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!

Dreaming Big

We love how God speaks to His children through such creative ways!  Back in October 2011 I had jokingly made a comment to Josh on Facebook about how maybe someday God will call us to serve a mission across the nations.  Of course, we didn’t expect this to become a reality in our lives, especially so soon, but in the past year God has been stirring up our hearts for more of Him and we simply want to lay down our lives and take up our cross for Him (Matthew 16:24).  Soon after God started guiding Josh into researching mission trips, but nothing was really jumping out at him until he came across the Web site for Harvest School of Missions.  He tried to shake off the stirrings in his spirit because he’s never really had the desire to go on a mission trip to another country.  He even wrestled with God but could not let the idea go.  I remember the day when he casually made the comment to me about going to Mozambique, Africa.  I thought he was just messing with me so I shrugged it off.  Within the next week or two, Josh shared with me what God had laid on his heart – about going on a short-term/long-term mission trip.  He said that the mission school in Africa really caught his attention.  Right off the bat I saw a few obstacles in the way and didn’t know if it’d be possible.  I’ve always wanted to travel to another country, but I never thought it’d come to fruition.  The enemy had been trying to divide us on family matters, so to come together on a major decision like this was a struggle at first and we questioned whether this new stirring was from God or from our own pursuit.

On Thursday, December 15, 2011, we asked for prayer from our Life Group.  Josh explained to them that God had placed something big on our hearts and we just needed confirmation and clarification.  He let them know that the enemy had been trying to divide us in other areas of our life.  We didn’t share any information about the direction we believed God was leading us because we didn’t want any personal opinions/emotions to influence people’s prayers, and we wanted to hear directly from God on the matter.  A beautiful couple prayed over us.  This amazing man of God prayed how we’ve spoken into his life without even saying words, just by our example, and how we will speak into many others’ lives as well.  He prayed for God’s clarity, clear direction and peace as we make our decision.  This beautiful woman of God (this man’s wife) prayed over Josh and said that he would lead our family and I would be willing to follow wherever he goes.  She prayed for unity over us and safety for the family.  She declared truth from Jeremiah 29:11 and how God’s plans are not to hurt us – that we have nothing to fear as we keep our eyes focused on Him!  She prayed that “where one is there the other is also.”  I did have thoughts that maybe just Josh was supposed to go to Africa, but that never really settled well in my heart, so this was a huge confirmation for me that whatever was in the horizon wasn’t just for Josh but for all of us together as a family.  Another member of this amazing family prayed that “two would become one,” again another confirmation that we would be united in our decision and God’s direction in our lives.

I felt at peace and united with Josh after receiving prayer, and the affect of the enemy’s division on us had been broken, but it wasn’t until I spoke to this same beautiful woman of God that we received a direct answer from the Lord!  While in the kitchen she came up to me and said, “Someday we will be going to Heidi Baker’s Harvest Missions too.”  I wondered why in the world she would be bringing that up out of the blue, especially when that’s exactly what God had laid on Josh’s heart for our family this summer.  I shared this information with her and she said, “I knew without knowing!”  The Holy Spirit had spoken to her of our situation without us even sharing a word with her about it.  Come on Lord!!  Another Kingdom warrior shared a word with us from Psalm 27 and said that Josh and I should read it together so we did later that evening and stayed up talking until after 11:30pm.  We thanked God for the affirmation and unity we received that night.

When ordering the kids’ Christmas gifts, I came across a movie called “What If”.  I’d never heard of it before, but it sounded really good and was only $5 so I decided to order it from the Christian Family Bookstore.  On Monday, December 19, 2011, Josh and I decided to watch it after the kids went to bed.  During one scene the main character was opening a letter from a former sweetheart, now currently a missionary.  I kid you not, you’ll never guess where she was serving…..MOZAMBIQUE!!  The movie hadn’t mentioned it, but on the letter it had referenced Mozambique.  I asked Josh if he saw that and he said, “Saw what?”  I told him how the letter said she was a missionary currently in Mozambique and the first words out of his mouth were, “Very funny God!”  I even rewound the movie so he could see it!  I love how God creatively grabs our attention!  A few days later, on December 22, Josh was at the store chatting with a guy (sounded Russian), and the man was asking Josh why he believed in Christmas because he didn’t.  Josh shared his testimony with the man and his response was, “You seem like a nice man and ‘your’ God is going to use you to speak to many!”

