apartment community. Pray for us and our boys as we fit our things into the 2-bedroom apartment. Pray for openess among the residents as we introduce ourselves.
- We started our next phase of ministry with OC this month.
- For more news read: Next phase of ministry with OC
- We are very thankful for our temporary housing with family during the past several months, and we are also eager to have our own space in an apartment soon.
- Our plans for local ministry in Texas took a big step forward this month.
- For more news read: Expanding into apartment ministry
- Our New Year started off with a family trip to take Karyn back to university in south Texas. The mild weather was perfect to show her brothers and Grannie around the campus.
- We received our household goods from the UK to a temporary location in the Texas.
- For more news read: Ministering here and there...
- Christmas was extra special this year as we were all home together in Texas with extended family and friends.
- Sam performed on double bass in his first orchestra concert at Middle School, including a special version of the Muppet's Rainbow Connection song in their string quintet.
- Scott played cornet in his first band concert -- amazingly good after only a few months of starting to play their instruments. His band played All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth and Rudolph. To have enough space they performed at my old high school -- very weird to watch my kid playing in a concert there, where I played so many times in my youth. :)
- Karyn survived her first term at Texas State University, and we were very glad to have her home for the holidays...lots of photos on Facebook from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
- Our newsletter this month includes news about: Happy Christmas!
- We are grateful that our entire family is back together again in Texas, after Shannon June returned back from England.
- During this home assignment, we are seeking God's will for the timing and location of our next ministry assignment with OC. Read our newsletter for news on our immediate transition plans, support options and hearing our stories from England.
- Our newsletter this month includes news about: Thanksgiving for MANY blessings... Current situation and future plans
- After much prayer and discussion about our next step in ministry, and considering what is best for our entire family, we have been assigned a one-year furlough with OC International, after over 4 years of service in the UK. We will be living in the Dallas, Texas area during this time.
- So with this news, Bryan and the children are in Texas, and Shannon June is back in Worthing for one month to wrap up her day-to-day work with Feba Radio. Her last day at Feba UK will be Thursday, 22 September 2011, with a flight back to Dallas on 23 September.
- Our newsletter this month includes news about: Assigned to "home assignment" for one year
- After our OC meetings in Colorado we hit the road for a trip across the USA to see some friends and family.
- Our newsletter this month includes photos from our road trip from Colorado towards Pennsylvania back to Texas: Across the USA -- 5 people in a mini-van
- When we arrived back in Texas from the road trip, we quickly started getting things together for Karyn to go to university. Shopping for stuff, looking for a used car, packing...
- We loaded up Uncle Raven's pickup truck with her luggage...then Bryan, ShannonJune and Karyn made the 4 1/2 drive down south to Texas State University in San Marcos -- the first time any of us had been to that campus before.
- Bryan and the boys took a road trip from Texas to Colorado, to arrive at the OC PEP (Personal Enrichment Program) meetings from mid to end of July at a place called Christ Haven, in the mountains near Colorado Springs.
- Karyn and Shannon June caught a flight in London on 20 July, connecting through DFW airport so they could drop off Karyn's extra luggage for university... then they caught a connecting flight and arrived in Colorado Springs the "night" before PEP started.
- Our newsletter this month includes a reflection on our time in England as well as describes our summer plans: Memories of arriving in England
- Bryan and the boys traveled back to Texas on 3 June for the boys to attend various summer camps, including a youth choir trip, Vacation Bible School and children's/youth camp.
- Karyn is busy finishing up her UK college A-levels exams and working part-time, saving for her start at university in late August. Karyn and Shannon June will join the rest of the family at OC PEP meetings in Colorado Springs in July.
- Our newsletter this month includes a quick review of the women's retreat that Karyn and I went to in April in Portugal: Women's retreat in Portugal
- Yes, we enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding on TV. We were not brave enough to go into the crowds in London that day. It was fun to watch TV and see Westminster Abbey, where we have attended church a few times there on Sunday mornings. Of course, with a MUCH smaller crowd!
- Our newsletter this month shares some local colour: Lambing time in the British countryside
- Here in England the school's are not out for "spring break" like back home in Texas. Instead, we have a nice long Easter break: Monday 11 April-Thursday 21 April 2011 inclusive, plus Good Friday and Easter Monday being 22 April and 25 April respectively. We also have a special bank holiday in 2011 to celebrate the Royal Wedding on 29 April 2011.
- Bryan wrote an update on his survey results breakfast and the next project that he's kicked off: Survey - moving from leaders to the community
- At the end of February Sam was promoted from recruit to cadet at the Worthing squadron of RAF Air Training Corps. He took his first flight lesson this month at RAF Boscombe Down in a small tutor plane. He'll tell you more about it in a Kidz News letter soon.
- On 5th March OCI-UK hosted 20 people (church leaders, OC staff and guests) for a special breakfast meeting to share data from the southern England Church Leader Research Survey. We had a great time of discussing issues as Christians, across denominational lines.
