As you may have already seen from some of my teammates’ blogs, we have some great news…
All the needed funds have come in!
In fact, we have actually exceeded our goal by over 60%. Praise God! The Lord knows exactly how much money is needed in Mozambique, and I am convinced that whatever our final number ends up being is exactly how much the Lord needs in Mutarara. So I encourage whoever was still planning to send money to go ahead and do so, because your money will still be used for these orphans and their many needs.
I also want to update you on when we will be leaving and what we will be doing while in Mutarara. Although our original plan was to leave the 14th, which then got pushed back to the 16th, and is now currently pushed back to possibly the 18th, but most likely the 19th… we know that there is a reason for this. God has our best interest at heart. He knows our needs and is always gracious to take care of them.
Because of these extra days, some of us were able to spend some much needed time in solitude and prayer at a Christian Retreat Center called Mercy Air. Coincidently (thank you Lord), Pam met some people who have been to Mutarara and were able to provide us with some valuable and much needed information before heading in ourselves.
So as it stands right now, we will either be leaving this Monday or Tuesday, depending on transportation. We will most likely be borrowing a car from Lynn, one of our contacts here in South Africa who works with Iris Ministries. She has a car that fits five people and also has a closed in truck bed. This space, along with a trailer we will be towing, will have to fit all our bags, several huge jugs of water, our food for the next four days, and food and medical supplies for the children. Hopefully there will be some sort of gap left in the back, because that will be our sixth seat for the road trip. We aren’t sure exactly how many days this road trip will be, anywhere between two and four, depending on the border crossing and which route we end up taking.
Once in Mozambique, we aren’t completely sure what we will be doing on a day to day basis, but we do have our most important goal: build these children a place to call home. Other than that, we will just have to ask God when we get there.
We aren’t sure when we’ll get there. We don’t know how long we will stay. We aren’t sure what we’re doing. We don’t know when we’ll leave to come back. We don’t know much, but we know God said to go, so we are going!
I’m not sure if internet will be an option in Mutarara; we’ve been told it is way out in the middle of nowhere. It may be once a week I can get online, maybe every couple weeks or maybe just once the whole time—but I would love it if you continue to send emails my way and let me know how things are going back at home, and I will email you as soon as it is a possibility.
Please keep team seven:eleven in your prayers these next few weeks…
Pray for safe and quick travels
Pray for no hassle and no bribes at the border (very common for white people)
Pray for building materials to come through and people to help build
Pray for our health as we will be in a very sickly area due to the flooding
Pray for a continued unity amongst the team
Pray against whatever Satan has planned for us these next few weeks
Pray that God would give us his love for these people
Pray that our eyes would remain on Jesus
We are all very excited about leaving in the next couple days. God is going to do some incredible things this month. Praise his name!