Every disciple of Jesus Christ is commanded to go out into the world as His witness to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and through His power and authority – heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, set the captives free…….  Josh and I do not want to go through the motions of life.  We want to do what Jesus has commanded us to do.  We are hungry for more of Him and want to lay down our lives for Him, no matter the cost!  Does this mean we have to go to Africa to share the gospel?  No!  However, this is where God is currently calling us to and we want to obey Him.  When I was a teenager I dreamed of running some type of a shelter/camp for hurting children.  Although the details are still fuzzy, I believe God is bringing this dream to fruition because it is also His heart to love on the lost and hurting.  Without Jade even knowing about my dream, God also laid a very similar dream on her heart when she attended Kid’s Camp last summer.  God is uniting the dreams of our family as we keep our eyes focused on Him!!

God is taking care of the big and little details.  When Josh checked his personal leave hours for work, because he will have to miss the last week of school, he discovered that he had exactly enough time off to cover his leave.  A God thing!  Josh was beginning to feel some pressure from this decision and doubt was trying to sneak its way in, but one morning God laid something on my heart that I shared with Josh.  He gave me such a peace about it, and I knew I was supposed to share it with Josh.  Rather than worry about whether or not we were clearly hearing from God, rather than worry about all the hurdles we would have to jump over – God reminded me that we needed to surrender it all to Him, not worry about being right/wrong and to step out in faith.  As we laid it all down at His feet, He promised that He would open the doors that needed to be opened and would close the doors that needed to be closed.  TRUST in ME!!  I am not one who is known for taking risks in my life.  I like to play it safe.  However, I have learned that faith is spelled R.I.S.K., and in Hebrews 10:38-39 it teaches how we should not shrink back but move forward in faith.  Even when I do fail, His grace will cover me.  Recently, Jesus freed me from the bondage/fear of failure, and He’s showing me what it really means to have faith in Him and trust in Him for EVERYTHING!

On January 11, 2012, we met with our pastors to share with them our hearts about Africa.  We wanted their blessings and prayer support for this new journey we were about to enter in to.  They were very excited for us and prayed that God would stop us if this was not His will because we are moving forward in faith.  The application process for the school did not open until Sunday, January 15, but we did not waste any time completing ours.  We had them submitted by 8:45pm that same evening.  On this same day our pastor also introduced Josh to a couple that just returned from the same mission school we had applied to.  This was the first time they had attended our church and had actually been living in California prior to their arrival.  It was so awesome of God to place this couple into our lives at this exact timing.  Praise the Lord!

As you can imagine, we were checking e-mail multiple times a day to see whether or not we had been accepted.  Our excitement was overflowing, but we were at such peace with God!!  The official announcement arrived on Tuesday, February 7, 2012, two weeks after our entire application was complete!  Josh had just gotten off work and asked if we had received anything in e-mail yet.  I told him ‘no’ and that I had just checked it.  He suggested that maybe I should log into our account to check for anything there.  I got all excited and said, “Why?  Did we get accepted?!?!”  He said, “Yes,"  and that he felt prompted to check his account before leaving work that day, and sure enough, he had been accepted!  Of course I screamed with joy!!  I also logged into my account to confirm this great news!  We received our acceptance letter via e-mail 1 hour later.  We have dared to dream big with God, and He is partnering with us to fulfill the passions in our heart so that we can further His Kingdom here on earth!  We’re excited to go deeper with Him, and so our journey begins…….