Liberia Care Update: Front row seats for watching God move in people, and we have flights!

Today, we watched as God moved people into place to provide flights for our family. Many of you may recognize this as well, but there is a familiar pattern when God calls people in the body of Christ to provide for His purposes. When you're in the position of "going" and needing God to provide, you get a front row seat to watch it happen again and again. For this trip we have seen it repeatedly and I want to testify of it so we can all praise God for it. For this trip, it has gone a bit like this: We pray for a particular provision, other people join and pray with us. Some time that day or the day after, someone that doesn't yet know about this trip or the needs of the Bullers decides to reach out to us and call, e-mail, or text. (Or even, someone I haven't seen in years just feels lead to stop by a coffee shop that I happen to be working at, and we're both surprised to see each other.) The person then asks what's new with our family. I share the 3 minute version about the trip, and how we're trusting God for each step. Then the person responds that they are so encouraged to hear what God is doing and they sometimes stop and pray for us right then. More often then not, that person also communicates something to the effect that they now understand why they felt prompted by God to reach out, or come by that place, or whatever. Then they spur us on, encourage us with some specific passage or testimony of God's faithfulness, and they explain how they would like to support us and the Bullers in prayer, and sometimes with a donation as well. Then they go, praising God.

Simplified, here's the progression: as we wait on God for these provisions and pray, God draws people's hearts into learning about what He's doing, brings them to us to hear about the particular plan and process He is using us in, He moves them to see His unique and eternal work in what's happening, and then out of worship they respond by praying or giving. Lastly, they go on with their week giving thanks to God, and encouraged to continue praying. In this process, God blesses us (the "goers") with encouragement and provision needed, he blesses the other person (the "senders" and "givers") with encouragement about what God is doing around the world and with an opportunity to be used by God, and we all go away praising and giving thanks to God. I can't think of a more awesome way to have this happen. And whenever I start to get frustrated that it takes time to gather all we need to go, I get hit by the reminder that God is using this time to draw in more people called to pray, be encouraged, built up in faith, and glorify Him. More people involved in that? Then yeah! Keep it going!

Back to the flights... Today, God moved like this, so overtly this time it was a surreal joy to watch for all of us. The result is that God has now provided $9,959 in donations for our travel needs at this point. With this, we were able to secure flights at a great price for our whole family. We are booked to leave in mid August for 2 weeks. A number of people have asked what else we need to do. Now that we have an itinerary with specific dates, we can get moving on purchasing visas (Liberia requires flight itinerary first) and also start working on nailing down the remaining travel requirements (such as evacuation insurance, an overnight stay for a layover, etc.). Beyond the travel, we will finish getting our family stocked up on Malaria medicine and complete our yellow fever vaccinations. I'm sure there are a bunch of other details, but these are the ones on our list.

As for donations, the amount we have received covers our flights and, as far as we can tell, should cover much of the other travel costs involved. So thank you, and we praise God for the generosity so many of you have shown! If there are any additional donations that come in at this point, we will use them to help with any unexpected travel costs that may arise as we work toward our departure date (though we don't anticipate that at this point), and also to help collect some items to take with us to the Bullers. If we learn of any specific needs for the Bullers, we will let you know soon. Officially, we have hit our goal for fund raising, so thank you!

Most of all, thank you for your continued prayers for us and all that is going on with the Bullers and in Liberia. Next update, I hope to have some updates about the Bullers to share with you.