- This month Bryan kick started a new survey with a pastor-in-training to gauge interest in starting a new church in a rural village (closest evangelical or Baptist church is 5-10 miles away).
- Shannon June continues to enjoy her work as a writer with Feba Radio. She had some hands-on radio experience recently: Learning disaster response radio
- Karyn started a new part-time job this month with a mobile phone company in town centre. She's a whiz at technology, and she had a great time at new employee training in London.
- This month Bryan and OC-UK colleagues put out letters to the church leaders who participated in the southern England Church Leader Research Survey. These letters invite them to a special church leader breakfast to share the survey results and discuss next steps.
- OC International workers spend a Half Day of Prayer twice each year to pray corporately as a mission. Officially, these are held the second Mondays of February and September. Our Worthing office gathered together for an afternoon session.
- Sorry to say, we also missed the deadline for mailing out a paper letter in February, so we've written a January/February 2011 letter online: 2011 -- a year of big changes ahead
- Happy New Year! We had a rather abrupt start to the new year as we recovered from the bad cold we'd passed through the family just as school started back up -- and suddenly realised that Sam had a school camp trip to Lodge Hill on his first week of 2011 (Tuesday through Saturday). Check his Kidz News soon for a special report.
- For you who diligently read our monthly letters, we apologise for missing one in January. It wasn't lost in the post! We've written a January/February 2011 letter online: 2011 -- a year of big changes ahead
- Somehow December is always a very busy month. We had an early snow that cancelled school for 2 days, much to Scott's delight since he bought a sled in March and was finally able to use it!
- We kept our UK Christmas tradition and went to a silly Panto; this year's was Snow White.
- We enjoyed helping out with Messy Church crafts and playing/singing with the music team for the Christmas carol services.
- We played our first rounds of Skittles at the Black Horse Pub's Skittles Alley at the Feba Christmas party...we'll try to post some pics soon.
- See our Christmas greeting: Happy Christmas from the Kittlitz Family
- No matter what country we're in, as Americans, we stop to celebrate Thanksgiving. Read this month's newsletter for more details on Thanksgiving in England: Thanks for your generosity
- Bryan and his colleagues from around the OC world attended the CPM conference in a town south of London 3-7 October, discussing how to help people develop "church" in their local cultural settings.
- Bryan celebrated his birthday on 23 October, and we had some special surprises in store for him. The best one was a visit from his sister and her daughter. We saw lots of sights, including London, castles, Stonehenge and more!
- We've learned alot about Ramadan in our work here in England. Read this month's newsletter for more details: Ramadan--worship that alters daily routines
- Bryan and his co-workers wrapped up the interview phase of the southern England church research project and began compiling the results.
- We packed up and moved house to Angmering, a little town west of Worthing, in a quiet neighbourhood with bike trails and lots of open green space for the boys to play after school.
- The kids are back to school this month... Karyn in Year 13 at college, Sam starting Year 8 in high school and Scott in Year 6 of middle school. AND Karyn and Sam are celebrating milestone birthdays this month -- 18 and 13!!
- Read this month's newsletter for more details: "My how the kids have grown!"
- We spent a little holiday time together with our boys in Windsor at Legoland (minus Karyn who is still on her Texas trip)...Vikings, dragons, pirates...lots of boy fun.
- We received the disappointing news that we have to move house again (our landlord needs to get rid of the house) so we'll be spending lots of August looking for a different place to rent...and packing for a move in September. Pray that we can find a 3-bedroom house (with good size, location and price).
- Also Scott played in his first tennis tournament (mini - 10 & under). He won some matches and lost some too, but did very well for his first year of tennis, coming in 4th...behind very very experienced boys. He also got to play in mixed-doubles matches, making it a long day of tennis from 10 am through 2pm.
- Read this month's newsletter about the multicultural shift in OC International, as Bryan and his teammates hosted a special OC conference in Worthing: Moving forward with OC Internationalization
- Finally school wraps up this month, with a brief 6 weeks off before starting a new year!
- Karyn will be visiting family and friends in Texas and Pennsylvania from mid-July to mid-August. Her Texas high school friends have recently graduated and will be soon heading off to university. Drop her an email if you want to try to catch up with her. (She will be returning to England to finish her A-levels at Worthing College, then to university in 2011.)
- Read this month's newsletter about Shannon June and Karyn's trip to Plymouth: Baptists and the New Atheism
- Also Shannon June has been working on the save a life, send a radio campaign at Feba UK.
Take a look at the video to see a radio fly or go to www.sendaradio.org
June 2010 News
- This is a very busy month for our family. After school half-term break 31 May-4 June, the kids are still very busy with school. Karyn took the SAT exam (US university entrance test) in London on 5 June ...and she's finishing up term exams at Worthing College. The boys continue classes at Downsbrook Middle School through 23 July.
