Tuesday, May 16, 2017

New Plan. Same Purpose.

"What's the plan?"

Those three words come out of my mouth more than I would like to admit.

Truly, it is part of my daily vocabulary.

There is a running joke between us & our pastor from SC that I am the "world's biggest planner".

While that can be a really great quality to have in ministry, it is not always a good thing.

It has been the running theme in my relationship with Christ ... He is constantly teaching me & reminding me that MY plan is not THE plan.

We are finding ourselves yet again in the position to have to walk by faith & trust that The Lord's plan is bigger & better than any plan we may have for our lives.



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We started our year in language school with a "plan".

We knew that we were stepping out in faith in January because we were not fully funded & did not have the entire amount needed for a full year of tuition at language school.

We have waited expectantly for the Lord to provide & meet our needs in the last 6 months.

He has been SO faithful.

As the first trimester came to a close, we took a look at our account & monthly giving.

We realized that we did not have enough in our account to cover a third trimester.

We began to pray & really seek Godly counsel on how to proceed.

As the last two weeks have unfolded, it has become very clear that our time in Costa Rica will come to an end after the second trimester ends in August.

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So what's next?!

We will be MOVING to Honduras 
at the end of August!

(well ... hopefully!)



In order to transition directly from Costa Rica to Honduras, we must be 100% funded.

What does that mean? 

We have a monthly need in order to maintain our cost of living & ministry expenses while living full-time in Honduras.  That monthly budget covers our cost of living, ministry expenses, retirement, and health benefits as well as administrative services through Youth For Christ.

What have we raised?

As of May 15th, we have met 74% of our monthly need for full-time ministry in Honduras.

So how does that work?

We currently have 49 monthly partners on our ministry team.

Those families, individuals, and churches have all taken a step of faith & made an investment into the ministry that God has placed on our hearts.

We are SO thankful for the amount of encouragement & support that our ministry team has shown us over the last year.  God has been so faithful to lead others to join us on this journey of faith!

We need monthly partners to help meet the remaining 26% of our monthly need for full-time ministry to be able to begin in August.

If we do not reach 100%, we will have to come back to the States to finish fundraising.

That would really be hard on us because we would not have easy access to continue learning Spanish or to practice what we have learned in language school.

We ask you from the bottom of our hearts to please pray with us that this need is met by August 1st.


If you will commit to praying with our family,  please leave a comment on this Facebook post to show us that you are joining us in prayer & believing The Lord to meet our need!

It would be such a faith builder for us to see a community of loved ones rallying around our family & God's ministry!

While you pray for our need, please also pray for The Lord to lead you to possibly partner with us in one of the following ways:

  • Connect us to any pastors/churches that may have an interest in learning more about Youth For Christ's ministry in Honduras

  • Connect us to any individuals/families that may have a desire to reach the nations with the gospel & would like to partner with us financially or by coming to serve in Honduras

  • Organize a team from your Sunday School Class, Small Group, or Church to come to serve at the camp in Honduras so you can see the ministry first-hand

  • Partner with our family on a monthly basis by giving any amount!  Each monthly gift (right now our monthly gifts are ranging from $20-$500) is one step closer to reaching 100% & starting full-time ministry in August


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This is SUCH an exciting time for our family.  

The Lord placed His calling on our lives 5 years ago when we first served at the camp in Honduras.  

To see it finally coming together & to know that our life is FINALLY going to begin there in 3 months leaves us without words.

Thank you for praying with us!



Saturday, May 13, 2017

Encouraging Visits & A Fresh Start!


What a month!  We have been so blessed in the last several weeks ... it has been a whirlwind & exhausting at times but we are so thankful for the many blessings we have had this month.

Encouraging Visits

God has shown us yet again that He gives us exactly the encouragement & comfort we need right when we need it!  We were blessed with three different visits that each touched our hearts in different ways.  

On April 11th, our sweet friend Carla came to visit! We had been waiting on this day for SO long.

We will always be thankful for the time that we had with her while she stepped out of her world & into ours for a whole week.  We were able to see a lot of Costa Rica & enjoy God's creation.

