Not So Baby Steps

Right now is transition time for us! Our support is coming in (praise God!), but is coming in a lot slower than anticipated (trust God!), so we had some big decisions to make. We simply don't have time to raise support full-time because we are working, so the necessary steps needed to make toward support raising simply aren't getting done because of the limited hours in the day to use. So, we prayed and sought counsel and have finally come to some decisions, and HUGE transitions are in process as a result! Here's a quick summary of all that's happening in the next few months.

--In 3 weeks, we will both be leaving our jobs to embark on full-time support raising.
--In 2 to 3 weeks we will be moving out of our house. God has blessed us with a wonderful family who has extended their "in-law suite" (which is really like a fully furnished apartment) for us to stay in for these next months as their support, so we won't have to pay rent or utilities now that we won't have jobs
--In the month of May we will be traveling to several cities in the Southeast (more details to follow)
--Also in the month of May, we will attend our week long training for TEAM
--In June we will be making several support trips as well as making a trip to Miami, FL to apply for our visa
--In July, we will tentatively be attending a 3 week long intensive training in CO with MTI (Missions Training International). This trip depends on how much support we have.
--In August, we will hopefully leave for Spain in the middle of the month.

So, you may be asking, how will we be able to quit our jobs and still eat?! God has blessed us greatly with a generous tax refund, the sale of a car, and few other odds and ends provisions, which should hold us over for the next few months. Praise God for His provision!!

We'll be giving more details about our trips and training soon, but for now, our life pretty much consists of packing and planning! Thank you for praying for us!

15%

Great News! Since the last time we posted about how much support we had raised, the number has risen by 10%! God is working! We praise Him for the amount of support He has brought in so far!



Would you pray with us that God would bring in the remaining support? If you know of anyone who might be interested in what God is doing in Spain, please let us know! We'd love to share with them!

Snow!!

Well, as most of you know, we live in SC. As in SOUTH Carolina. We hardly get any snow. In fact, I don't think it snowed last year at all if my memory serves. Anyways, we have had a wonderful time of snow this year!! First in February it snowed quite a bit! 8 inches officially recorded at the airport! Then, just this week, it snowed again! We couldn't believe it! It wasn't much. The snow was really wet, and it melted the next day, but still! Here are some pictures of the first snow, and a video about the second snow. Enjoy!

Our little snowman we built before the snow accumulated much.

Micah trying to look like Lucy from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as she stands by the lamp post in Narnia for the first time :)

A present that was left by someone who lives in our neighborhood! A big snowman! :)

Our house!

Beautiful snow on the trees

Spanish, Spanish, Spanish!

The last few days we have done a bunch of translating! Why, you may ask? Well, we have the amazing opportunity to speak at a Spanish church here in Columbia this Sunday! Members of Iglesia Biblica Latinoamericana came into Sim's Music where Micah works, and they were buying something for their church. One thing led to another, they exchanged stories, and we were invited to speak to their congregation! This is both very exciting and very scary at the same time! The first church congregation we will ever speak in front of about our involvement in missions in Spain will be in Spanish! Thankfully I (Kim) kind of get to be wimpy and run the powerpoint while Micah takes the stage with our presentation. Now, before you freak out too much, there will be an interpreter on site in case we're not sure how to say something. One really amazing thing that has happened in planning is that we found that this church has a connection to the church we'll be ministering in Spain! What a small world! A guy came to speak at IBL just recently, and he will be teaching at the MK school where our church meets. God is so cool in how he brought us together to this church! Please pray for us this Sunday morning as we will be giving this church an opportunity to take part in God's plan for Spain.

On another note, we've been spending some time with our long-time friends the McMillans. They were in Venezuela for years as missionaries and are now in Columbia, SC trying to move to, you guessed it, Madrid! One of their daughters, Heather was in town to spend some time with family before she moved to S. Korea to teach English, so we took the opportunity to see her! We had a blast, sharing ideas and getting caught up. We returned to the McMillans' house just last night where they helped us translate our presentation into Spanish. What a fun time we've been able to have with them as we are both in transition! I trust we'll spend many more fun times with them.

