Missions Service and Giving Update

Two weeks ago we sent out our first support letter. Responses have begun to arrive, and we are so thankful for the support. The personal notes have been sweet and encouraging. Thank you so much for supporting us so fully and generously! In my last entry I mentioned that we were working on a missions service for our church, well, Justin went with God's leading and used a personally meaningful scripture to guide our missions service, and we prayerfully delivered it on Sunday night.
We were a weary family that night recovering from the flu. I was so nervous! I felt like "little us" and "Big God." Did I look as feverish as I felt? Would my voice hold out? During praise and worship I felt the hand of God, and He really showed up. Justin delivered our story well, and with heart. I was impressed with how well he knows me and was able to retell our years of seeking God's guidance in this decision. I shared the "asking" portion of the service...the part where we ask our church to come with us in commitment to the ministry in Peru. I have no idea what I said, or how it came off, but God was awesome. We are so humbled by the number of people who have signed up to be part of our Care Team here at home...they will be our core of prayer support through this process...there's always room for more :)! God also called many to give that night, it's incredible.
On Monday we received notice that our costs for training have increased, so these totals will reflect those changes:

Need: $37,000 for Outbound Budget; $3100 for Monthly Budget

Raised: $2,410 One Time Gifts; $865 Monthly Commitments = TOTAL RAISED $3,275.00

(All monthly gifts collected before departure will go to our outbound expenses, and if the $3100 starts flowing now, we will have our entire outbound budget raised by our target date of January 2006).

This is a true gift to have come so far so fast, because we need $7,000 by March 1st to go to training in Guatemala in April. If we miss this deadline we will be going to training in Thailand in August.

Praise God for being half way to our first goal! Thank you to our incredible Support Team that just keeps growing and growing. If you have more questions for us, please feel free to give us a call! We'll be happy to chat things over.

CARE TEAM! I'm planning our first meeting for either the end of February or the first week in March...I'll be in touch!

I am so excited about this ministry and the way it's growing here in the US...can you imagine what God's going to do in Peru!!

Much Love to All of YOU!
In <><,
Gillian