we’re headed home to VA! Tonight we’re in Knoxville, TN. We’ve logged over 1,600 miles so far and we’ve got a few more hours to go before we get home. It’s been a great trip, though, and we are excited to see God bringing in the support we need – we don’t know right now exactly how close we are, but we know we’re closer than we were! Thank you for your prayers!
Category: our support (Page 2 of 4)
we’ve met up with some great folks in the last few days. Last night we were at New Providence Baptist Church where we took turns speaking to the youth, the Awana kids, and the adults. The church is very interested in joining our support team, but the final decision will be made in a business meeting next month. We will be keeping in touch with the Awana kids and kids choir and even talked about doing a live video chat during a service after we get to Ireland. They sent us out with prayer, and we were blessed to be in Macon. Special thanks to Josh and Katie for putting us up/putting up with us while we’ve been here! Today we’re driving to Atlanta.
our monthly support need has risen slightly as a result of rising insurance costs. Part of the reason for the rise is because we now have three people in our family instead of the two that were originally calculated for. And even with the rise, the cost of our insurance on the field is going to be significantly less then what we are paying for it now. CrossWorld is able to act as their own insurance provider because of the number of missionaries they have, which makes the cost much more reasonable. CrossWorld also keeps a sizable emergency fund ready for big expenses (i.e, flying people back for critical surgeries, etc.) and covers any missionaries that are in the states through a Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy.
All that said, we are happy to report that we are still at 80% of our monthly support need, thanks to a couple of new committments. God is good!
the US dollar hit a six month high against the euro on Friday. Right now, one euro is worth about $1.47 dollars. Part of the reason for the dollar’s gain is that many European Union countries are struggling economically. Ireland is one of them, as their “celtic tiger” boom of recent years has slowed to a “meow”. But what’s bad news for some of the Irish is good news for us, because our money is worth a bit more there now.
Friday and Saturday we were in the DC area getting to see some old and new friends and having a wonderful time with them! Daniel surprised us by skipping his morning nap on Saturday, but we rolled with it. With Daniel around, surprises are normal. So can you really count them as surprises?
Next weekend we’ll be in Lynchburg (VA) so if you’re there, we’d like to see you! The weekend after that we’ll be in Buena Vista (also VA) and after that we’ll be heading to GA and AL (possibly stopping in TN as well). Thank you for your prayers and help!
We have been encouraged to see a significant increase in our committed monthly support recently – we’re now just barely below 80%! We’re getting close!
we recently found out that we were the subject of Vacation Bible School missions projects at New Providence Baptist in GA and Salem United Methodist in VA! That brings the total up to four VBS’ this summer! Kids all over the place are learning about what God is doing in Ireland! Pastor Brian at New Providence took a pie in the face for us. Ken at Southwood got slimed. Jordan and Kourtney at Daleville Baptist got mash potatoed. Thank you. Thank you all.
We’re happy to report that we’ve hit 78% of our monthly support! Thank you to our team members, both new and old, for being the means of God’s provision for us!!
In other news, we’ve continued to be the subject of letters to the editor in our local weekly paper (see posts from July 9 and 17). The tally now is 4 negative and 2 supportive letters over three weeks. Definitely a new experience for us, as we’re not used to causing public controversy. Maybe we need to get used to it, though?
We’re thankful to be home in our own house again! It was wonderful to see so many great folks while we were away, though – it makes us want Heaven even more, so that we won’t have to be seperated from anyone we love!!
As far as our monthly support goes, we probably won’t know where we’re at for sure for a while, but we did have a great response from folks along the way and we’re excited to see what God will do!
It was also exciting to meet so many new friends and have the opportunity to be in new (to us) churches that love the Lord. We are learning a lot from this process, and have been encouraged to see God working in places we’ve never been!
Today was the last day of VBS at Seth’s home church, Southwood. We got to present the missions project, which was to help the church-plant in Youghal, Ireland (the one we’ll be working with when we move there) buy a keyboard (as in, electric piano) to use for worship. So we’ve been there everyday this week, telling the kids about Ireland and what God is doing there!
What fun!
and get this – today we found out that the kids raised over $1,600 for the keyboard!! WOW!!
the best part about all the uncertainty in our lives right now is that we have learned so much about God. He hasn’t worked in the ways we expected, but He has certainly worked, and when does God ever do things the way we expect Him to? So we’ve learned to put everything in His hands every day (it’s tempting to take things back into our hands and worry about them… that’s why we’ve got to put them back in His hands sometimes several times a day). What we have discovered is that no matter how great the uncertainty is, His peace is more than enough to cover it when we trust Him. We depend on Him for everything anyway. Life is just a lot more fun when we recognize that.
