Trip to South Dakota

At the beginning of the month we traveled to South Dakota to do some fundraising and visiting with family. Our first stop was Milbank, SD. This is the town I grew up in. Many towns in South Dakota have slogans. Milbank's slogan is "You'll Like Milbank". After growing up there and having lived in other places, I have come to realize how true the slogan is.

We spoke with many friends and John also had the chance to preach at the church I grew up in on Sunday. It was so fun to be back in this church, after over 3 years! This church is so special to me. I was baptized there, started in the preschool sunday school, was confirmed, went through both Jr. high and Sr. High youth group, served as interim youth pastor during a few summers while I was in college. It was through this church that I had my very first missions experience when my youth group went to Mexico. The church supported me when I was in Africa and several of the members came to Africa while I was there! There are so many wonderful people in that church who impacted me as their families shared their lives and supported our family while I was growing up. It is just amazing to me to look back on my life and see the impact this church has had on me and who I am today.  
After spending the weekend in Milbank, we headed down to Yankton, SD, where my parents live. We had a wonderful time there and had a chance to visit with other family as well. Ella and the Grandparents had a great week!

Fundraising Progress

We have had many people asking us about how our fundraising is going. We do send out a monthly newsletter that shares our fundraising progress, but a lot has been happening between newsletters! Praise God! So I decided to put a space on our blog to the right that we will update weekly so you can keep track with us how our fundraising is going.

There are two parts to our fundraising. The first is outbound cost, which are all the costs we will incur prior to and immediately once we get to Bolivia. These types of things include all our pre-field training, plane tickets, language school, a car, and any one time costs it may take to start our lives in Bolivia. Things like that. Then our monthly cost are just our living expenses. So as of today our we are at 19% of our outbound costs and 35% of our monthly cost! Yeah!

Ella in the Fall

We just started realizing that we are entering a time of "our last".  For example, early October we headed out to Iron's Fruit farm with some friends (an annual tradition), and realized that this would be our last fall for a while.  It was Ella's last Halloween for a while.  So we are trying hard to savor the moments and capture as much as we can in pictures.  

Fall Frenzy

It has been a busy fall for us, as you can probably tell my the lack of blogging.  In attempts to catch up I'm going to give a quick summary to bring everyone up to speed.  

Since the benefit concert we have been busy with small group meetings in people's homes, sharing about our ministry to Bolivia and raising a support team.  In October we did one every week!  In some ways I've found fundraising exactly what I expected it to be; lots of  hard work, time consuming, humbling.  But in other ways I've found a real joy in it.  We've come to learn that each time we share about Bolivia and our ministry there, we come away with a new excitement and uplifted spirits.   When people ask us questions and show a genuine interest in what we are doing, it is so encouraging to us.  As we build a team of prayer and financial supporters, we truly feel like a team.  We are the ones that will physically be in Bolivia, but we really feel like we are all in this together.  I somewhat expected to feel like we were alone in this crazy adventure, but am so glad that that's not the case!  God is truly surrounding us with wonderful people!   

Fundraising is also giving us a chance to see God in a real way as our provider.  Sometimes we feel like we are on a roller-coaster of emotions.  There are days when we feel like we will never reach our financial goals and never get to Bolivia.  But those feelings rarely last more than a day and the Lord will completely bless us through someone by a financial gift or a word of encouragement.  We are continually reminded that God is in control and we can trust Him!