We Made It To Africa!!

Our traveling experience with Emirates Airlines has been incredible!!  We thank God that he blessed us with affordable plane tickets through the best international airline company known.  We’ve experienced very little turbulence and extremely smooth landings and take-offs.  AND I’m happy to announce that no one’s ears hurt either!!  We experienced no popping or blocked hearing upon our landing in Africa.  Thank you to those that covered this in prayer. During the flight from Dubai to Johannesburg, Africa (which was non-stop), I (Mindy) finally caught some sleep.  It was an 8-hour flight and I do not know how long I slept, but all I know is I woke up to a voice on the intercom announcing that we’d be landing in 20 minutes.  The kids slept most of the time too.  An 8-hour flight only felt like a couple of hours to us.  We did put the 2 youngest children (Gracie & Josiah) in pull-ups during our flying travels, just to be safe, but we are happy to say that they both stayed dry the entire time!  Christian even got to experience losing his 1^st tooth all on its own too!  He actually had 3 baby teeth pulled shortly before leaving the States because an adult tooth wasn’t coming in properly, but this was the first tooth that fell out all on its own and while flying of all places!!  It’s not every day you lose a tooth on the plane!

One thing to cover in prayer is the kids’ glasses.  We only have 1 pair for Gracie (for those that don’t know she got glasses about 1 week before leaving).  Both she and Josiah are currently farsighted.  We “had” 2 pairs of glasses for Josiah, but the nose piece broke on his newest pair so we have reverted back to him wearing his old pair (which are actually better) and are praying that super glue will do the trick with his other glasses.  Pray that we have no more problems with glasses.  Even better yet, pray that eyes are healed!!

Upon landing in Johannesburg, South Africa we were faced with an escalator and no elevator.  It’s very challenging to get all your little ones on the moving escalator along with their suitcases and backpacks.  Fortunately, we were blessed by 2 people who insisted on helping us.  When we got to the bottom, an airport worker got carts for all our carry-ons and backpacks, another huge blessing because at this point the younger kids were tired and could no longer carry theirs – which meant Josh and I were carrying 2, sometimes 3, backpacks on our shoulders in addition to pulling 1, sometimes 2/3 suitcases on wheels.  Our shoulders were fairly sore at this point.  Wishing our favorite masseuse was here to massage us!!  You know who you are! ;-)  Aside from that, our kids did very well traveling and doing their part with carrying or pulling their own luggage.  What troopers!!

After our carry-ons and backpacks were loaded onto carts by the worker, she continued to lead us to customs and passed the ginormous line of people waiting.  That’s right, she took us to the VERY FRONT of the line (which looked a mile long!)  This probably saved us 1 ½ to 2 hours of waiting in line.  Then she and another lady worker helped to locate our 3 tubs, which don’t come through the regular baggage claim conveyor belts, and got us more carts for our remaining 9 suitcases.  After loading everything onto 5, yes 5 carts, they assisted with pushing them out to the front doors where we waited for our shuttle driver, Ralph, to pick us up with his car and trailer.  He arrived around 5:30pm and took us to Pretoria (about 1 hour away) where a couple named Fred and Rene have opened up their beautiful, did I say beautiful, home to us!

A team of young adults met us at the gates where they unloaded all of our luggage for us.  Our family was given 2 rooms to sleep in and a bathroom.  We were prepared for Pemba, so for those that are familiar with that area, our kids keep asking, “Where’s the red dirt and ocean?!”  There are many young adult missionaries living in the home with us, but in the future things will be changing.  We don’t know how long we will be here, but we are praying for clarity and clear direction on that.  If you receive anything from the Lord related to our family, please feel free to share it with us via e-mail or private message in Facebook.  Even if it doesn’t make sense to you, it very well might make sense to us!  A very delicious dinner was prepared on our behalf, and we enjoyed sitting with everyone in the dining room (which isn’t a custom with everyone’s different schedules but they wanted to honor us and we felt very honored).

