Thursday, January 30, 2014
Our First Trip to the DR - Day 2....overdue
Well, time got away from us and we never got back to telling everyone about our 1st trip to the Dominican Republic. Now, Matt is planning a second trip in Feb to do some prep work and we haven't even finished posting about our first trip. So we just decided to make this video as a summary. Please click the link below and enjoy!!
Saturday, January 18, 2014
A little breathing room
This weekend we had the chance to go to Missouri to see Matt's sister and her family. We were at first hesitant to leave, after all we have a few things to take care of. We started listing what we needed to do to go and how it would take some time to get everyone packed and what would we do with our puppy? Oh, and we decided this on Wednesday and we were leaving Thursday. But we were going, thanks to some great friends who agreed to watch our puppy and everything will be fine.
We decided to go and just relax and give ourselves a break. We have been going nonstop as does everyone with kids, but now we added our mission trip to the mix. We needed a break and a chance to allow ourselves time to just step back and breathe. We needed to look at all God has done for us up to this point. It seems when we pray we always ask for help or for God to provide. Well, this time we want our prayers to be that of thanksgiving.
We have so much to thank God for as He has provided for all our needs....
Our thanksgiving prayer.... We are thankful for God meeting our everyday needs, good health, a wonderful job, beautiful home, a great working furnace. But we are also thankful that we will get a break from winters and wearing big heavy coats to stay warm. We are thankful that our kids will see another place and truly be able to feel what it is like to help someone in need. We are grateful for our families who are so supportive and willing to help us in every way possible. We are thankful for our new missionary friends who are so willing to find us a home and check on it frequently. We are so blessed to have friends we can trust to rent our house while we are gone. We are grateful for our church, who is behind us and encourages us along our journey. We also appreciate that there are so many who are faithfully praying and giving to us financially, some that we have yet to meet. This is not a complete list, but just the things I can think of right now.
Lastly thank you all for continuing to believe with us and support us.
We decided to go and just relax and give ourselves a break. We have been going nonstop as does everyone with kids, but now we added our mission trip to the mix. We needed a break and a chance to allow ourselves time to just step back and breathe. We needed to look at all God has done for us up to this point. It seems when we pray we always ask for help or for God to provide. Well, this time we want our prayers to be that of thanksgiving.
We have so much to thank God for as He has provided for all our needs....
Our thanksgiving prayer.... We are thankful for God meeting our everyday needs, good health, a wonderful job, beautiful home, a great working furnace. But we are also thankful that we will get a break from winters and wearing big heavy coats to stay warm. We are thankful that our kids will see another place and truly be able to feel what it is like to help someone in need. We are grateful for our families who are so supportive and willing to help us in every way possible. We are thankful for our new missionary friends who are so willing to find us a home and check on it frequently. We are so blessed to have friends we can trust to rent our house while we are gone. We are grateful for our church, who is behind us and encourages us along our journey. We also appreciate that there are so many who are faithfully praying and giving to us financially, some that we have yet to meet. This is not a complete list, but just the things I can think of right now.
Lastly thank you all for continuing to believe with us and support us.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Santiago Experience 2013 in Review Video
Check out this Video summarizing 2013. It is amazing to see how God is moving in the DR. We are so blessed to be going to work in the field there.
If you want to see more about the Mission in the DR that we will be joining in a few short months, please visit the website http://thesantiagoexperience.com/
If you want to see more about the Mission in the DR that we will be joining in a few short months, please visit the website http://thesantiagoexperience.com/
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Happy New Year!
A heartfelt New Year's greeting from our family to yours!!
We hope that you had a wonderful time with your family celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and that you will have a Blessed 2014!!
As we near the departure date for our mission trip, which will be sometime in the middle of April, the reality of picking up and moving is hitting us pretty hard. Christmas was a great time for our family as usual, but there was also a little sadness in knowing that we are moving away from friends and family for a couple years. The lesson that I have learned over and over again rings so true, especially now....the focus of the season is Jesus and not us. In the commercialized world we live in, that can be easy to forget.
A few positive notes.....
Next year, we will be celebrating Christmas with new friends.
We will be in a much warmer climate (very exciting)
Most importantly, we will be in the Mission field doing some amazing things, helping our neighbors, and making a difference in people's lives.
Update on our plans
At this point we have about 1/3 of the money we need. Our focus these first few months of 2014 is to get the rest of the funds through individuals or families who can make a commitment to give faithfully each month. $100,000.00 sounds like a lot of money, but it will only take 105 of these monthly commitments at an amount of $40.00/month. At this point we need about 85 more commitments at that level, or less if people commit at a higher level.
