Things are coming together and it's looking like we'll depart in January. We should get permission to purchase our plane tickets soon now that our funding is close to being complete (THANK YOU!) The response from our church body and our family and friends has been incredible. Our residency permits were hand delivered to the capital city in our new home country yesterday.  In the meantime, we'll be meeting with the East Africa branch directors next week, who happen to be in the states for a while. We have lots of questions for them as we prepare to start packing. What are the most important things to bring when you're limited to 3 suitcases each? What might we think we need that is in fact useless there? On and on.

Here are the latest developments...

Praise:
We can see that God is at work in our preparation, making sure we have everything we need. 

3 suitcases were donated this month, two of them large enough to put our boys in!  These were a great blessing because we can only take what will fit into our suitcases.

We are thankful to the fabulous church staff members – Lana and Sarah – who’ve given their time and talents to help us design and print hundreds of letters and brochures to help spread the word.

Our amazing homeschool support group has adopted the students in Africa, showing their love and support by donating paper, pencils, glue, and many other supplies.

Prayer Requests:
Those of you who have chosen to support our family through prayer are such a blessing and so important.  So far, we have 12 commitments to cover this ministry in prayer.  Our goal is to have at least 20 before we leave.  If you feel drawn to this area of ministry, please contact us.

Pray that our residency permits will be approved quickly.

Pray that we will be able to find affordable airfare.

Pray for our fundraising efforts as we seek to complete our team of financial supporters. 

Pray for the team in East Africa as they pull together and work short-handed until help arrives. Pray that they will not be overwhelmed when people show up to help and that the new staff will acclimate quickly.