I can hardly believe that 8 weeks from today our family will be driving to Mexico.
I have been dreaming of this for years, planning for months and now with the holidays over it seems to suddenly be upon us.
I'll admit. Right at this moment, I feel very unprepared. Of the $3,000 or so we need to raise we have only about $500. Supplies...I haven't even started getting supplies together. But I have the beginning of my lists, so that is a good start.
Some days I can't even believe we are finally going to get to take our children on a mission trip, other days the reality of doing GAPS in Mexico with 5 (FIVE!!) young children makes me feel a bit crazy.
At least Jesus was crazy too...in the good way.
So, even thought this will be a very photo-less post, I thought you would like to follow along and see what the Lord is doing. (and there are some trip prep photos in the last post, so that makes up for it, right?)
Here is where we are at so far:
By God's amazing provision we have been blessed by so many already...and as usual, the Lord has blessed us with money (sometimes by people we barely even know!) randomly and at just the right moment.
To me, this mission trip isn't just about how our "American family will zip on down to Mexico, fix up some things so they are "right" and be off on our jolly way back home with an educational detour or two". No, not at all...just like life, for me this whole experience will be about what the Lord is doing and us joining Him in His work. We get to see Him work right now in how He provides.
Our kids get to watch day after day as their daddy comes home and God has used ANOTHER person to bless us on this trip. That right there has been an amazing experience.
I love watching them pray and see God answer. God is in the business of answering prayers. Last year we were all in awe as we studied the life of George Muller in our homeschooling (Quick note: if you haven't read a book on him, click here and order this one. This book will bring you to tears over the goodness and faithfulness of our Lord in providing for our daily needs! The kids were literally begging for me to read this book to them.). To see him pray for EVERYTHING he needed...and to watch God bless the socks off of him (and tens of thousands of orphans!!) was humbling. I need to pray more. I need to have faith more.
We are praying like George Muller.
Right now we have been blessed with:
$594 (and some change!) we also have some pop cans that we have been given and need to turn in, so that figure will be a bit more soon.
Here is where we are at in expenses:
-$200 first payment to our church to pay for the room and board and supplies (you can check out the ministry we are going through here:www.gomissionstomexico.com
-$456 for 2 birth certificates and seven passports!
-$18 for 2 books of stamps to mail out support letters
_______Total
$674
We have another payment coming up this weekend, and we are excited to see the Lord provide!
Our church is also doing a "Taco Feed" Fundraiser lunch that our family gets to help put on to help purchase supplies for this community in Mexico-it should be a fun weekend!
My list of supplies for our family includes really random things like:
Pro-biotics
Clay
Activated Charcoal
Aloe Vera
And we will be bringing snacks for the drive so far I have:
Fruit leather
Lacto-fermented Sauerkraut
Homemade beef jerky
24 hour yogurt??
The list I am having a hard time with is our "what to do while traveling" list...we have actually traveled many hours as a family, but not so much all at once. And 5 years ago we bought a portable DVD player for a trip and it was really nice, but it has sadly seen it's last day. So...do we get a new one? Do we rent one? We don't have smart phones or iPads or anything like that, so I would love to hear your ideas. Cheap ideas! =) We will be making some stops, but we are going to have some major time to kill! =)
Well, that gets you all up to date on how things are coming along! I'll try to remember to take pictures at our taco feed!
Serving Him,
tarena
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