Many of you who recieved our letter know that we needed to have half of our money raised by today in order to purchase our plane tickets to Kenya. We have surpassed the 50% mark and are well on our way to reaching our goal amount.
We are very thankful to all of you who have contributed to us financially and very thankful to those of you who have been praying for us. We are most thankful to God for providing for us. We have been very humbled by this experience and God is definately showering blessings upon us. Without question we know we are to be in Kenya this summer-God has made that abundantly clear to us through support raising (among many other things).
So thank you, thank you, thank you. You have blessed us greatly and we are so grateful. You have been a wonderful reflection of Christ to us in your gifts and willingness to give. We just cant say enough so please know our hearts are full of thanksgiving.
On a side note the last blog about the bugs-I was mostly kidding. I do not like them but can deal with it. My great friend Connie was a litte worried about me so I wanted everyone to know I am okay and was just adding some humor. You can pray along with me that God will keep all the bugs hidden while we are there and that is okay with me :) You never know I may end up saving Tim from some critter!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
One more thing...
I have had a lot of people ask if we are scared to go to Africa and honestly I have said no. Before we started talking with CMF I had a few weeks filled with some sleepless nights thinking about civil war, random violence, getting eaten by lions etc. That passed quickly as I realized I was being irrational. So when people ask now I can truly say NOPE I am not scared.
Until today.....I finished reading this book called All you cant leave behind: A rookie missionary's life in Africa by Ryan J. Murphy. It's a great book about his family's first year in Kenya. It is written like a blog so it is easy to read and I finished it in 2 days. Anyway, in the book he talks about he bugs and other pests they have encountered in Kenya. These included (to name only a few) beetles the size of walnuts, various spiders some with huge red eyes, roaches (my personal fave), and the clincher a RAT. So some of the fear is slowly creeping back in. If I can be perfectly honest when I picture these things I get a rushing sense of panic taking over my whole body. I try to picture myself in the situation and how I will handle it. Sometimes I do well and other times I seriously freak out.
To many (like my husband) this may seem silly but in my defense I handle these things better than expected in the situation and I always get rid of the critter for fear it will eat me or end up on my face. But I am thinking when people ask about my fears I may have to change my answer from none to bugs!
So if you are praying for us and you want to add this to your list I would for sure be grateful!!
Until today.....I finished reading this book called All you cant leave behind: A rookie missionary's life in Africa by Ryan J. Murphy. It's a great book about his family's first year in Kenya. It is written like a blog so it is easy to read and I finished it in 2 days. Anyway, in the book he talks about he bugs and other pests they have encountered in Kenya. These included (to name only a few) beetles the size of walnuts, various spiders some with huge red eyes, roaches (my personal fave), and the clincher a RAT. So some of the fear is slowly creeping back in. If I can be perfectly honest when I picture these things I get a rushing sense of panic taking over my whole body. I try to picture myself in the situation and how I will handle it. Sometimes I do well and other times I seriously freak out.
To many (like my husband) this may seem silly but in my defense I handle these things better than expected in the situation and I always get rid of the critter for fear it will eat me or end up on my face. But I am thinking when people ask about my fears I may have to change my answer from none to bugs!
So if you are praying for us and you want to add this to your list I would for sure be grateful!!
Just an update
Just a quick update. Life for us has been very busy lately. I have a hard time deciding if I am coming or going and many days I have no idea what the date is or what month we are even in! My caseload at work has about doubled since January and I am working a second job as well. Tim has been subbing and Upwards Basketball just ended last Sunday. We are planning to move out of our apartment at the end of the month so we have some packing and painting to do. We will be moving in with Granny and Gramps Stewart until we leave for Kenya. We are super thankful to have family who support us and allow us to shack up with them when we need to.
All this busyness is sure making time fly by and so before we know it we will be in Kenya :) Our support raising is going well and that has been one thing we havent had to do much with. God has really taken care of the financial part of this trip for us. We said we would go to Kenya no matter what and the rest has been all His doing! Support raising has been such a humbling blessing. What a great God we serve! We have had many people give to us in such a way that we knew it could only be through God. We have had people who we know do not have many extra resources but have given much. We have had money come from suprising places. We joked the other day about how many people dread opening the mailbox for fear of all the bills but we are excited everday to open ours because it usually contains another gift (and not many bills). I say it again God is good and so are those who love Him! We thank you!
We got our packing list and a list of our team. Sixteen people will be joining us in the slums of Nairobi. Please continue to pray for us as we prepare to go. Pray that the team will really connect and be able to accomlish much this summer. Please pray that Tim and I will be able to get all the things done we need to get done before we go. It definately feels a bit overwhelming right now.
As our departure date gets closer and closer I find saying to Tim "We are going to spend the summer in Africa!" I cant quite comminicate it to you over the internet but that statement includes a great deal of excitement. Most definately a dream come true and who am I that I get to do this? The cool thing about God is I dont have to be anyone special just available. With that I wish you all a great weekend!
All this busyness is sure making time fly by and so before we know it we will be in Kenya :) Our support raising is going well and that has been one thing we havent had to do much with. God has really taken care of the financial part of this trip for us. We said we would go to Kenya no matter what and the rest has been all His doing! Support raising has been such a humbling blessing. What a great God we serve! We have had many people give to us in such a way that we knew it could only be through God. We have had people who we know do not have many extra resources but have given much. We have had money come from suprising places. We joked the other day about how many people dread opening the mailbox for fear of all the bills but we are excited everday to open ours because it usually contains another gift (and not many bills). I say it again God is good and so are those who love Him! We thank you!
We got our packing list and a list of our team. Sixteen people will be joining us in the slums of Nairobi. Please continue to pray for us as we prepare to go. Pray that the team will really connect and be able to accomlish much this summer. Please pray that Tim and I will be able to get all the things done we need to get done before we go. It definately feels a bit overwhelming right now.
As our departure date gets closer and closer I find saying to Tim "We are going to spend the summer in Africa!" I cant quite comminicate it to you over the internet but that statement includes a great deal of excitement. Most definately a dream come true and who am I that I get to do this? The cool thing about God is I dont have to be anyone special just available. With that I wish you all a great weekend!
Friday, April 4, 2008
African Children's Choir 2
Here is the whole group of us. We had a great time. Our friends the Jacobsons had 3 boys and we had 3 girls so we hung out both nights. They are a great group of kids and we were so blessed to have them in our homes for a few days!!
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