If after reading this, you feel a little nudge in your spirit to join us on this Mission through a financial contribution, please don't ignore it. We just ask that you pray about it and do what you feel is right for you....and if you feel you want to help out, please email us at mtap5@yahoo.com and we will get you the information you need to get started.
Thanks for all the prayer support that you have been giving. We know God hears our prayers and we have seen Him working through all of this. Please keep the prayers coming. We will create another post with specific prayer request. God Bless You!!
We hope that you had a wonderful time with your family celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and that you will have a Blessed 2014!!
As we near the departure date for our mission trip, which will be sometime in the middle of April, the reality of picking up and moving is hitting us pretty hard. Christmas was a great time for our family as usual, but there was also a little sadness in knowing that we are moving away from friends and family for a couple years. The lesson that I have learned over and over again rings so true, especially now....the focus of the season is Jesus and not us. In the commercialized world we live in, that can be easy to forget.
A few positive notes.....
Next year, we will be celebrating Christmas with new friends.
We will be in a much warmer climate (very exciting)
Most importantly, we will be in the Mission field doing some amazing things, helping our neighbors, and making a difference in people's lives.
Update on our plans
At this point we have about 1/3 of the money we need. Our focus these first few months of 2014 is to get the rest of the funds through individuals or families who can make a commitment to give faithfully each month. $100,000.00 sounds like a lot of money, but it will only take 105 of these monthly commitments at an amount of $40.00/month. At this point we need about 85 more commitments at that level, or less if people commit at a higher level.
If after reading this, you feel a little nudge in your spirit to join us on this Mission through a financial contribution, please don't ignore it. We just ask that you pray about it and do what you feel is right for you....and if you feel you want to help out, please email us at mtap5@yahoo.com and we will get you the information you need to get started.
Thanks for all the prayer support that you have been giving. We know God hears our prayers and we have seen Him working through all of this. Please keep the prayers coming. We will create another post with specific prayer request. God Bless You!!
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
And the winner is ...
.......................................Well after trying all night to get the video to upload, I had no luck. So without further delay....the Winner is Tom Townsend. Congratulations Tom!!
If we can get the video to work, we will upload it later. It may show up on our Facebook page.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Long time no post.....
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. You might imagine we have been a little
busy. Besides our normal life of busy
schedules and activities with 5 children, we have been also working on getting
ready for our trip. We could have never
imagined what that would mean until we found ourselves smack dab in the middle
of it.
When you plan to leave for a trip, you usually stop the mail
and the paper, get someone to watch your dog (or take it with you), ask your
neighbor to keep an eye on the house, etc…
In this case we have a little more preparation than
that. And that is what we have been
focused on. One of our main focuses have
been our home and what to do with it for 2 years while we are in the Dominican
Republic. Do we sell it or rent it? We have prayed about it and asked God what we
should do and the more we talked about it and prayed about it we felt like
renting it was the right thing to do.
We had this grand idea that we would simply find someone we
knew or at least someone we could trust that needs to rent a house for a few
years. Sounds simple right, but how were
we going to find this person or this family?
Maybe someone in our church….but that seemed too perfect to actually
happen.
Well as time went on and we were trying to figure out what
we would do about our home, we got a call from someone at our church who heard
that we were looking for a renter. We
were amazed! This is exactly what we
were hoping and praying for. They came and checked out the house and it
ended up that it just wasn’t right for them and their situation. But, it was great to get to know them and
share the story of how God is taking us on this journey.
So we got our hopes up with that one. We thought wow, God has come through again….and
then it didn’t work out. Was God trying
to tell us something? Are we just
supposed to sell? What should we do with
the house? It is not that we are really
attached to it….so why do we feel strongly to rent? We found that the answer to
all of these is TRUST. Trust in
the Lord.
A few weeks later, while we were still trying to figure it
out ourselves J,
I was talking to someone at Church whom I get to work with as a volunteer. Not only is he a good man and someone I
respect, he also just happened to be, along with his wife and three children,
looking for a place to rent for a few more years. They need to be out of their place in the
Spring and hey, guess what??? That is
about when we are planning to leave. Long
story short, they came and checked out the place and are going to rent it for
the time we are gone. Isn’t God
amazing!!
I think we are learning more and more that if we just get
out of the way and let God do His thing, and stop trying to be in control,
things would get done a lot fasterJ
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