June

It's amazing that it's June already...and that June is well on it's way to being over!   Things continue to move right along and the weeks seem to fly by.  The beginning of June found our family busy preparing for travel.  John has been planning a trip to the Dominican Republic for a church strengthening conference for quite some time.  Then in late May, our Sucre office welcomed visitors from the Food for the Hungry Dominican Republic office.  John spoke at lengths with them about the church strengthening projects that he has been working on.  The DR office was very interested in learning more about the projects and invited him to schedule a few days of training while he was visiting the country.

John has also been busy creating a curriculum for teaching short term missions teams when they come to visit.  The curriculum is called "Ideas Have Consequences" and focuses on the biblical foundations of such principles as worldview, poverty, resources, and development.  The lessons are designed to help give perspective to the teams as they are experiencing poverty is a way they have never done before.  It also helps them to understand FH and the work we are doing a bit better.

FH also has an office in Guatemala which receives over 20 teams each year!  We have a special connection with FH Guatemala as our good friends, the Evans family, is serving there.  We have always had a special connection with their family and have enjoyed following their ministry.  Since John will be traveling, it worked out for him to also swing through Guatemala on his way to the DR and share this curriculum with them.    

When we were looking into all the logistics for this trip, we realized that John would be gone for almost 3 weeks!  This was a bit of a concern for our family, as it would mean that Jennie would be home alone with the girls for a long time.  We prayed that God would give us peace about whether or not John should even make this trip.  God provided in a HUGE way, as our sending church, Hope Church in Cincinnati, OH, generously offered to pay for Jennie and the girls to fly home to South Dakota to be with her family.  This will be a wonderful opportunity for Jennie's family to meet Lydia, as well as offer Jennie some extra hands with the girls.  We are all excited!

So, starting today we embark on our journey.  We will all eventually fly to Miami together and then party ways from there.  John will go on to Guatemala and Jennie on to Minneapolis for a few days with her brother and sister-in-law before heading down to South Dakota.

We look forward to updating you on our adventures as soon as we have some pictures and stories.