On the road again...

I am writing this blog from the car. We're in Santa Fe, NM at the moment. We are on day #2 of our road trip to visit friends, family and supporters! New Mexico is beautiful with its red dirt and dramatic landscape.

We camped last night in Villanueva State Park. It was stunning and peaceful. We left the rainfly off of the tent and just fell asleep listening to the crickets and looking at the stars. It is very different from the snappy chill of nights in Colorado, and yet so peaceful and calm.

Life often seems to run very non-stop for us, and we love the pace. Keeping up is a challenge and rewarding. Then, every once on a while, we take a breath and pause, and that's what it was like to camp and relax last night. I'm beginning to learn that there are times to stop doing things. Times to just enjoy, and of course, times to be ridiculously busy. It's good to experience both. Sometimes, God has to almost hit me over the head with restful times. I can be so determined to accomplish things that I don't stop. This was one of those times. We were driving along and had no idea where we were going to camp (and like I said in the last blog, I LOVE to plan, so it was a little irksome to me not to know where we were going to end up for the evening). Saw a sign and had no idea it would be a place we could go and recharge.

Things are also beginning to fall in place. I am now married to the most technologically savvy man I could imagine. We also just got our visas finalized and got them emailed to us. It's amazing in this day and age, no more mailing your passport, you can send it in email. We've also been told that a place to live has been found for us. It'll take us through our first three months in Bissau. Pastor Bobo wanted to make sure that I would be able to choose a place I felt comfortable once we were there, so this temporary housing is part of the picture! While we're on the road, Jason is beginning to work on building a website for MAFI Church, as well. Soon, we'll be able to show you what they're all about on the internet.

The best part of leaving is to look back and see our journey up to this point. We have spent many years with Guinea-Bissau on the horizon in one way or another. Years ago when we met the missionaries who started the Youth Center, we were in Golden, CO and Guinea-Bissau jumped right onto our radar there. Our goals and plans have changed, but the country has remained the same. We've been amazed and excited to watch our plans morph as we've gone along.

I got an email today through the website from someone who has recently been in Bissau and plans to return at the soonest possible time because the country has just seeped into part of who they are. It does that. It is a place with so much need, so much beauty, and so much pain all right next to each other. And you take each day in stride knowing all parts will factor into your day. So, we hope sincerely that you'll come visit. Bring friends even! :) There's no shortage of things to be done. From teaching to building to preaching, we'll find the right place for you! Just be careful, if you spend time there, you might just want to go back.

We are so excited and blessed to have so many wonderful people who are praying for us and supporting us. It's wonderful to get to go visit each of you and spend some time with you before we leave. From here, we go to Albuquerque, NM tonight. We'd like to thank all of you, also for being so conveniently located fairly near each other. It makes things like this so much easier. :) Love you all! Look for more posts from the road as we go. Check out the video below!

Thoughts on the craziest plan I've ever made

Erica here!

As a planner, I like to have my world be predictable in a way. I like to pack it full of things, but I get a certain joy out of the fact that I can put events in my planner on my phone and watch them happen with relative dependability. Well, I'm realizing that this is the craziest, most out of my control plan I've ever made.

This is my little family. Just the three of us. And somehow, it's my whole world. It's a very different proposition to take my family to Africa rather than just myself. It's very different to move to Guinea-Bissau than to have a 6 month hiatus from life and go there with return tickets purchased before I even set foot on an airplane. This is definitely very different. The best way I can describe the feeling is to relate it to the way it felt years ago as a kid on Splash Mountain in Disney World. You're in this cave going along watching puppets sing, having fun, safely in the tracks and having a pretty good idea of what's ahead. Then, you see the bright light at the end of the tunnel and you get this rush of exhiliration. When you finally get to the top of it, you can no longer see the tracks in front of you, just blue sky ahead and no ground in sight. You know it's there, but you also know there's a plunge ahead, too. Your stomach rises into your chest and you tense every muscle in anticipation and then whooosh! Yep, it's pretty much exactly like that. This safe, comfortable life is behind us and the blue sky is ahead. The picture below is the view from the apartment we moved out of on Saturday.

The big difference is knowing that God's hand is under us. It's a bit like that moment in Indiana Jones when he takes the "leap of faith" (which I still maintain is more like a big step than a "leap," but I'll take that up with the director some time) and just steps out and it isn't until after he finds the ground that you can see it. I know He's there and it's a great thing to feel safe in that knowledge.

