We are Moving!

How do we summarize the past two months?  

By the numbers, it'd look something like this: 5,602 miles traveled; 63 hrs of team meetings; 14 different beds; 12 visits with individuals/families; 10 different states; 9 church presentations; 1 emergency surgery; 1 one-year anniversary.

But I'm less of a "numbers person", so I'll mostly use words to tell you about it. :-) And if I had to sum it up in just a few words, I'd put it this way. We are moving!

1. OUR SUPPORT LEVEL IS MOVING (up, that is)

Honestly, support raising isn't the most glamorous part of missionary work or life; pictures of us standing in front of a church or sitting down over coffee with supporters don't seem as exciting as our future pictures with tribal people in the jungle will be.

This picture might be the exception to that part I just wrote about
our current pictures being less interesting than future ones! :-)
(This is what happens when you say "Now let's take a funny one!")

Still, when we step back and remember that right now, God is in the process of connecting us with the people He has called to partner with us...well, THAT'S pretty exciting, huh?!? He has people He wants to be a part of our team! So we are just trying to be faithful - reaching out, connecting, sharing, inviting, and giving opportunities for those He has called to be on our support team to join us! 

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us during our 5 1/2 week support-raising trip in March and April. The trip went so well, and although it was tiring at times, it was such a blessing meeting brothers and sisters all the way from snowy PA to sunny FL and many states in-between! 

Despite having some unexpected things happen along the way (Yes, I'm talking about you, emergency appendectomy) we loved getting to connect with new churches and supporters along our trip, as well as reconnect with friends and family who were an encouragement to us. 

Since coming home from the trip, we are thankful that our total monthly support has passed 52%. Praise the Lord! 

Here's a few more pictures from our trip: 

The SAD List: A complete list of people groups who still have never been reached with the gospel

Just a few of the many sweet people who hosted us or got together with us.

Georgia

Florida

Pennsylvania

Virginia

Josh got to utilize his medical training a bit helping to remove some stitches during one of our stops. 

Crossway Church, Lynchburg, TN: Some of our new partners!

Getting my appendix removed wasn't part of the original plan, but God was working in some pretty cool ways 
even in the middle of that, including giving me a nurse who formerly was a missionary right next to PNG.
 (Send me a message or comment if you'd like to here more details about some of the neat things He did.)

We took a break from our travels to hike Mt LeConte in TN, the 3rd highest peak in the Smokies.

2. OUR PLANS ARE MOVING FORWARD

We are so thankful that God has provided wonderful, gifted teammates and partners to serve with us in PNG. In fact, we just got done with 2 weeks of meetings, working through so many details for our missions work in PNG and our strategy for serving there. 

Meetings: Not terribly glamorous, but SO important!

We are also working on things like:

• designing our jungle house so that we can be ready to order supplies for it this fall (We'll be purchasing and shipping over things like solar equipment, that will be needed to provide electricity, which is essential for the linguistic, literacy, and translation work we'll be doing). 

Just for fun, here's a quick glimpse into one of the possible layouts we're considering.

• creating packing lists and starting to order some of the things we'll need to take with us to PNG (like 4 years worth of shoes for every possible condition from mountainous jungle hiking to sandy beaches to muddy swamps).

In the middle of preparing to leave the USA for many years, we are also praying about how to be faithful during the time we have left here. We have a desire to invest in and disciple those around us now, even if it's just for a shorter time period. Josh and I are both thankful that God has been providing opportunities to spend purposeful time with some younger people with a burden for ministry and missions. Pray for us as we seek to encourage and challenge them to grow in their walk with God and seek His will.

3. WE ARE LITERALLY MOVING...TO PNG!

Lord willing, we are only about seven months away from leaving for Papua New Guinea! SEVEN months! It's exciting, a bit scary, exciting, sometimes even overwhelming...did I mention exciting?!? 

Here's quick run down of what we expect these next seven months might look like:

May/June/July: Continue focusing on raising support. We'll be traveling most weekends to speak in churches, and meeting with individuals during the week. 

Aug/Sept/Oct: Continue support-raising as needed; Submit applications and paperwork for visas; Begin packing; 

Nov/Dec: Purchase flights; Final packing and prep; Saying goodbye to family and friends

January: Arrive in Papua New Guinea

We know these 7 months will go so fast. Thank you to all of you who are praying for us faithfully as we move forward each day toward this goal! We need those prayers more than we can possibly say! 

Click HERE to download a pdf bulletin insert of this update.

Click HERE to find out more about who we are and our ministry. 

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