We’ve posted various updates on Facebook, but for those that don’t use Facebook, we are experiencing some jet lag in our family but there’s actually a funny story behind that.  So, as you’ve read in our last blog, our kids were wide awake at 4am in Dubai.  For their first morning in South Africa, they woke up at “5:30am” so we looked at this as progress…..!  We decided to spend some time talking with the kids about how they’re feeling so far and then for those that wanted to they prayed over various things.  We then decided to worship together to a few songs – fast, lively songs like, “This is What You Do” and “Deep Cries Out”.  We did try to be somewhat quiet because we didn’t know who’d be awake at 7:30am.  Josh also read Psalm 91 over our family.  Afterwards we decided to head downstairs for some breakfast.  Not long after, one of the young adults came down and said he was headed to preach to some students.  He normally has to be there at 7am.  In our minds we’re thinking, um, you’re a little late this morning.  That’s when the light bulb went off…..!!  After asking him what time it was, it turns out it was only 6:45am instead of 8:45am like we thought.  That means the kids actually woke up at 3am instead of 5am like we thought, oh my!  It turns out our phone clocks were still going off the Dubai time zone and hadn’t recalculated, our bad!  We hope we didn’t wake anyone with our family worship time. J  Although, as our Vineyard Meridian Pastor Reeni pointed out, waking up to a family worshiping the One they adore isn’t so bad!

Today was our first full day in South Africa, and both Josh and I felt like it was to be a day of “chillin’.”No plans, no “we have to get unpacked/organized”, just simply hanging with the kids.  It turns out we all needed it because we ended up taking a family nap around 9/10am and slept until about 1pm. We decided to wake the kids up so they’d actually go to sleep at a decent time tonight.  When I woke up my phone said 3pm, and I was worried that I had missed our Skype session with my parents at 2pm, but then Josh pointed out that the time on my phone still hadn’t updated to the South African time zone and it was really only 1pm.  Phew!!  Unfortunately, the Skype session never happened because Grandma and Grandpa Campbell (my parents) were having connectivity issues.  Pray that gets resolved soon!  We are being diligent with getting the kids adjusted to the time difference from America (8 hours different) so we kept them up for the remainder of the day so they would actually go to sleep at night.  They managed to fall asleep around 9-9:30pm, with the exception of Christian whom stayed up playing Legos and coloring in our bed until 10:30pm.  Please pray that the kids sleep in until at least 7am.

Our plans for tomorrow morning (Tuesday) are to head to the Footprints base in Johannesburg to meet the director, Pastor Yolanda, and the rest of the team.  Excited to love on some children!!  We’ll write another blog on how that visit goes.  It’s now midnight so I’m going to try and get some rest.  Until next time………..

And We're Off!!

….and we’re off!!  We said our “see you laters” to family and loved ones and boarded our first flight out of Boise, Idaho Friday afternoon on September 5th.  It was an emotional time, especially for Josh, as it's the first time in almost 38 years that he's been away from his parents.  They've always lived in the same city, and his dad is one of his bestest friends!  Thank you to those that showed up at the airport and also to those that wanted to be there but couldn’t make it but were covering us in prayer.  Prayer is powerful and we have definitely been covered and experienced God’s blessings and favor!

It’s one thing to go on vacation with a family and pack a few suitcases.  It’s a whole other story packing up and moving your family of 6 across the world.  The Lord gave us much wisdom on how to pack, what to pack and techniques to use that would enable us to locate our luggage quickly, and it has all proven to be very successful.  Josh had the brilliant idea to wrap orange duct tape around our luggage handles so we could locate our carry-on luggage quickly on the carts after landing in Seattle and at the baggage claim in South Africa.  We even numbered each one of them so that we can locate them quickly upon arriving in South Africa, in addition to making lists for what was in each suitcase (in case any luggage gets misplaced).  When the lady was checking us in at the Boise Airport, she said I should write a book to help travelers with packing techniques.  Maybe I will, maybe I will!  I was very diligent when it came to packing and weighing each suitcase and tub because I didn’t want to pay any overweight fees, which could apply to each airline we use (in our case only two: Alaska Airlines & Emirates).  I’m proud to say that we made the weight limits and even came under weight on a couple of suitcases.  We were a couple of lbs over on one, but we just took a few items out and shoved them in another suitcase that was 10 lbs underweight.  Maybe we could have fit Gracie Beers in our suitcase after all!!  Wink, wink Mel Beers!  There is also a weight limit on carry-ons, and we knew we were way overweight on those, but we were praying that they wouldn’t even weigh them…and sure enough they didn’t, thank you Lord!!  I’ll just say we’ve had the smoothest check-ins I’ve ever experienced, especially with 12 large suitcases/tubs and 12 carry-on suitcases/back packs.  We discovered that, because our layover in Dubai is longer than 12 hours, they wouldn’t be able to check our luggage in all the way through to Johannesburg, South Africa.  They did suggest, however, that we check with the airline in Seattle to see if their system would allow them to do it.  Of course, that’s what we asked and prayed for, and once again the Lord came through for us!  While in Seattle Josh checked with a boarding assistant, they re-tagged all 12 pieces of our luggage and checked them in all the way through to South Africa, hallelujah!  Upon arriving in Seattle, we got off the plane and faced multiple flights of stairs.  When trying to figure out how the kids were going to manage pulling their suitcases up the stairs, a worker came around the corner and led us to the elevators.  What a blessing that was!