So, whether it's "whoosh" or a step-leap thing, this is happening! We are spending this week with Jason's family and then we've got a wedding for a good friend this weekend. After the wedding, we set off to visit friends and family in the Southern States and come home on the same day that Sheba goes to the vet for a tooth cleaning, we get our third and final Rabies vaccine and we head off to MTI in Colorado Springs for three weeks of preparation for being hard targets to kidnapping and processing culture shock. In the meantime, we're working to secure extortion insurance, trying to get our final "from home" newsletter to you all and so on. It's a lot, but it's good. I never thought I would be thinking logically about kidnapping and using the word extortion in daily use, and it's still a bit of a stretch, I get that sense of "holy cow, I said that and meant it and that's insane" when I say it. But I know it's good and God is in control. I've learned just what Tetanus really is and why we're so glad to have a vaccine for it here in the USA and I've been amazed at how much God has blessed my life. Guinea-Bissau and our time there is an extension of that blessing.

Jason has finished his job and this is our first day working together to accomplish the dreams that God has given us. We're officially on payrole with Red Rocks Church and have gotten bank accounts all worked out and managed for this venture.

I look ahead wondering what comical errors we're about to make, what adventures we're going to have and what stories we'll come back with. It's best to look forward and enjoy the memories but not dwell there. Africa is waiting for us. There is God's calling on the horizon and His amazing grace is sustaining and blessing us. We're ready for the plunge!

We've shared wonderful memories with so many of you and look forward to sharing our new experiences with you as we move somewhere far different from here. We hope you'll continue to laugh and cry with us as we go along and that we can do the same with you over email, Skype, letters, etc. The next two months will be a flurry of goodbyes and tears and laughter and memories to keep in our pockets as we embark.

US adds Bissau to Human Trafficking Blacklist

Today the US government added Guinea-Bissau to it's "Human Trafficking Blacklist" which is a list of countries that may receive US sanctions due to human trafficking.

The unfortunate victims that Erica and I will be working with as we build and run an orphanage are in part caused by this lack of protection. Hopefully this will eventually influence the direction of Bissau for the better.

Jason

Road Trip!

This is our planned route for coming to visit several of our close friends and family members this summer. We're planning to see as many people along this route as possible and will be leaving Colorado on July 17, returning on August 1 in time for MTI training in Colorado Springs for three weeks! If you're along this route, please let us know, we'd love to come see you!
If you live in CO, we're planning to schedule a going away party in a city near you. It's important to us as we prepare to leave to get to spend time with the folks who are praying for and supporting us as we're in Africa. Your time means the world to us and we are SO very thankful to have you with us.
We're less than three months from our departure date and all momentum is moving us forward. It feels so good, but almost weird to have our departure date nearing, instead of it being this obscure thing out in the future, it's getting closer each moment. HOW AWESOME!
We love you all bunches!
(For friends in Illinois area, we're going to be heading through IL on our way to the airport in Washington DC-we're flying out from DC because it's actually cheaper and less complicated that way. We do plan to stop in IL, so let us know if you'll be around at the beginning of September!)

Ticket!

We have bought our tickets. We are flying out on the 5th of September :) MTI starts Aug. 1!

Things lining up for a departure date!

Hey, friends!
We've been so busy we haven't posted here in a while. Oops. :)

Things are going well with plans for Bissau. We've been talking to the pastor of Mafi Church, Pastor Bobo, in Guinea-Bissau and he is very excited to have us come and join the work going on there. He has a lot of truly awesome ideas about things we could be doing once we get there and we're thrilled to step in alongside that work and join in. Initially, we'll be working at a Children's Home (orphanage) in the city to prepare it for an increase in numbers as well as teach life skills (eating healthy, washing hands, proper self care, learning strategies, etc) to the kids already there. We're also planning to begin working as discipleship leaders at the church for young people there. We'll be taking language classes to get adjusted, and once we're more settled in, we're planning to take a short trip to see the other projects in some nearby villages, some on nearby islands, etc, so we can see where we may end up spending a large amount of our time as missionaries in Bissau.

Red Rocks Church, here, has continued to be a great help to us as we prepare to leave. They've been in contact with YFC and are currently discussing timing for release of our funds from YFC. Those conversations are going well, and God is truly blessing this transition.

All plans line up for us to be leaving for Bissau at the end of July. Hopefully it can be like Jason's birthday present. :)

We SO appreciate your love and support and value that you took the time to read this and stay up to date.

Watch for our newsletter, it will have a logo on the outer envelope that looks somewhat similar to the heading on this webpage. It will say, "Jason and Erica serve Guinea Bissau".