Why are we going to Africa?

Pray for us! we leave soon!

So now that you know more about us...why would we travel 28 hours and spend two months of our time in another country? To explain, Thad and I first felt the call to full time ministry we had such an urgency! God is moving and the time is short! Now that may have been 20 years ago! Am I that old!?  We have no less urgency to share the Gospel with those who haven't heard or refused to accept the gift of salvation. I will be honest in that the years out of full time ministry have been challenging because that feeling has not gone away! So as we began to talk with our good friends, Collin and Julie Brown, our hearts stirred within us!

 

Julie and Collin Brown

We really feel God hasn't released us from Tok, so we can pastor our own church. So we felt a Missions trip would be a way to serve that need in our spirits. The Browns have shared their love of Africa and been so helpful in teaching us and helping us make contacts for our trip I can't even begin to express our thanks! I will clarify that living here is not a burden but it has been a dry season for our call.

Now it will help that while it has been -20 below (farenheit) this week in Alaska it is forcasted to be 92 degrees when we land in Africa! We also enjoy travel and adventure so it will be exciting!

 

So about our trip... 

We leave Tok Saturday February 13th and travel the 6 1/2 hour drive (300 miles) to Anchorage where we will buy the rest of the things we need for travel and some items for the mission there. We allowed extra time because we didn't want to start the journey tired! We will then fly out of Anchorage on Monday night/Tuesday morning just after 12:00 am. The adventure begins then with 4 plane changes till we arrive in Johannesburg South Africa on February 17th 5:40pm there time. It is an eleven hour time change from Alaska. There we overnight and hope to rest and begin to acclimate to the time change some before we fly to Windhoek Namibia. That brings me to another awesome God moment!

 

From the previous blog you may remember that we love to hunt. So we did hope to do some hunting while in Africa but our budget did not allow for a paid Safari..... We thought maybe we could make contact with friends of the Brown's and see what worked out. Then we had a call from someone, "are you interested in a hunt and aren't you already going to Africa?" a friend is selling one at a great price it has to be used this year but we thought of you.  http://atsafaris.com/    (here is the link if you are curious)

 

To clarify at this point we had mostly given up on out trip. We had some trouble in relation to our business. We have a contract that was suppose to be complete for the year in November and technically is still not done. We didn't think we could travel until it was done because of the income it represents and because of our commitment to the work. So this opportunity was an amazing blessing for us and at less than 20% of the cost we felt it was God confirming that he still wants to bless us and it is his will for us to go now! We decided that we would just have to trust God for the rest of the details. And of course God is so Good! We were able to fulfill another significant portion of the contract last week and while we don't have as much cushion for our finances we should have enough to cover our travel. So in a nut shell GOD has made the way and given us the assurance that we are still in his will!!

 

We will be hunting for about eight days and the owner and Guide Kobus Honibal has been very gracious and helpful. He agreed to transfer the hunt to our name, he is not charging for Elie and will let her hunt as well, we will be trading for the use of his guns, they have an amazing lodge and it is all inclusive while we are there. Most exciting is that they are Christians too!

 

Besides all that we have been so blessed already by the people of Africa! Since we have been planning this trip in a fairly short amount of time the contacts with people there have been crucial.

We can't wait to meet them in person. I will add more about them as we do and you too will see what an amazingly generous and kind group they are!

 

 

 

 

 

 

commitments. When we recieved this text we thought, we will