We wanted to let you know that we booked our flight!
There are lots of mixed emotions—we’re both excited and nervous, sad to leave family and friends, and joyfully anticipating the beginning of a new season. In the time until we leave, we will be packing up and moving out of our place, finishing up deputation, and taking time to enjoy being with people we love.
Please pray for us as we apply for visas. We plan to fly to Vancouver to apply for a language-learning visa in person at the consulate. This would be our first choice of visa. Being approved would feel like a miracle! If our application is denied, there are other visa routes we can try, including applying for a student visa, an extended tourist visa, or settling elsewhere in the region. Pray that God’s hand would be on the application process and that he would give us miraculous favour and open doors.
The last few weeks we’ve been busy with students involved in SI. Joey directed the summer program which saw 33 students sent out to five mission locations, plus a national team to New Brunswick. We led one of those teams—we are so thankful for the ways that God always encounters students with His power and love, responds to students’ faith with supernatural healings, and sets students’ hearts on fire with love for Him. He is worthy of our praise!
Finally, we thank God for your support and prayers—we acknowledge that it’s no small thing!
As we get ready to depart, we’re conscious that when we buy flights, pay rent, buy groceries, etc., we’re using financial gifts. If we’re honest, it feels humbling (read: undignified) to be so reliant on others, especially when the world preaches autonomy so loudly. We’re learning that giving up our self-reliance is part and parcel of God’s design for the church. After all, we were never really self-reliant. Accepting the gift of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection stripped us of any pride in that title. One of the ways we respond to the gift of Jesus is to also give and receive freely within the church—1 Cor 12 and Rom 12:3-8. Through our finances, we are learning that we cannot say “I do not need you” (1 Cor 12:21) to any member of the church. So thank you!
Thanks for being an indispensable part of the body of Christ, thanks for sharing the work with us, thanks for being generous and representing God’s grace to us, and thanks for loving, caring, and praying for us!
Sincerely,