The Lord did not disappoint us at all & showed up in ways that we are still talking about!


Carla brought a TON of plastic bags from SC to help with the bags to beds project!
Thank you to everyone that helped collect the bags!


Ram Luna - restaurant with traditional food, music & dance!


Overlooking San Jose 






Butterfly Garden




Zarcero



Good Friday Processional




Cartago

Sloth sighting on the side of the road!

Best. Day. Ever!

Beautiful sunset

In a REAL rainforest!
Rainforest AirTram tour - Spent over an hour on this AirTram sharing about The Lord with our tour guide.
It was such a God ordained moment to have him as our guide ... he was so interested in hearing
our story & hearing about The Lord!  Something we will never forget.


A week after our visit ended with Carla, Daniel's parents came to visit for a few days!

We could not have been more excited about finally seeing Nana & Papaw.  Josie was over the moon to have her Nana & Papaw around again.  We had a wonderful time relaxing & catching up with them.  It was so hard to say "see ya later!"



































Hours after Daniel took his parents to the airport, we were back on the road headed north for a few days with our Youth For Christ pastor, his wife, and another Youth For Christ missionary family from our language school.

This time away was exactly what we needed ... we were all able to share our hearts, reflect on everything that The Lord has done to bring us this far, & refuel for the new trimester. We are so thankful for Youth For Christ and the support we receive through our amazing organization.  We do not take for granted the emphasis they place on the well being of OUR hearts!

Nothing like a girl & her daddy :) 
We found this guy on our way to the coast!
So thankful for our YFC crew! 


Can you spot our visitors?
This guy ran across Daniel's foot one evening during devotions!

A week after we returned from our time with our YFC people, we realized that a new found friend from the coast came home with us.  This scorpion was found in Josie's play area with all of her toys.  She had played all weekend & PRAISE GOD did not get stung.  We do think that Macie, our dog, was stung.  She spent the weekend throwing up and we couldn't figure out what was wrong.  Thankfully, she is feeling better and this guy is GONE!



A Fresh Start

As of this week, we have officially started our second trimester of classes.  What a difference compared to the first day of our first trimester!  We are so amazed with the progress that we have both made in the language.  Sometimes it is still hard to believe that we are really living here!

We were so excited to hear one of our classmates preach in Spanish last Sunday!  Max & Jennifer have been here since August 2016 & plan to serve full time in Nicaragua.  We were so encouraged by his message but also to see him use what he has learned at ILE to touch hearts for the gospel!  We know our friendship with them will continue to grow for years to come since they will be just a hop, skip & a jump away from us when we are on the field!




Daniel is serving as President of Student Council at our school this trimester.  With that responsibility, he will be helping plan different events and speaking during some of the Chapel services this trimester.  He was able to share during chapel on Thursday & also helped host a "New Student Fiesta" for the incoming families at ILE this trimester.  It was a busy & fun-filled week for us!

Speaking on the importance of remembering our influence! 
New Student Fiesta
We also celebrated our 10 year anniversary on Friday, May 12th.  What a blessing to even be able to say that!  We do not take for granted the miracle that The Lord has given us in our restored marriage.  We can't wait to see what the next 10 years have in store!




Josie had a good night, too!
She went to Chili's with some of our friends! :)

So what's next for us?



We are looking forward to visiting Honduras in 2 weeks to lead a team at the Camp.


We can't wait to see our Honduran family, the progress on our home, and reconnect with friends from South Dakota & South Carolina.

Our neighbor, Polly, is going to join us on this trip which makes it even MORE exciting.  She is a missionary to Cuba that lives full time in Costa Rica.  She will be helping us to translate for VBS & the teen camp.  We can't wait to share this part of our hearts with her!

This makes the 6th summer that we have traveled to Honduras during this time of year to help lead a team.  We are so excited to see what God has in store for this summer!


 Please continue to pray for our family as we seek God's plan for our lives & follow after what He shows us!  Keep an eye out for an update in our ministry plan for 2017 ... we are excited!