ONE MORE WEEK!!

Guess what - a week from right now we will have started the journey! We plan on leaving from our house at 7:30 Friday morning - 48 hours later we'll be at the camp in Lican Ray. Our 2-hour flight leaves Denver at 4pm, then after our layonver in Dallas we leave at around 9pm on a 9 1/2 hour flight arriving in Santiago at 8 am. We'll have all day Saturday to spend there visiting with the Kunarri's and doing some sightseeing. Then that night we'll hop on all-night bus to take us 8-9 hours south to camp. Thankfully the buses are much nicer then the American ones! Please pray for these thousands of miles to be traveled - especially for the 5 children age 6 and under.... and their parents=)

We thank the Lord for so many friends and family who have given to us financially to be able to make this trip - we know that those same people will be our best prayer warriors also! They are the ones that we feel are really behind us and understand where our heart is with this trip and with NTI.

And along that topic....it seems like some people have a slight mis-understanding of the purpose of this trip. It is not to stock up on our good works so that the scale will be tipped in our favor and outweigh the bad we've done, nor is it a charity mission to go and spread goodwill and help out the poor country of Chile. It is about the gospel! Are we preaching and going door-to-door? Probably not. But the work we will be doing to build a home for the missionaries and to do other building projects and repair work on the campsite is to 'aid in the furtherance of the gospel'. We seek to be able to help the missionaries be able to do what God has called them to do - give the gospel to hundreds of people coming through the gates of Camp Lican Ray each year. If they have a home on the camp, and we help them get the camp itself in better working order then we are helping their ministry. A camp there a couple weeks ago was just shy of being a total disaster. There was unsaved counselors, worldly music, serious modesty issues, and the list keeps going. Shortly after the campers arrived they realized the copper plumbing in the girls bathroom had been stolen, which sent the missionary scrambling to fix the problem. All these are stumbling blocks to the life-changing message of Christ's death on the cross as an atonement for our sins - and this is the message that we want people to hear!

So we ask that you continue to pray for us and the team members as we head to Chile next Friday - that we would be a good witness all along the way, our attitudes would be good despite the unpleasantness of travel, the team members would be kept healthy - I could keep going, but most of all that our personal walk with the Lord would grow and we would be an encouragement to Dan and Liz Thompson. Only heaven knows what will come of all this!