Our first stop out of Seattle was in Dubai, which is where I am currently typing this blog while the rest of the family sleeps.  Everyone slept great on the plane, except me.   I didn’t sleep at all, but I thank God that He blesses me with supernatural rest often.  During our flight Josiah kept looking out the window and saying, “We’re not flying, we’re not flying.”  He said this because everything looked the same, just sky and clouds below, so he thought we weren’t moving.  What a cutie-patootie.  We call him “joy boy” because he’s always making us laugh and is constantly full of joy and smiling!

Upon getting off the plane in Dubai, we had 2 gentleman offer to help us carry our luggage.  We must have made quite the scene with our children and 12 carry-ons.  Just imagine what it would have been like to carry those on top of 12 more checked suitcases/bins!  The hotel we are staying in is absolutely beautiful!  The boys got a kick out of the front entrance glass doors that open and close (like at Wal-Mart), and pretended to have special powers like in Star Wars.  While checking into our hotel, a lady randomly came up to Gracie and started petting her hair and saying it’s beautiful and looks like Barbie.  Let the “petting” of Gracie’s hair begin.  This is exactly what happened when we came to Africa 2 years ago because people there aren’t used to seeing blonde hair, and Gracie’s is definitely blonde!  We are blown away by the beauty of our rooms, a suite with 2 rooms in 1.  Of course, we put all the kids in one room so that we could enjoy some privacy of our own! ;-)  We have a balcony which overlooks the beautiful city of Dubai.  There is even a swimming pool on the roof, although we won’t have time to enjoy it during this visit, as we must leave the hotel @ 7AM to catch our next flight.  In comparing time to Idaho, we are currently 10 hours later.  When Josh and I first looked at plane tickets and were deciding whether to stay overnight and get a hotel or choose a route with a 9-hour layover in the airport, we decided to go with the option of staying overnight so the kids could get some good rest and we’d just spend a little extra money on a room.  Well, then God put it on our hearts to ask our friend, Samantha (whom we just briefly and recently met within the last year), whom used to live in Dubai if she knew of anyone that could host our family for a night.  She wasn’t able to find anyone, but her mom (Elsa) so generously offered to take care of and pay for ALL of our sleeping and transportation arrangements.  We have been blessed by a lovely woman, whom until this evening, we hadn’t even met before.  I love how the body of Christ comes together in ways like this, and we are truly grateful and humbled by Elsa’s love for us and our children.  She not only met us at the airport while holding a beautiful “butterfly” sign with our names on it, but she arranged for us to be delivered to our hotel room and bought us dinner and personally delivered it to our room – while staying for a while to visit.  On top of that, she did a little shopping and purchased outfits for each of the kids and blessed me with some beautiful rose-gold jewelry!  Oh wait, and there’s more………..  She bought us some yummy chocolates to top off our dinner with.  Hip, hip hooray to Elsa and her beautiful heart of gold!!  We are thankful to have met her.  Now she’s a part of our journey and we’ll never forget her!

I am happy to announce that no one has gotten motion sickness on the fights nor are anyone’s ears bothering them.  The reason I bring this up is because we were praying over these two things after our last experience going to and coming back from Africa.  On our way there 2 years ago, my ears remained clogged for 2 weeks until they finally decided to pop and clear up.  It was painful for at least the first few days but not this time!  Also, on our way home during our last trip to Africa, Josiah threw up on the descent/landing on two separate occasions.  So, now you know why this is such a big deal and another blessing from the Lord!

Some of you may not know the most recent changes in our plans, but right now we are currently headed to Johannesburg and will be staying with a couple there (instead of on a base) until God directs us otherwise.  We will arrive there Sunday afternoon, South African time – around 8AM MST (in Idaho).  We will have many opportunities to serve at Footprints, the Iris ministry there, because their need is great.  We have chosen to live each day at a time, asking God what He’s up to for each day so we can partner with Him in what He’s doing.  We are continually learning what a surrendered life looks like, and I recently came across this article that speaks directly about the things that are going on in my heart……

“Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” Psalm 37:7

Surrendering your life means:

- Following God’s lead without knowing where He’s sending you.