Us with Sharon, Peter, and Heather McMillan

Thanks for praying with us!

Coming Along!

Good news! We are starting along the journey with 5% of our support raised! Pray with us that God will bring in the rest of the money we need to do His work! Thank you for praying with us! More updates to come!

Planning, Planning, Planning

Planning is the name of the game. It's comprised most of our free time in the last month or so, and there's still so much left to do! But God is giving us an amazing amount of strength to keep the stress down and still move forward, and I know that a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a bunch of people praying for us already! Thank you! The more we plan for this internship, the more God gives us a sense of excitement and anticipation for all the He is going to do! But before we can actually go to Spain, we have to plan for Spain. In all of our planning, we've found out several things. The biggest two things that are ready for us to move forward are our goal date for when we leave and our budget.

August 16, 2010! This is the date of all dates for us this year! It is tentatively when we are planning to leave for Spain. Of course, the date is not set in stone, and God could get us there sooner, or choose to send us off later, but nevertheless August 16, 2010 is our goal. One of the reasons we chose this date is because of the visa process. From start to finish, the visa process takes about 3-4 months. And once we are actually awarded our visa, we must leave within 30 days of getting it. So we obviously can't apply for it yet, because there is little chance of us having all of our expenses in by then! So, once we have a good bit of our support coming in, we'll be able to apply for our visa. Please pray that we will be able to begin the application process by mid-April in order to leave by our goal date!

Also, our budget has finally come in! We need to raise close to $45,000 for the year. This is comprised of both one time expenses and monthly living expenses while in Spain. Will you please pray with us that God lays it on the hearts of churches, families, and individuals who can partner with us on this journey? We are so excited about what God is doing in Spain, and we want to get others involved in it! Hudson Taylor's words have comforted me so much in this time: "God's will done in God's way will never lack God's supply." We are excited to report that we are at 5% of our support! I know that God will provide the rest for us. If God is leading you to partner with us, there are several ways you can! Contact us about information about automatic withdrawal, give online at www.teamworld.org, or send your donations to:

TEAM

P.O. Box 969

Wheaton, IL 60187

(Write Account 010820-T in memo)

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and for your interest in our ministry! We are hoping to update you with prayer requests and updates frequently so that you can know what's going on in this exciting journey to Spain!

Internship

Hey everyone! We have some exciting news that we would love to share with you! Many of you already know our desire to serve long-term in Spain someday as church planters. Well, God has provided for an excellent first step for us! We have been invited to do a one-year internship in Spain! How perfect! We found out about this opportunity in late July, and have been working toward it ever since. We have joined TEAM and are going with the program called TEAMServe, which is set up for short term ministry. Here’s a little bit about our internship.

We were invited to work in a town called Camarma de Esteruelas, which is about thirty minutes from downtown Madrid. We were able to visit this town and church when we visited Spain in March of 2009. This church is somewhat of a hybrid environment because it meets in the Evangelical Christian Academy. Many of the teachers from this school attend the church, so it is a mixture of Spaniards, Latinos, Americans, English, and Asians. We will be aiding, in what capacity we are not sure, with the youth group and the music ministry. We both love youth and music, so this seems like the perfect fit for us to test the waters. We feel that this will be a good transition for us to have people from our own culture around us, while at the same time being able to minister with and to Spaniards.

Even though we will work in Camarma, we will be living in a town called Alcalá de Henares, which is about twenty minutes from Camarma. There we will be taking language classes and hopefully participating in a cell group that is starting up in the town. We have chosen to live in Alcalá versus Camarma because of two main reasons. One is that the University where we will be taking language classes is in Alcalá. It will be so convenient to simply be able to walk to classes instead of having to take a bus. Another reason is that we will be able to be more immersed in the culture with support just nearby.

Obviously this is only just an overview of our plan. The year in Spain is going to be filled with adventures, I'm sure, and we're so excited about it! We are just getting started with raising support, and don't know much yet, but we'll post when we know a little bit more about it. Thanks for joining us along the way!