Life in Madison!

We have been in Madison for a little over a week now. It has been so good to come back here and reunite with our team, and see other staff members here at the base.

Since we have been here we have been so busy! Our schedule is basically full everyday from morning till night. We have been hard at work putting together the teachings and programs we will be doing in the nations we are heading into. One of the first teachings we will be doing is: 'The Father Heart of God'. We are really excited to be teaching on this subject because of the impact it had on us last year. It will be awesome to show the people we are teaching how God views them, and that they have worth and value to him. Another cool part of this is that both Tiffany and Evynn (who is one of leaders) have heard from God separately about how they are to speak worth into the woman of the nations we are going to. They have some great events planned out to accomplish this, and I know I am excited to see God bring this to fruition.

Please be keeping us in prayer as we are leaving this Thursday and there is still so much to be done!
Thank you!

                     Our team (left to right) James, Dom, Tiff, Micah, Kevin, Gayle, Evynn

                       Family photo

  

On to Madison, WI

We are just finishing up three weeks in Mississippi visiting family and introducing Micah to them. It has been a fun filled relaxing three weeks. Micah got the chance to see the other side of his family and bond with his aunts, uncle, Papa John, and Maw Maw. It is never easy to leave family but now with Micah it makes that much harder.

We are looking forward to arriving in Madison and reconnecting with our team. It will be good to be on the ground together with all of our team, planning, praying, seeking God's guidance and direction for our outreach. There is still also the need for provision and finances not only for us but for others on our team as well. It is going to be amazing to see how God provides and meets each one of our needs. It is also going to be amazing to watch how God moves in each one of the countries we are going to.

God's Unfailing Provisions & Promises.

We have six days left here in Monroe, WA. before we start the first leg of our adventure this summer. Our plans as of right now look like this: May 31st we hop aboard a Southwest flight and head to Mississippi. We are heading to Diamondhead, MS. to visit Tiffany's family, and let them meet Micah. Micah has a grandpa, grandma, one uncle, and three aunts he has yet to meet. Plus many more kinfolk that he will get the chance to see. We will be there until June 22nd, when we once again hop aboard another airline and head up to Madison, WI. There we will be reunited with most of our DTS team. We will be spending about two weeks reconnecting and prepping for our outreach to Asia. Sometime around the first part of July we will board yet another airline and head to our destination in Asia.

As we are packing up not only our suitcases but also everything else we own to put into storage. I can't help to feel a bit of sadness leaving behind the house where we first brought Micah home too. God's grace is awesome though, he gave us so many memories here and let us rest and connect as a family. We not only drew closer together as husband and wife, but God drew us closer to him together. God even guided us to an amazing church body that was exactly what we were looking for, we just didn't know it at first. One of my areas of fear that I laid down to God last August as we were leaving our DTS schooling in Madison was just believing that HE was going to take care of us and provide for us. We left to come back to Monroe, knowing that in Oct. we were going to be having our little boy. We had no permanent place to live, we had no vehicle, no source of income at the moment, no health insurance, and not a single thing we needed for our baby. We trusted God, we trusted that this was where he was calling us to be for this new season of our lives. And we trusted that if we were obedient to his calling that he would provide. I was reminded of all that God did provide for us this week as I received in the mail a letter I had wrote to myself a couple days before we left Madison. I wrote this letter to myself using the words God was giving me at that moment. In it he said to me "did you see how I guided you through that season of your life? Did I not provide everything you needed?..." He did provide! He provided us with every little thing that we needed down to the last little detail, we never went without!

As we set out on this new adventure that God has called us to, I find myself asking God to take away those same feelings of fear. I find myself understanding what the Israelites must have felt like when God called them out of Egypt. Even though they were oppressed, there must have been a feeling of safety, comfort, familiarness, all the things we feel here in Monroe. We don't have nearly all of our finances for this trip, while in Asia we don't know exactly where we are going to get all the supplies we need for Micah, etc. etc. But after receiving that letter in the mail this week, I know one thing, God who was also the God of the Israelites is my Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Father of my family. He will provide everything we need again, he already knows all the details of this trip.

Every day that goes by He keeps strengthening our trust, our belief, and our faith, cause He is our hope and in His holy name we trust. As we step out in faith and obedience to Him, it is exciting to see the story he is writing right in front of our eyes. Psalm 34 is one of chapters of scripture that God has given to our team, it is one of the many promises that God has given to us, and one of the many that we are holding onto:

¹ I will extol the LORD at all times;
   his praise will always be on my lips.
² I will glory in the LORD;
   let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
³ Glorify the LORD with me;
   let us exalt his name together.

 ⁴ I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
   he delivered me from all my fears. 
⁵ Those who look to him are radiant;
   their faces are never covered with shame. 
⁶ This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
   he saved him out of all his troubles.
⁷ The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
   and he delivers them.

 ⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good;
   blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
⁹ Fear the LORD, you his holy people,
   for those who fear him lack nothing.
¹⁰ The lions may grow weak and hungry,
   but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

Let the battle begin.

I guess the battle has already begun. It has been crazy to see and feel all the resistance we have come up against since we have been preparing for this outreach. With all of our team members located in different parts of the country, there has been a feeling of isolation when the attacks come. Just this week we all reached out to each other to share the encouraging ways God has been speaking to us, to commit to battling along side one another in prayer, and to start unifying as a team.
Our base leadership went into prayer for our team and felt God gave them a couple of passages out of Psalms (17&20) specifically for our team. Some of things we took away from those passages were: seeking God for protection, calling on him to rise and battle on our behalf, aligning our hearts and desires for this outreach with his, confidence in our God, and trusting him. If you could please be praying for us and our team in those areas that would be awesome! Other areas of prayer for us would be: finances for this trip, for Micah (that he is able to open doors for us that we would not have been able to without him), and surrendering to God our complete trust.

Thank you!!!!!

Hello everyone! Thank you for checking out our blog.

We are so blessed to have so many friends and family that care about us and support us in this new adventure that God is leading us into. We plan on using this blog as a place to keep everyone up to date about our outreach this summer. We plan on keeping you up to date with prayer requests, with where we are at, what we are doing, preparations before leaving, etc, etc. The plan is to write this blog from all three of our perspectives. So there will be days Tiff writes, there will be days I write, and what I think will be very interesting will be the days where you will get a feel of our outreach through the eyes and beautiful penmanship of Micah! I hope yall can translate jibberish.

Thank you once again for all the support! We are very excited to have all of you along with us for this adventure.