A few new developments for us:
Praise!! We have renters!! We have found a super awesome couple to rent our home for the year while we are gone. This was a huge concern for us and we really didn't want to start advertising on Craig's List. So thanks for your prayers! Through a good friend of ours, we found an amazing couple that is going to take such good care of our place (and they don't have pets which is a bonus :-)). And, because they are so great, we are able to store all of our furniture in the basement which saves us a ton of money and time, since we won't have to pay for storage or move everything out. We are so thankful that this burden is taken care of!! God is so good and has provided for us so well in this!
We have purchased our first flights! So there's no turning back now (at least to our first destination :-)). We have our flights to Harare, Zimbabwe and also from Harare to Nairobi, Kenya. We'll be in Zimbabwe from October 15th to December 29th, and then we're planning on taking a little rest in between those two places, probably in Cape Town, South Africa. And then we'll fly to Nairobi to meet up with an EPI short term team. Actually purchasing flights does make things that much more real, which is both exciting and scary at the same time.
We are continuing to work on our visa applications and general travel itinerary for the rest of the year. We are still unsure if Nepal is going to be a safe option for us, but hopefully we'll know that pretty soon. With that in mind, we have changed a few weeks of what was going to be Nepal to Russia (another really super safe place, we know :-)). We are planning on spending 3 weeks in Russia, with our friends who are missionaries in Nalchik. This won't be until after our time in Nepal (late March to mid April). We are excited to see what God is doing in Nalchik and help in any way we can.
Prayer Requests:
Please pray for our last month here. We still have lots and lots to do! Packing for a whole year (which is a very daunting task, especially for Krista who does like to be comfortable sometimes :)), packing up our house and getting it ready for renters, getting our training materials prepared, and seeing friends and family before we leave. Yesterday we talked through our "To Do" list and with only 4 weekends left, both of us got a little sick to our stomach :-).
On Wednesday we both are flying to Nashville for the American Association of Christian Counselors World Conference. Please pray that this time will give us some beneficial training that we can use overseas. Krista will be going to a lot of international counseling workshops, and Justin will be going to some of those and some spiritual discipleship and business training workshops. We are looking forward to the conference (some of the big speakers are John Piper, John Ortberg, Richard Foster, etc!), but pray that we can really soak it all in and not worry too much about all the other stuff that needs to get done back at the house.
I think that is it for now. Thanks again for joining with us on this adventure. I (Krista) will leave you with a couple of pictures that I look at when I am in one of those "why am I leaving everything comfortable and going away for a whole year again?" moods. I look at these and remember that I get the chance to work with kids who remain joyful amidst traumatic experiences and dier circumstances - kids that God loves so much and wants nothing more than for them to know who He is and how much He loves them. And since I know that my big, compassionate God will take care of us too, I am simply overjoyed at the chance to be a part of it all and share His love with someone else. Then my fear fades away (well it at least gets a little smaller) because with God as my foundation, no matter what the circumstances, I know it will work out for good!
No comments:
Post a Comment