We have another update for you today! First, we wanted to thank you for reading our updates and following along with us in this journey. We can't see exactly who reads our blog posts, but there are a LOT of you and we are so thankful for your interest in our lives and our ministry!
Before we let you in on what we've been up to lately, we wanted to update you on our monthly support situation:
Our latest report shows that our monthly ministry partners have committed to $2285/month, which is HUGE! We're so thankful to those of you who are or who have supporting us financially in our upcoming ministry! And most of all we are so thankful to God for how He is moving and working in your hearts to support us both financially and otherwise. We are so grateful for your friendships, old and new, and for how you pray for us.
As all of you have probably experienced, one of the most difficult attitudes to maintain is one of thankfulness. When trouble or hardship comes we all struggle to be thankful and often find ourselves with an attitude of ungratefulness or complaining, but one thing we've been learning over these last few years is that thankfulness changes everything. We wrote a more lengthy post about that a little while ago, which you can read here, but Philippians 4:6-7 never stops being true!! Instead of worrying about the fact that we're two weeks away from flying to Romania and we only have about 2/3 of our financial support raised we're choosing to bring it to the feet of Jesus each day, telling God what we need, trusting HIM for provision, and above all just thanking Him for ALL He has done so far.
Even though we're in the midst of some crazy preparation at the moment, we had the opportunity to sit down with dear friends of ours this week and it was such a refreshing time! They are missionaries living and working in Germany and Africa; Phil is the Executive Director of Open Schools Worldwide and Tammy works as a teacher-trainer with Teach Beyond, and they have known us since before we were married. Phil and Tammy Peters were on staff at Tauernhof when we were students there back in 2002-2003 (Phil was the Principal of the Bible School at the time) and they have become very special to us. We're so inspired by their faith and trust in God to provide for them over their entire lives in ministry and we feel so blessed to have them in our corner.
We're also excited to report that we have renters lined up for our house and we're meeting with them this evening to sign the lease so they can move in this weekend! At the risk of sounding redundant, we are SO thankful that God has provided this family completely out of the blue to rent our home in August when we were faced with the possibility of not having renters until September and having to absorb the cost of the house for another month. Praise the Lord! Our vehicles still haven't sold, so please pray with us that God will provide buyers for our vehicles at fair prices. We really feel that we need to purchase a vehicle as soon as possible when we arrive in Romania, since we'll be having to do a lot of travelling around in more remote areas where public transportation isn't even available, and we plan on using the money we get from selling our minivan and truck here to do that.
Even though the last weeks have been increasingly challenging, we have been having lots of fun. We hosted a going-away party for our family and friends and we had a great time!
We also celebrated Miriam's 4th birthday this week which was a ton of fun. She really enjoyed her ballet lessons this year and has turned into quite the ballerina, so a little party at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's Ballet in the Park was an obvious choice!
Our little ballerina-in-training:
And my absolute favourite photo of the evening...
It's safe to say the birthday girl had a wonderful time (and so did the rest of us!)
Please continue to pray...
- and thank God for his provision through our monthly supporters and everyone who has given a one-time donation! We are so thankful for how He is providing and for all the amazing people He has surrounded us with, even those we've never met!- and thank God for the ministry he's preparing for us! We're so excited to begin working with Torchbearers at PDF and to experience all God has for us there.
- Please pray for students to sign up for the bible school at PDF this spring! We can't run the bible school with fewer than 10 students, so we're trusting God to bring the students He wants to participate in the program.
- Please pray for our kids. Specifically for how they're coping emotionally with all the change in their lives and for a meaningful last few weeks in Canada with friends and family.
- Please pray for our financial needs. We see God working in providing support for us and we're so thankful for how he's provided so far!
- Please pray for buyers for our 2 vehicles. We really need to sell both our van and Jerry's truck before we go so we can buy a vehicle as soon as possible after our arrival in Romania.
- Please pray for Jerry's upcoming trip to Vancouver (August 5-7) to visit some churches there and say goodbye to his family. This is one week before we leave for Romania.
We need:
- Of course, we are still in need of monthly financial support and one-time donations. All information on how to donate is HERE.
- Buyers for our vehicles! If you are in the market for a 2005 Toyota Sienna Minivan or a 2008 Nissan Titan Long-Box Pickup Truck or know someone who is, please EMAIL US!
Well, that's all we have for today's update. Thank you all for following along with us on our journey!
We'll have another update for you soon!
J&C
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