- Waiting for God’s timing without knowing when it will come.  Not being afraid to step out and take risk because you know He is with you.

- Expecting a miracle without knowing how God will provide.

- Trusting God’s purpose without understanding the circumstances.

You know your life is surrendered to God when you stop trying harder to control situations and start trusting Him more.

All God wants is ALL OF YOU.  Are you willing to give Him that?  I pray that as you each go on your own personal journeys in life, you experience in greater levels what it means to surrender your life to Him and to love Him with everything that you are!  We definitely don’t have it all figured out, but we know THE ONE who does and we’re choosing to lay down our lives for His glory!!  Loves to you all and thank you for your continued support and prayers!

The Unknown

I’m thankful for the moments I got to come up for air during this past month as things got super busy with packing, more packing, even more packing, cleaning and moving!  At least I didn’t end up MIA by packing myself into one of the boxes or suitcases!

I had my pile of suitcases that were packed with things “specifically for Africa”, a pile of “donate to the Salvation Army,” another pile for “in the future”, one for "selling," and one for “keep out for now until we leave in September.”  We also had our “take to Mom & Dad Mason’s” pile, take to “Mom & Dad Campbell’s” pile, and “give to friends” pile…..oh, and don’t forget the “throw away” pile.  Holy moly, that’s a lot of piles to keep straight, but I’ve really enjoyed the process and am glad it’s all done.  The kids have done incredibly well with this transition and haven’t complained once….I think because we just gained some incredible neighbors (our good friends, the Beers Family).

We officially moved out of our home on Thursday, August 7^th and headed straight to my parents’ in Eastern Idaho.  The rest of my family (minus a few) joined us throughout the weekend for a “mini” reunion to celebrate one last time before we move.  It was great to spend time with my family and I am thankful for the special moments I had with them.  I was also able to visit my brother (currently incarcerated) in person one last time before we leave the country.  Typically visits only last 30 minutes, but sometimes longer for out-of-towners, but the guard in charge surprised us with the blessing of 1 ½ hours!  That was pretty sweet!!

We are back home now and the first week of living in our RV has gone rather smoothly.  Our friends have been gracious and generous with sharing their home and belongings with us.  Their daughter, Gracie (age 6), surprised us with giving up her room for a month so that we could have somewhere to store all of our suitcases for Africa.  Thank you Gracie Beers!!

After returning from Eastern Idaho we had planned to list our Jeep for sale.  However, an employee of Josh’s approached him the next day when he returned to work and asked him if we were selling our Jeep and that she wanted to buy it and pay cash, say what?!?!  She also told us we could keep the Jeep until we leave in September.  WOWZERS!!  I mean, I know the Lord is good, but I just love testifying of His goodness and how much He’s been taking care of our every need as we step out in faith.  While we were driving home from our trip, written on the back of a dirty semi-truck was “Matthew 6:33”.  I looked it up right away.  “But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  The part He really highlighted to me was at the beginning – seek first His Kingdom.  He was reminding me to keep my eyes focused on Him and all will be well.  Sometimes we can get discouraged or disappointed when people we care about don’t understand our hearts, but that is when it is imperative that we keep our eyes focused on Him so that we can protect our relationship with Him in turn protecting our relationship with others.  This verse was very timely for me to read.  With the rest of the verse (and the verses prior), we know the Lord is our provider so we don’t worry about the unknowns of this journey we’re on.  When we worry, it’s like telling the Lord we don’t trust Him.

There have been some changes that have occurred that have placed us in a greater position of faith.  Without going into great detail, we are unable to get visas at this time to enter into Pemba, Mozambique (which was supposed to be our final destination).  We have plane tickets to get us as far as Johannesburg, South Africa, so that is where we’ll remain until the visa situation in Mozambique gets resolved.  Your prayers over this situation would be greatly appreciated.  We don’t need visas for Joburg (Johannesburg), which is why we can remain in that country until we receive further direction from the Lord.  We are looking into serving at another Iris Global base in that area, and either way, are excited to see what the Lord is up to.  We don’t see it as God leading us a different direction.  Sometimes things happen that are outside of our control and the Lord’s, but with the new twist in our journey, we’ve learned to ask the Lord daily what He’s up to at the time so that we don’t miss what He’s doing from day to day.  Yes, we are 20 days away from leaving and, at this point, have no idea where we’re going to end up………but we trust God and know that we’ll be taken care of.  Living a life for Jesus isn’t supposed to look normal to the world.  To me, living a life for Jesus looks exactly like it did for the disciples – they left everything comfortable to them to follow after Jesus…not really knowing what that would look like.  That doesn’t make the journey easy, it just makes it worth it!!

