Let the Journey Begin

As previously mentioned, we were officially accepted into the Iris Harvest School of Missions: http://www.irismin.org/missions/harvest/about on Tuesday, February 7, 2012.  We will be traveling to Africa sometime around May 25^th and returning around August 13^th.  We are so thrilled for the opportunity to serve God across seas and are excited for the direction He is leading our family!  We could allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by all that needs to happen between now and then, but instead we are choosing to put our full faith and trust in Him – knowing that He would not call us to go to Africa without providing the means to get there.  Years ago God began to walk us through the process of simplifying our lives.  We went from two incomes to one, experiencing financial decrease after decrease.  We downsized our home to one of under 1,000 sf and added 3 more children to the Mason Clan.  Josh switched from the corporate lifestyle to that of teaching/coaching.  Many times the numbers never added up, but God always took care of us.  We began this journey with roughly $200 in our savings account, and for those that know us well, a teacher’s income stretches us month-to-month (on paper).  HOWEVER, we have always given 10% or more back to the Lord and He has blessed us tremendously for our faithfulness.  Yes, we don’t have a lot of materials, and yes, we don’t fill our lives with a lot of entertainment, travel and eating out, but God has given us all that we need and then some!  He has taken our “5 loaves of bread and 2 fish” and multiplied them!!  He is giving us the richness of His Spirit and we no longer see ourselves as “poor”, even though the world may define us as such.  Romans 12:2 says to, “Not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”  The Father does like to give us good gifts so having these things isn’t wrong necessarily, but in the last few years He has personally shown us where we were getting caught up in the world and that certain things were hindering us from having true freedom in Him.  We didn’t have the freedom to support the promotion of His gospel and further His Kingdom in the way we wanted to.  Jesus paid a great price for us, and we simply want to lay all that we have down for Him!

The Bible is full of so many promises, and He has taught us to trust in Him and grab hold of those promises He’s so freely given us!  I, personally, have learned to let go of control when it comes to finances, and I know that He was preparing our hearts and increasing our faith for this very moment.  Knowing that we need roughly $25,000 to take our family to Africa sounds like a large sum, almost impossible especially on a teacher’s salary, but we know that nothing is impossible with God and He is a very rich God [Luke 1:37 and Philippians 4:19]!  We have an amazing testimony to share when it comes to finances for Africa.  Our deposit (reduced to $600 because Ethan isn’t going) was due on February 17^th.  On February 15^th we were expecting our tax refund, which we were going to use to pay our deposit, however there was an error with the IRS system and the refund got delayed by a few weeks.  We submitted this to the Lord and agreed that we were not going to resort to putting our deposit on credit (even if we could pay it back once our tax refund arrived) because that would take away from our faith and trust in the Lord and we want to fully trust and depend on Him through this entire process.  On February 16^th, the day before our deposit was due, an amazing man of God stepped forward in faith and offered to pay for the full amount of our $600 deposit…..praise God!!!  We give all the praise and glory to God for His good gifts, and we are truly grateful and humbled for this man and many others who are willing to be vessels for Him!

On Monday, January 23, 2012, God also won another battle for us when we received permission from Jade’s birth mom to take Jade with us this summer to Africa, yet another praise report!!  Jade lives primarily with us, but this could have gone either way given some history.  We all prayed and prayed and prayed that God would soften her heart, and as if He were putting the “cherry on top”, we received the permission we needed with absolutely no hesitation!!  Haha, He is so good!

Our passports were expected to take 4-6 weeks, and Josh was concerned that we might need to expedite them and pay an additional fee, but then we agreed to go with the standard process and trust that God would take care of the details.  Not only do we now have our passports, but they arrived in 2 ½ weeks!!  Here are a few photos of our boys "attempting" to be serious for their passport photos.  They have strict criteria for what they will accept: no facial expressions, no head tilts, eyes looking straight ahead.  Do they not realize I'm working with a 1-year old, haha!?!  Fortunately, I was able to capture some acceptable photos for their passports, but these ones just made me chuckle!

The next step for us is to purchase our plane tickets.  Josiah will be flying as a lap seat for a minimal charge.  The last airfare quote we were given was approximately $9,500, but we’ve recently been told that prices are starting to increase a bit.  Please keep this in your prayers.  Thank you!

We have invited God into this planning process and are seeking His guidance every step of the way.  He has saturated us with His peace and we are simply enjoying the journey!  We’re getting out of the way and letting God be God in our lives!  Thank you for partnering with us.  We hope you enjoy the journey too!