Okay guys. So.. we’re leaving. We have some information we want to share with you, but the big piece is the
PASSWORD TO OUR BLOG:
”worldrace”
Aside from that, we want to offer some of what we’ve gained in terms of support. It’s not what you think. I will address the financial component first though.
We set out to raise $39,600. If you’re interested in how this money gets broken down, let us know. It was explained, I asked additional questions, and I am responsible for a large piece of our budget. It’s well stewarded finances, I assure you.
We depart in less than 12 hours and we are at $38,000! We only have $1,600 left to raise (by November), which pales in comparison. We have been so blessed in so many ways. Here are a few (in no particular order).
1. Conversations. We’ve had so many people approach us to express their faith, support of us, and pray for us. I must confess that a lot of these were from people that we either didn’t know were Christians, or didn’t feel would want to talk openly about faith. Shame on us. It opened our minds and our hearts and changed our perspective – if we weren’t willing to have those conversations with people we know in English, how could we possibly have them with strangers in a different language? We fixed ourselves.
2. Resources. A lot of people we talked to wanted to connect us to others. At first, we thought “excellent, other people we can talk to about support!” which God promptly taught us was immature and not for His Kingdom. Instead, we met with a woman named Meredith, who was a missions coordinator from a local church. She’s essentially a networker for a living so she connected us to a group called “Last Friday”, a mission-minded small group. This group BLEW OUR MINDS. We met about 15 people with probably a few hundred years of combined ministry experience. They started giving us resources to study, contacts overseas and sharing their wisdom with us. Patricia was the biggest help – she taught classes on ministry to Muslims and helped facilitate a number of other groups so she overwhelmed us with ministry materials and knowledge! Unparalleled support.
3. Growth. This process has been difficult, frustrating, and trying, in a number of ways. Some people that we weren’t expecting to support us, did, and some people that we expected to support us, didn’t. Some people didn’t believe in what we’re doing, others we didn’t expect to, have shared their new faith.
This is a short blog that we probably undersold, but I’m sitting in a class session at Launch trying to do a handful of things, just scrambling basically, before we fly out super early tomorrow morning. It’s so exciting.
We love you.
*names were changed to prevent connection to organizations while in a closed country
