Well, it’s for real now. In less than 2 months, we will be on a plane to Malawi. A lot has happened in the last two months and God continues to bless us each week as we prepare to serve. A couple of weeks ago we were able to purchase a vehicle in Malawi. Jeff Rogers, the CLI founder, was able to find a vehicle in Malawi that was in good condition and runs well, which is a very hard thing to find in Malawi. The SUV is a 4 WD Toyota Prado. We are thankful to many of you who helped make this happen with your generous gifts and support. Even better, the vehicle is already there and will be ready for us when we get to Malawi in January.
Speaking of January, we now have an official departure day to leave for Malawi. We will be leaving Houston and going to Malawi on January 6th. When we were looking for tickets through about 20 different travel agencies, we discovered a very good fare called a humanitarian/missionary fare that British Airways has to offer. We are using World Missions Travel Agency out of Irving, Texas.
The fare allows for flexible changes without any change fees and allows three checked bags per person each way. This is a huge deal since it is about $300 dollars per person to check 3 bags each way. Again, when we got the tickets last week, things began to seem even more real and we are excited to now be able to circle a date on the calender to mark when we are leaving to serve.
While the vehicle and plane tickets were amazing, probably the most amazing thing over the past month was that our dogs found a home here in the Houston area with a family. It’s not just any family but a family who has been so supportive and continues to love and support us each month and week. The Millers are the same family that supported us with the wiffle ball game that I wrote about in my last post. Now they have adopted our dogs which is a huge relief to Jenny and I. After having dogs for 6+ years, it has been really weird without any over the past 2 weeks. I got up the other day and instinctly said, “Ok guys, lets go outside”, but of course they were not there. Also, now I have to pick up crumbs or food I drop on the floor because we do not have our automatic sweepers/food picker-upers. We know that they will get much love and attention in a family with five children, much more attention than we were able to give them through medical school and residency. And now they have a backyard too! We give thanks to God and the Millers for this.
So whats happening over the next two weeks? Well, we have been very busy over the past 1-2 weeks with trying to sell stuff and sort/pack. While we are used to moving every 2-3 years with school and residency, we are finding this move to be much different since we are not only moving but selling most of our stuff including our vehicles. We are starting to see how much a one bedroom apartment can really hold and wondering how some of this stuff even got here from the last move. We will have plenty of stuff for a garage sale on the 22nd. We will be moving out of our apartment in the next two weeks and going to spend some much needed time in St. Louis with Jenny’s parents. We are super excited about family time and look forward to this time before we leave.
Another blessing occurred 2 weeks ago when we found out that we had been approved for the Project Medsend grant! God is so good! This grant will pay our monthly student loan payments while we are serving overseas. We are grateful for this grant and thankful for all that Project Medsend does for those serving overseas.
We should have a fundraising update later this week or next posted on facebook and our blog. Jenny has another God story about fundraising that occurred yesterday, but I will let her tell it in the next update. God continues to bless us and we are so thankful for all of your support.
Continue to keep us in your prayers!
Hope y’all have a good week and God bless!