New Living Arrangements

If you’ve been following along on our journey and reading over our prayer requests, then you will know that we’ve been seeking wisdom and direction for what to do about our current living situation.  Our lease ends August 11^th, and Josh and I were both feeling like that’s when we should move out of our house.  Even though the owner offered to pro-rate our payments if we stayed up until our departure on September 5^th, we both felt led to decline this offer and trust that the Lord would provide a place for us to stay so that we would have time to pay off final utility bills and receive the refund of our security deposit before leaving the States.  Our prayer went something like this, “Lord, help us to find a place to stay or someone to live with, but God, it’s important to us that our family has some personal space for bonding and to grow closer together.”  Do you know that the Lord’s plans are ALWAYS perfect, even if they don’t make sense to you at the time?!?!  It turns out that someone we barely even know offered for us to live in his RV in August until we depart from the States on September 5^th, praise God!!!  And, as if things couldn’t get any better, some dear friends of ours offered for us to park the RV at their house – double bonus!!  Our family will have some personal space but will also have access to do laundry, etc. and hang with some of our greatest friends before we leave!  Thank you Beers Family for being so generous and loving towards our family.  We foresee great times ahead with the Mason and Beers Families – like worship nights, sleeping on the trampoline, having water fights, late movie nights, Wii competitions, BBQs and who knows what else!

Our last day living in this rental home will be August 7^th because we are taking a trip to visit my parents and family in Eastern Idaho that weekend.  We are super excited for the mini reunion my sister, Amber, is putting together!!  It’s always great times when the “Campbell” Family gets together!  We’re also super excited about our A/C being fixed in the Jeep so that we can enjoy our last few trips in the States without dripping sweat in this hot summer heat.  Although, I guess you could say it was only preparing us for hotter and more humid times in Africa, but we’d like to enjoy the coolness while we still can.

In preparation for our move into the RV, we held a moving sale this past Saturday and it was a great success!  Not only financially, but we had some great conversations with complete strangers and the Lord has really encouraged us through them!  We’ve learned that it really is okay to ask the Lord for specific things, so our prayer for the moving sale was to raise $3,000.  Quite honestly, we didn’t own a whole lot of extra stuff because we’ve down-sized before and have held garage sales in the past couple of years for mission trips, so we didn’t know where we’d end up this time around.  Immediately upon posting a “moving sale” ad online, we had someone request to hold our couch for $500!!  The Lord continued to bless us with a steady flow of visitors whom purchased a total of $1,888 worth of items from us on Saturday.  In addition, we received a donation check from a beautiful couple in the amount of $3,000!!!  When we told them that’s the amount we were praying to the Lord for they said, “No way!”  Then He basically almost doubled the amount, bringing in a total of $5,388 on Saturday!!  We still have some big ticket items left to sell as well, so ads have been posted on craigslist.com if you or someone you know is interested!  When you step out to do what seems impossible, and you know the Lord is leading you, TRUST that He WILL provide!!

Even though we’ve sold our couches, the buyers (whom we know) are letting us keep them until we move out in August.  Yesterday we sold our bedframe, and again, the buyers are letting us keep our bed until August.  We’re willing to give it all up, but the Lord’s been sweet to let us enjoy them just a little bit longer.  We said goodbye to the first car I purchased all by myself – little Red – you were so good to me these past 13 years, with your quirks and all!!  It’s a little trickier coordinating errands, appointments, etc. and Josh’s work schedule with only one vehicle, but today some friends of ours blessed us with a bike for Josh to get to and from work when I need the vehicle for other things.  Thank you, once again, Beers Family!  The kids are also doing great without many of their toys, TV, Wii, movies, games, puzzles, etc.  I am so proud of them, their hearts and their willingness to let go of their “stuff.”  They are reflecting the heart of Matthew 6:19-20!  They are learning what true richness means, and my prayer as their mommy is that they learn that happiness isn’t rooted in stuff or more money.  It’s rooted in the greatest richness of all, a personal relationship with Jesus! [Philippians 3:8]

It's a YES! Jade's Going to Africa!!

