24 Hours

Well, today begins the 24 hour countdown to our trip to Nicaragua. I can't
even begin to tell you how many times I have seen God working in this opportunity for our family to go visit and serve the people of Nicaragua. As many of you have been watching, God has provided abundantly through his people the funds we have needed for the trip and then some.

 I'm happy to be able to tell you that we have raised all of the required funding needed to get the whole family there and then some. I do have a confession to make though. I believe the last time I posted we were about $1500 away from our goal. I had faith that God would provide I just didn't know how.


One morning Lisa woke up with a strong urge to do something with the boys, she didn't like the fact that we only had a month to go, we still needed that last portion of our funds and the boys hadn't yet gotten involved in the process, so she followed her instinct and ran to the store early one Saturday morning to gather baking goods so the boys could participate in a bake sale to help raise some of the monies needed yet. This is my confession, I was skeptical that the endeavor would raise much money, but thought it would still be a good experience for the boys. Well, humbly I admit that I was wrong. 


They made cookies and brownies that day, Tyler spent a few hours on the computer creating the sticker labels and the other boys helped Lisa package the cookies and brownies for selling. Even though that particular days' baking didn't bring much money in, the action that was taken that day brought about something so big that none of us would have imagined.


Someone had given the missions department 27 pounds of yellow cake mix and that in turn was given to Lisa to use to bake cupcakes. She gathered some help and what came out of that simply amazed me. Lisa and a wonderful neighbor spent several nights baking and icing 450 cupcakes. Then they were packaged and labeled. Then others from the missions team chipped in and before I knew it, there was a date for a huge bake sale to happen at the church following Saturday night services and both Sunday services. Cupcakes, snow cones, cookies, brownies, breads, cotton candy...all kinds of goodies were being sold for donation in hopes that people would respond in support for the family missions trip. WOW did they. 

Ok remember when I said I was skeptical about it bringing in much money and that it would be more of a lesson for the boys.....well I was wrong on both accounts. It brought in tons of money....a little over $6800.00 to be exact. and the lesson wasn't for the boys (although they learned a lot) there was a huge lesson in there for me as well. When someone is faithful with a little, God will help them to be faithful with a lot. My wife was faithful in her desire to serve, not only God, but our boys in teaching them through this process, and in doing so, God worked through her to not only raise enough money to put us over the top, but it helped a lot of the other families that are going on the trip as well. 

I was so proud of my wife, watching her rally the troops to help at the event, organizing everything and making sure everyone had what they needed to be successful, it was a joy to watch everything come together and to see God work through her in that way. So all that to say, Thank you to my beautiful wife for being faithful, thank you for all of you who are praying for us as we begin our travels on Saturday, and thank you to God for being an everlasting and faithful Father!


My hope is to be able to post a few blogs while we are in the field, but I also want to focus on the kids and my wife as we enjoy and experience together what God has planned for us. 


God bless!