It seems when we tell people about this amazing journey we're about to embark upon, we get a lot of the same questions. Never fear! Although we LOVE telling anyone who will listen about what we're going to do, we thought a one-stop-shop list of answers might be more convenient for some.
Q: How long are you going to be gone?
A: We are going to be gone for 11 months.
Q: When are you leaving?
A: We will "launch" (race-lingo for "leave home and begin this crazy adventure!") July 1st, 2013
Q: Where are you going?
A: We are going to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, India, Nepal, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Whew! That's a mouthful! We'll spend about a month in each country.
Q: What are you going to do with your house?
A: Currently, we're planning to rent out our house while we're gone. We have a few leads on that. We also might sell it.
Q: What are you going to do with your animals?
A: Ben's parents are going to take care of our two dogs for us. We are currently searching for a loving family (or families) to foster our cats. They are awesome! We have one "special needs" cat that we're pretty concerned about. In recent days she has been doing very well, though!
Q: What exactly are you going to do?
A: Exactly, we don't know. We'll find out when we hit the ground in each country and probably not before. Basically our call is to serve the "least of these," the most underserved people in the world. The types of things most teams do are:
- work in orphanages
- visit leper colonies
- minister to/pray with/visit widows/single moms/sick people in impoverished communities
- hold sports camps
- serve lunch to children who may not eat another meal that day
- pick up women in bars (Kari might, anyway, ministering to victims of sex trafficking)
- construction
Q: Who will you go with? What do you mean "teams?"
A: The broad answer is we are going with an interdenominational missions organization called Adventures in Missions that works with many ministries around the world and specializes in mission trips. As far as individuals, we will travel with a "squad" of 40-80 people from country to country. Day in, day out we will be in a team of 6-8 people that we'll be with 24/7 doing meals, ministry, and general life together.
Q: Can we keep in touch with you while we're gone? Send you care packages or something?
A: Unfortunately, you really can't send us things while we're gone. It's really expensive and difficult to coordinate, as much as I would love for you to send us a case of Dr. Pepper!
You can still email us, facebook us, etc. and we'll be updating this blog pretty much the whole trip. Most places really do have Internet. An easy way to be sure you know when we've posted is to click the "email alerts" button at the top left. It's impossible to express how encouraging it is to know that people care enough to keep up with what's going on both now and especially when we're on the field.
Q: How much does it cost?
A: Ah, the finance question! The trip, total for the two of us, will cost $31,000.
Q: What does that cover?
A: That amount covers food, transportation, and lodging from the time we arrive at launch to the time we re-enter the United States. It also covers training camp before we leave and state-side office support now through the duration of our trip, amongst other things. When you think about it, that much for a year's worth of inter-continental travel, lodging, and food for two people is not actually a whole lot.
Q: What does the cost not cover?
A: We're responsible for all of our gear (tent, hiking pack, sleeping bags and pads, etc.), things like vaccinations and malaria meds, travel insurance, transportation to and from training camp and launch/re-entry (in the US), and spending money for site-seeing excursions, Cokes, and perhaps the occasional souvenir.
Q: How are you going to do all of that?
A: We're raising support. First and foremost, we're asking people to pray for us.
- Pray for us as we prepare, that we'll be focused and determined and clear-minded. There is a lot to do between now and then.
- Pray for us and our team, as we prepare to go. Life is still going to happen for the next 6 (almost 5, yikes!) months, and meanwhile God is going to be shaping us into the people we need to be to be most effective while we're gone.
- Pray for our fundraising efforts. Hopefully, we're going to have a lot of fun with fundraisers, etc. But being reliant on other people to meet our needs is really not our usual MO and it's probably going to be very stressful to rely so much more on God and other people than we currently have to.
Also, we are asking you to tell your friends about it! Pass out our blog address like candy. Support, encouragement, and prayer are essential. The more awareness and prayer, the better off we'll be.
If you would like to partner financially with us on this trip serving the underserved and forgotten, there are a few ways you can do that.
- You can click the "support us" link at the top left of our page. You can put "For: Ben and Kari Mitchell" in the for line and use a credit card to make a tax-deductible donation.
- You can sign up to have a tax-deductible donation withdrawn monthly through dynapay (www.adventures.org/dynapay). If only 50 people pledge $50/month for the year 2013 (Jan-Dec) we would be fully funded!
- You can send a check to Adventures in Missions with "Ben and Kari Mitchell" in the memo line. Let us know and we can get you a donor card that has the mailing address and everything to go with it.
- You can come to a fundraiser! It will be fun!
- If you'd rather give something tangible, we'll be creating a wish-list for REI of things that we'll need.
That's it! You made it! If you have other questions we haven't addressed, feel free to ask us. You can even ask in the comments section, if you think it's something others might want to know.
Thanks for reading!
