J’s Updates

We kicked off April by returning from an awesome trip upcountry. A few weeks after that, we travelled to what will be our final location for the second time. And then, only a week after we got back, we began hosting a bunch of teams from different universities across America, 29 students in total! It was mayhem, to put it mildly… in fact, that’s what we called the team: “May Mayhem”. And now, later this week, another team of 16 will come for two weeks, whom we will be actively hosting as well. Phew! Nonetheless, I’ve been very grateful for all these experiences, and for very different reasons.

This past visit, we were able to go much deeper with the leaders and team about what our lives will look like, how we can fit into the team, and how we can contribute to the vision and goals of the team as a whole. In every conversation, every new or realized experience, the grass just kept getting greener. I was just shocked by this, because there are so few hesitations in my mind when it comes to living there. You would think there would be, because a lot about this country is harder than it is where we currently are, but somehow those struggles don’t weigh too heavily. We are super excited to move (so much so, E checks the daily countdown on her phone at least once a day). Although we are still aware that there will be many hard days and seasons, I do believe that the Lord intends to reward us with contentment and passion once we get there, because, after all, it is the place we originally felt God called us to.

We had a rough road going through this year, that’s for sure. From getting smacked with culture shock the minute we walked off the plane, to the hard news that some of our friends were leaving the team, to watching a man get beaten on the sidewalk beside us, to a dozen little unfortunate circumstances along the way. We made it through. We crawled our way to the other side of such a deep valley. And, I can only thank God that somehow all the trouble we went through became worth it… because He’s a redeeming God, He’s a God with a plan! And I believe we remained in that plan for our lives. We can now enter this country with one year of life in Africa, one year in the culture, and over 700 hours of language learning under our belts. And that will be a great gift to our receiving team, because we aren’t starting from square 1, but square 5, and that’s a huge asset to a team trying to plant the church among the unreached.

E’s Updates

Happy summer, everyone in Canada! We are currently in our cold season, which is a nice break from the 30° weather we are used to.

Over these past two months, I have been blessed to learn to cook some local food, continue deepening friendships, host a short-term team of students from America, and learn more of the language.

This past month, one of my local friends was put in prison for about 2.5 weeks. She was working as a security guard, and something got stolen while she was working, so the owner demanded she be put in jail. The justice system is very different here, and so it is difficult to understand fully. Some friends and I on our team spent a lot of time praying for her, and thankfully, now she is out. We have been trying to connect with her in person, but she has been difficult to meet with. She has been texting us and asking for prayer, so it has been a blessing to see her continue to chase after prayer from Christians. Please join me in praying that I will be able to connect with her in person, and that her heart would be softened to the gospel!

We are nearing the end of our program, and so we did one final visa run and vision trip. We are excited to think and dream about our final location, and have been blessed to find housing already. Please continue to pray for a smooth transition for us as we adjust to a new location again.

Prayer requests

• Pray that in these last weeks of our program, we would finish well! It can be easy to make compromises because “we are just leaving anyways”, and miss out on different things God has for us and for others. Pray that we’d both finish strong and also transition well into our final location.

• Pray for our hearts to, even in the last days, grow for the people here. At the same time, pray that our hearts would be prepared for, and grow for, all the people we will soon come to meet when we move there.

With love,

J&E