There is so much excitement in our lives right now we've barely had time to write about! Actually, we haven't had any time at all. Here are a few exciting updates:
As far as fund-raising goes, I think we've unofficially reached our $9000 goal! We were handed a VERY generous check this morning which, in addition to many many people giving more than we ever imagined, I believe we have already reached our goal. We knew God would provide, and we knew it would be amazing, but we are still absolutely stunned by the amazing generosity of people in our lives, from friends and family to childhood neighbors to people we've never even met, God has provided BEYOND our needs for this trip.
As for the trip, things seem to be pretty much in place. Last week we were invited to stay durring our time in Paraguay with Christian and Flavia, and we are very excited to meet them and their family. I hope we're not a burden on them, but I think our time will be much more enjoyable sharing it with them.
So really, it's all done but the packing, which isn't saying all that much because we have a lot of work to do. We have to get rid of a lot of our stuff, move the rest of it someplace for storage, and decide what to take with us to Paraguay. I've also been working on upgrading our computers so they'll be functional for work while we're there. (I installed Ubuntu, which I thought was really exciting, even though most people don't really know what it is)
We also have a lot going on in our last three weeks in the US: A week of Day Camp at the Heartland Center, A week of VBS, A trip to Worlds of Fun, 2 youth meetings, 4 tee-ball games, and then August 2nd we leave for a week of vacation in Seattle. We would be losing our minds if we didn't have that week of vacation, and we're going to need it to decompress, reboot, and mentally prepare for Paraguay. We've done a lot of physical and economic preparation, but the mental/emotional/spiritual preparation has been put off, so we're both really glad for our Seattle retreat.
I'll be posting more as we get new information. Thanks for reading, and thank you for your prayers and your support! This trip is truly the work of the Church, (including at least 4 congregations in 3 different denominations) and wouldn't be possible by ourselves.
Thank you! Praise God!
-Ted and Sarah
