AND AWAY WE GO!

Well, it's Friday am and we are headed out the door! There's not much more to say! Besides the fact that we covet your prayers for the traveling in the next couple days especially, and then just that the Lord would bless this project, all the team members, our family, and all those we will come in contact with!
Hasta la vista, Baby!

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!

Right around the corner....

In nine more days, Lord willing, our NTI team of 14 people will pull onto the Union de Centros Biblicos camp property in Lican Ray, Chile. As I've mentioned before this area of Chile is my favorite - it is beautiful. According to Chilean folklore (and I think I've shared this before, too) when God finished creating everything He had some leftover parts. So, along the Pacific Coast of South America He sprinkled what remained. It contained all the most beautiful parts of everything - a desert with its unique beauty, majestic mountains and tremendous volcanoes, sparkling beaches along side white sands and cliffs, thick green forests, thousands of solitary islands....and that's how He created Chile=)

Well, not only is it beautiful but it holds a special place in my heart. As most people know I grew up in Chile as an MK with Gospel Mission of South America. The camp in Lican was where all the missionaries met the first week of January, every year. It was what I looked forward to all the other weeks of the year. Lican Ray is where I got to go horseback riding, do some rock-cliff diving (depending on how brave I was), build tree forts with the other girls to defend ourselves from the terrible boys. Where I learned from the teachers I had who, one year, had us build a replica of the tabernacle which to this day I haven't forgotten. I had some of my first 'crushes' there, my then 5-year old brother Chad got caught kissing another little girl by the playground. It's where my best friend Kristi and I stepped on a snake and screamed so loud and long we interrupted the adults business meeting going on nearby. Or when she and I were older and were in charge of teaching the classes to the younger kids. And then there are the memories of the other missionaries - my aunts and uncles during my growing up years. Like the time that Uncle Chuck used Aunt Del's toothbrush and created such a stir that by the next morning everyone knew about it, or laughing like crazy at the much anticipated skit night. I could carry on...

And now I get to go back again! God has been so good to me and my family! He is truly giving me the desire of my heart by allowing Matthew and I and our 5 children to travel to Chile and stay for 6 weeks working alongside the missionaries, Dan and Liz Thompson, at the camp I've been going back to all my life. By the way, Danny was one of those MK's too!

So, please continue to pray for our family to be a blessing and to grow together and grow in the Lord as we seek to SERVE!

Taken last week at the camp...

Chile Trip Update

This morning we had our first of six meetings with those that are preparing to be part of the NTI team heading to Lican Ray, Chile this fall. Nothing like meeting together, knowing that we are now on a countdown, to get you wound up and excited to go! I was responsible for part of the meeting that had to do with flight details, arrival information, what to bring, etc. I can't talk, even type, about it without getting goosebumps I's sooo excited! I love Chile, I love missions, I love my family, I love going on trips, I love taking other people back to my childhood home and seeing it for the firstime through their eyes - roll those things all into one and I'm one happy camper=)

But I feel like I've ridden the roller coaster ride of emotions as far as this trip goes! I've gone from being excited to go, to depressed that I can't, back to having faith that I will go, then to resignation and acceptance that I won't, then recently getting excited about cheaper tickets making it possible for us to all consider going only to find out those prices don't apply to the dates we need to be there for - ahhh! In my head (which is a scary place BTW) I've accepted and acknowledged that God knows best and He can provide above and beyond what we need and He decides if we go or stay. And I'm fine with that...in my head. The other more emotional part of me is having a harder time trying to decide how I really should feel about it. On one hand I have faith that the Lord can supply the amount we need, so I want to go about knowing that He will and start getting ready to make the trip. On the other hand, if it's not His will, I don't want to get my hopes up so I sometimes go around assuming it won't work out and begin to plan for the time that Matthew and the older 2 kids will be gone for 6-7 weeks and I'll be here alone...with 3 small children!

Sometimes I just want to know - either way - I just want to know so my little brain can try and wrap itself around the millions of things I'll need to do to get our family of seven ready to go and be there for a month and a half OR if I need to start planning how I'm going to crawl to my parents door step begging for some moral support and adult interaction for this extended period of time with half my family missing!?!?

So, does the Lord know yet if we should go or not? Of course He does, but He has chosen to keep us relying and trusting in Him until the time comes when the decision is made. And then, a week or so from now when the money is either here or it is not, we will know. After that the next step of faith will come, trusting Him to help Matthew and I orchestrate all the details of taking a bunch of people overseas for several weeks or trusting Him to help us individually deal with things apart from each other for a loooong time.

In my own mind the best thing for our family would be to stay together, working side by side to accomplish the goals of NTI, being together as a couple so that throughout the 'busy-ness' of Matthew's day I can be there to support and encourage him, spending time with the missionaries there who are eager for Christian fellowship in this remote area of Chile, helping the team members open their eyes to the fields white unto harvest, to end the day tucking all five of our children into bed as we teach them the value of a servants heart and a love for missions. But maybe the Lord has different lessons to teach us, after all....

Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Pray for Melissa

Today I was going to write about the final day of VBS that took place last week but I felt something more important had come up instead. Let me tell you about Melissa Jarvis....
Melissa is, among other things, a good friend of mine who I've come to know through Cornerstone over the last few years. We've shared numerous memories from painting our basement shortly after we moved in here, to going on a missions trip to Chile together last fall. She's just about as nice as they come=)

Here she is with a team from CBI, headed to Chile in June 2005. (wearing a striped tank top)
After having been on two trips to Chile the Lord has placed that country and it's people and language on her heart. Since returning last fall she's been pursuing another trip back to Chile, this time to work for a year at the MK school where I went growing up, Santiago Christian Academy. To make a long story short she started raising funds a little while ago and is still lacking enough to go. The school itself has a great need for teachers like this to come down - as of this week alone two other teachers got done and so the need is even greater. So, pray with me for Melissa! She needs to buy tickets by this next Monday, July 14th at the latest to be able to head down at the end of this month! On that day, depending on her finances, she will either buy the tickets or call SCA and let them know she's not able to come.....

And on the second trip, with our NTI team, in November of 2007. (wearing a yellow hat)