The title says it all……….Jade’s going to Africa!  We received a “yes” today from her birth mom, Lacey, for her to move to Africa with us.  For those following along that may not know how big of a deal this is, let me share with you some background to our story.

When Josh and I were married, he already had two children, one of them being Jade.  Although she is “legally” my step-daughter I don’t refer to her as that because I received her into my life as my own daughter.  That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been bumps in the road, but God has used this situation in my life to teach me what it means to love unconditionally no matter the circumstance.  It hasn’t been easy raising a child when both parental sides have different living styles and beliefs.  However, the Lord has used our blended family situation to teach us about love, trust, unity and many other things.  When Jade was 7-years old she began living with us primarily, but it was a huge legal battle to make that happen.  God began speaking to Jade about missions shortly before we went to Africa 2 years ago.  God showed her she was going to feed the poor in Africa and Asia.  A year after getting back from Africa, Josh and I took a trip to Micronesia thinking we might possibly move there, but we didn’t get permission from Lacey to take Jade and Jade wasn’t even at peace about moving overseas at that time either.  This is when Josh and I began to think that maybe we wouldn’t be moving overseas until Jade graduated.

However, as you’ve read in previous posts, God’s been working on our hearts for roughly the past year to continue pursuing what He’s placed on our hearts to do no matter the cost.  Before applying for long-term missions with Iris Ministries, we spoke to Lacey about the direction God was leading our family.  At first she said Jade could go if she wanted and then she said she couldn’t.  She has pretty much refused to talk about it since then, even after Jade shared her heart with her in a personal letter that was mailed to her.  Jade has no doubt in her mind that she is to go with us, and God has given her the peace and strength she needs this time around to leave her other family behind.  We are so proud of the decisions she is making to follow the Lord with all of her heart no matter the cost!

This past week Josh tried calling Lacey to talk about Africa more, as we were needing to move forward with certain decisions, but we couldn’t get through to her as her service had been shut off.  I even tried texting her a few days later, in hopes her phone had been turned back on, to talk about Jade’s summer schedule but I never received a response.  Out of the blue this morning, Josh received a text from Lacey saying that she’ll be using a different number for now and that she can only text not speak.  She had no idea that we’d been trying to get ahold of her this week.  Josh told her that we’re making decisions about Africa and need to know what she thinks.  He asked if she got Jade’s letter.  Her response was, “Yeah, I am letting her go.”  Praise God, praise God!!  Talk about no struggle whatsoever!  God faithfully answered our prayers!  We weren’t even expecting an answer, just more conversation about it, so we are in complete awe of God’s goodness and preparing/speaking to hearts behind the scenes.  God has given us both the word “effortless” and that He is going to ask us to do things that may seem impossible but are quite effortless, in a sense, as He prepares the way.  We are thankful to Lacey for trusting us to take Jade and for her selfless act to release Jade in our care in the years to come, as we know the decision was not an easy one.  God wants you to face the “giants” in your life because He’s got something amazing planned on the other side!!

Bless you all as you begin to face those giants and move

the mountains in your own life with great faith!

Now Boarding Flight #0230 to Johannesburg - Sept 5th

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 11^th!!  Some of you may have already seen our “leavin’ on a jet plane” video making this announcement.  We depart from Seattle on September 5^th, will arrive in Dubai on the 6^th and stay overnight, and then fly to Johannesburg on the 7^th.  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!

Keeping in Touch

Here are some ways in which we can all keep in touch while our family is serving overseas.

FACEBOOK: This will be our primary way of communicating.  If you have a Facebook account, you can "like" our page - Mason Family Missions - to receive all of our posts, updates, videos, pictures.

WEB SITE: If you do not have or want a Facebook account, you can visit our Web site at http://masonfamilymissions.blogspot.com/.  This is where we will post detailed events/updates taking place, prayer requests, contribution info, etc.

E-MAIL:  We can be reached via e-mail at joshandmindy@vineyardmeridian.com.  We would love to hear from all of you from time to time!

NEWSLETTER:  You can sign up for our newsletter by visiting our site http://masonfamilymissions.blogspot.com/ and entering your e-mail address in the "Follow by Email" box.  Upon submitting, you should receive a confirmation e-mail containing an activation link.  You will need to click on this link in order to activate your newsletter subscription.  If you do not receive this e-mail, please contact us via e-mail.

Thank you for following along on our journey!