It’s the final countdown!
Our kids have been talking nonstop about our upcoming return to
America. We are all very excited to see
family and friends and look forward to whatever the Lord has planned for this
trip. The obvious is that we need to
renew our children’s passports and get 3-year visas for South Africa, but I
believe the Lord has even greater things planned for this visit and the
intentional timing of it happening.
What are we looking forward to the most, you might
wonder? Chips and salsa!! Haha, okay, just kidding….kind of! ;-)
We depart for America in t-minus 2 days. We are scheduled to depart out of George on
Tuesday, May 17th @ 1:30pm and will arrive in Johannesburg, SA @
3:15pm. We have a 4-hour layover before
we board the plane and fly into Dubai.
We will end up landing on American soil on Wednesday, May 18th
@ 12:55pm in Seattle, WA. Plane tickets
into Boise skyrocketed so we will be traveling on road instead. Once again (just like last year), Matt Gager
has willingly offered to drive all the way from Boise to Seattle to pick us up and
then drive us all the way back to Boise.
Dankie Matt!! That’s a lot of
driving for him in one day. Please cover
his and our travels in prayer!
We are scheduled to depart back to South Africa on Tuesday,
July 19th. We have many
things going on during our 2-month stay.
Before we even had the funds to purchase our tickets, the Lord spoke to
me a while ago that we need to be very intentional on this trip. The timing of our return is very key to His
plans for our family. He has been
orchestrating very significant connections with other people so that we are
properly aligned for this next season of our lives. With that said, Josh and I have been led to
make some changes.
1 Through much discussion, praying and counsel, we
are in agreement that our hearts are headed in a different direction when it
comes to the ongoing vision of Four18.
Therefore, shortly after our arrival in America, we will no longer be a
part of Four18. It was originally Matt
Gager’s idea so he is going to run with it from here. You can still follow along on our journey by
visiting www.masonfamilymissions.blogspot.com,
but we will have a new location for submitting donations.
2. For a year now we have been praying that the
Lord would align us with people from the States that would hold us accountable,
be intentional in their relationship with us, challenge us, counsel us and
simply do life together. Through much
praying and a confirmation from the Lord through a dream and vision I had, the
Lord led us to an amazing couple whom, without hesitation, have taken us under
their wings. We are excited to partner
with Adam & Brooke Cooke, whom pastor Awaken Church in Nampa, ID and are thrilled
about this intentional connection that the Lord has orchestrated. Bigger things are to come from it! I remember the first time we met Adam. We were attending a friend’s baptism at his
church and our timid son, Christian, pointed to Adam from a distance and said,
“I want to meet that guy!” That was 2
years ago and, as the saying goes, the rest is history…. In the near future,
the option to make a donation online will be made available through the Awaken
Church Web site and distributed to us.
We will keep you posted once this is live.
Our police clearances for South Africa arrived just in the
nick of time. Josh and I will be picking
them up in George on Tuesday right before our departure. God is never late! Upon arriving in Idaho, we
will promptly apply for the renewal of the children’s passports. Please pray for a smooth and accelerated
process. This can take up to 4-6 weeks,
and then Josh and I must still go to Los Angeles after that to apply for our
3-year visas. That can take 5-10
days. Nothin’ like cuttin’ it
close!! We also have no idea where the
funds are going to come from to get everything taken care of that is needed
while in the States, but we know that the Lord is IN THIS and He will provide a
way!
We are needing roughly $3,000 to get passports, visas,
travel to LA, buy homeschool curriculum and purchase our remaining airline
tickets back to South Africa in July. If
you feel led to sow seed, you can continue to make donations online at www.Four18.org until further notice.
We have been blessed with a vehicle during our stay and
already have homes lined up to crash in.
We are truly grateful for each and every one of you that have extended a
loving and helping hand to our family during this time. You know the saying, “There is nothing
impossible with God on your side…?”
Well, He uses PEOPLE to fulfill His plans and we are so thankful for the
people in our lives here in South Africa, America and across the world that we
have been fortunate to cross paths with!
We will be sharing an update on Thursday, May 26th
@ 7pm with the i-61 Connect group. It is
located at The Outpost at Vineyard Boise.
Anyone is welcome to come. We’d
love to see some more familiar faces there, hint, hint, wink, wink! We will inform you of any other speaking
engagements via Facebook.
A surprise blessing to our family this week came from one of
our farmer neighbors. We’ve been needing
a fence built to keep the porcupines out of our garden, but we haven’t had the
funds to move forward with this project.
Towards the beginning of April we received $1,000 from someone whom
wanted to sow into what we were doing here.
This money was originally intended to help build the fence, but when the
donor discovered our need to fly back to America, they said to use the funds
however needed. We wanted to honor the
donor’s heart and weren’t going to use it for anything else but a fence unless
they agreed to otherwise. WELL, we used
the funds towards our plane tickets, and then this week we found out that our
neighbor is going to PAY for a fence to be built around our large garden and
have his workers build it while we’re gone in the States in exchange for him
being able to have his cows graze in our fields. How awesome is that?!?! You just never know how the Lord is going to
provide for your needs, but He always knows what they are and He ALWAYS comes
through – just not always in the way we expect!
We enjoyed our last Saturday in Sonskyn yesterday and had a
wonderful time. Our pastor friend,
Duncan, is busy working on the construction of the new church. Simple yet sufficient to gather in. I love it!
His hope is that it will be completed and usable by June. We are going to miss our friends and family
community here in South Africa and are already looking forward to our return in
July.
For those that crochet, I will be gathering homemade hats and scarves
for the winter to take back to the children in Sonskyn. If you would like to get involved with this
project, please send me an email or private message through Facebook.
