Planning

The calendar around here is just insane lately! We have so much going on with fundraisers and preparing for my trip, but there’s also friends getting married and showers to be held and field trips and Easter is coming and there’s spring break… not to mention work!! It is CRAZY up in here!

When you travel to a 3rd world country there are all kinds of health precautions that you have to take including several shots that are required by the Center for Disease Control. Fortunately, my doctor was able to help me with most of my needs but some of them have to be taken care of through other organizations. I never thought that I’d use the words malaria, typhoid and yellow fever as concerns as I travel!! I’m all caught up though and am glad THAT’S over!

While in Africa we will do VBS type work with the local churches and we will spend 2 nights in the bush (in tents… holy cow!) where we will also seek to share Christ through VBS. We have been asked to bring limited supplies because the missionaries want to be able to show the local pastors that this type of ministry can be done using local supplies. Their goal is to use our ideas to help the pastors see that they, too, can do different types of ministries to reach each age group for Christ. We’ve been given a list of items that we will have at our disposal:

coconut shells

sand

dirt

palm branches

string

plastic bags

aluminum cans

sea shells

They do have access to a few paper supplies, etc, but overall the list was very limited.

We asked if we could bring beads where they can use the string that is available and we could teach them the gospel using the witnessing bracelets. The missionaries said that witch craft is very prominent there and that idols are worn for protection, for health, for fertility, etc so they are not sure that we can use the bracelets. They do not want the people to think that this bracelet is their salvation!! They ask the people to remove all trinkets from their arms and necks once they pray to receive Christ as a sign that they fully trust in HIM alone!

The Lord is so good to us though. There are MANY ways to share His truths and one thing that the people there DO love is acting. Skits can be used to share any concept from the Bible so for each time that we are with them we have a skit that we will share to help us portray the Bible story for the day!

We have many other things that we will do while we are there. We will help do a little training for the local pastors and their wives. We will help with some repairs on the missionary houses and we will help with some of the ministries that already exist there. We are also so excited to see some of our friends that have been there serving for a year! God is using them in some amazing ways and we can’t wait to hug their necks!

We will also be by the Indian ocean and we are excited to know that our dinner will be caught fresh each day and prepared by the missionary ladies. We’ve heard that it is just beautiful!

I can’t wait to share more with you! Hopefully, some pictures soon!