About 1 year ago some dear friends of Josh’s parents felt
led to donate $2,000 towards our missions.
It’s like they knew we’d be going before we even did, ha! We’ve been holding onto those funds, not
really knowing when the transition would take place to serve overseas,
especially since we had a big hurdle to face – getting permission for Jade to
go with us. We talked many times about
God’s timing and that if he wanted us to wait until Jade graduated from high
school then we would. Well, if you’ve
been following along with us on our journey then you know by now that God’s
timing for us is now – He is calling us to GO now! Iris has found a temporary house for us to
live in when we get there, and after we spend some time on the ground in “exploratory
mode” we’ll seek the Lord for further direction on more permanent housing. It’s become very real as we purchased our
first set of 6 tickets from Seattle to Johannesburg this week on Wednesday,
June 11th!! Some of you may
have already seen our “leavin’ on a jet plane” video making this announcement. We depart from Seattle on September 5th,
will arrive in Dubai on the 6th and stay overnight, and then fly to Johannesburg
on the 7th. Again, we want to
thank everyone that has poured finances and prayers into making this possible. You are sowing into God’s Kingdom and are
just as much a part of this journey that He’s placed us on.
To be transparent, we purchased a ticket for Jade in faith without
getting an official answer from her birth mom, Lacey, for her to go with us. From the very beginning Josh and I have been
at complete peace and confidence that God was going to get us over this hurdle
(move the mountain like in Mark 11:23) without it having to be a struggle or
fight (i.e. going to court). Although we
had different opinions at times, I never felt right about getting lawyers
involved. Ultimately, we became united
in prayer and believed that God would work things out the way we were asking
because our hearts were positioned towards Him and we put our complete faith
and trust in Him. Sometimes you have to
take steps in faith, with wisdom and peace leading you, so that’s what we did. Only time will tell…
NO COFFEE SHOP: Many of you know we were in discussion with
some others about opening a local coffee shop.
We were nearing some final steps to moving forward. However, the Lord continued to confirm some “internal
checks” we were having, and we were all in agreement to lay this opportunity
down. Although we were excited about the
vision and possibility and thought this might be one way the Lord would fund us
while overseas, we knew it would not be wise to move forward without unity and
peace.
HOMESCHOOLING: The Lord continues to pour out favor, wisdom
and clear direction as we continue moving forward in our preparations. While attending an event where homeschool
parents sell their used curriculum, a friend whom I’d been in recent
conversation with about curriculums, discovered a STEAL OF A DEAL at this
event. The very curriculum (only one package
available) we were considering was on sale for $50, say what?!?! With so many options, we weren’t certain
which curriculum we wanted to go with. I
asked the Lord what to do, and I had peace to purchase it because I could just
turn around and sell it (for double I’m told) if we discovered it wasn’t what
we wanted. And to think, I attended this
event with the thought that I wasn’t going to buy anything yet. This purchase will cover
Bible/History/Science for all the kids.
Now all we need is Math/Reading/Language Arts/Spelling for Christian and
Jade. In addition, we were blessed with Reading/Math/Phonics
curriculum for Gracie at NO COST! We
were expecting our total expenses to be around $1,500 for all the kids, but the
Lord is blowing our minds with such favor and generosity from others!
We need roughly $2,100 more to purchase the last 2 sets of
plane tickets. After that we will need
funds for visas, luggage and other necessities.
Thank you for
covering this all in prayer. We value,
appreciate and love you all!
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