- Bryan had a very productive week with over 25 OC staff from around the world at the OC Global Alliance meetings at the end of May. ShannonJune joined them for an evening meal. It's so great to hear firsthand about ministry successes from OC workers in the US, Latin America, throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.
- Read this month's newsletter: Thoughts on the worldwide church
May 2010 News
- Though Iceland's volcanic ash cloud caused LOTS of disruption to air travel, we thank the Lord that Bryan made it back to the UK as scheduled on 29 April, just in time for Shannon June and Karyn to head off to a Christian conference in Plymouth the next morning through 3 May. They enjoyed the conference speakers, the music, the discussions...AND the giant shopping mall between their hotel and the conference centre!!
- Bryan is catching up with his OCI-UK local work after being away in Texas last month. Now he's busy making more church leader survey visits and preparing to help host a major OC international conference in Worthing, 24-29 May.
- Read this month's newsletter: Latest update on the OC International-UK team
April 2010 News
- Happy Easter to you!! We started off the holiday with an early birthday celebration for Scott (he'll be 10 on 3 May). We went to see the How to Train Your Dragon movie at the IMAX 3D theatre in London. Then Easter Sunday we had a great celebration of Jesus' Resurrection at the sunrise and 10:30am services, with Karyn doing the Scripture reading and singing in the worship team and Shannon June playing trumpet. The boys had an egg hunt during their classes. After lunch at home, we did some Easter crafts. It was much too soggy outside for an egg hunt, so we skipped it this year.
- Bryan is in Texas 6-28 April, mostly in the DFW area, but he may also travel to other places, upon request. Would you like to hear about our work in the United Kingdom and Europe? Let us know.
- Read this month's newsletter: Easter in the Western world...and in the Muslim world
March 2010 News
- All three of our kids made special school trips in March, starting with Karyn up to London to tour Parliament with her Worthing College class, then Scott to the Isle of Wight (off the coast of Portsmouth, England), and finally Sam went to Normandy, France.
- Read more details in this month's newsletter: British academic excursions in March.
February 2010 News
- Have you ever complained about the amount of paperwork needed to send your kid on a field trip? We're gladly enduring the red tape to make sure our American kids can go along with their British classmates on these upcoming school trips: travel to London to renew their passports, special permission forms for non-UK, international insurance, and on and on - whew!.
- Bryan is busy with his church research project; see his Adventures in taking research surveys newsletter.
January 2010 News
- WOW, quite surprisingly we had snow on 18 December (that did not melt for almost a week) and now we have had MUCH MORE in January. Temperatures below freezing are very rare here and any snow, too...we've gotten several inches while some places in the UK had more than 1 foot. The temperature has been staying at freezing day and night with this snow, so it is not melting. This is very hard on the high numbers of elderly people living in south England. The boroughs are not equipped to handle clearing the roads (focusing on the few highways) and leaving the neighborhood roads with snow/ice. See our Happy New Year 2010 newsletter.
December 2009 News
- Well, we are celebrating our 3rd anniversary in Worthing this month. This Christmas will be just us, no visitors from the US. We are glad to say we are also in the same house, no moving house over the holidays this year. With UK work and school over the "US Thanksgiving" period, we will have OUR FEAST at Christmas ... thanks to family back home sending us some special ingredients for the festivities. See our Kittlitz Family Christmas Greeting
November 2009 News
- The boys had a fun time at school with special days for their studies of the Tudors and Medieval realms. Scott had Tudor Day: dressing in costume, tasting special foods, writing their names in Old English and Latin with quil pens. Sam had a Medieval Feast with costumes, loads of food, and entertainment. Karyn had a special night out with her dad at the Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Arena in London. See photos:
Tudor Day photos
Medieval Feast photos
- Worthing Community Festival - OC International and Feba UK (as well as many Christian charities in Worthing) got together for a festival 9-11 October. See photos: Worthing Festival photos
- Halloween - the annual festivities continued this year. Sam and Scott hosted their own fun by each inviting a friend round for sweets, fancy dress and games. See photos: Sam and Scott Halloween photos
- Sam's Birthday (the big 1-2) - Sam enjoyed lots of extra fun and early presents from his visiting grandparents in August, including a trip to Legoland. See photos: Legoland Windsor photos
He enjoyed playing at the beach and eating birthday cake one month early. See photos: Sam's Star Wars cake
- Karyn's Birthday (the bigger 1-7) - Karyn was quite spoiled by a party at our house, attended by most all of her boyfriend Ollie's family. The "princess" theme was quite fitting. See photos: Karyn's Princess Birthday Party
- Shannon June's parents came to visit us here in the UK for the first time. LOTS of photos of their adventures are on her Facebook page.
Seven Sister Chalk Cliffs
Arundel Castle and Cathedral
Battle of Britain Airshow
- Shannon June travelled to Bangladesh and India in July to visit friends and projects related to Feba Radio. See photos:
India
Bangladesh
