supported & send-off

It's time to celebrate! We have reached our support goal for serving in Malawi! (we're at about 100.3%) God is good! We are extremely grateful to our entire support team! Because of their generosity and eagerness to participate with us in God's mission in Malawi we are off in just one more week (read: seven days of packing, preparations, and goodbyes).

Prayer requests:

• that our TEP (work visa) would be granted and received in time for our August 18 departure
• that EI Malawi will find suitable housing and language teacher for us
• for peace in our final preparations and good-byes
• for safety as we travel to Ontario for training and then on to Malawi (3 days in airplanes and airports with 3 girls)

SCHEDULE:

• sat-aug 2: goodbye potluck at the park (JOIN US! noon-3pm at Main Beach, Cultus Lake)
  
• sun-aug 3: special send-off services at our home church (Sardis Fellowship) and send-off party at the Pronk's (3-5pm)
  
• wed-aug 6: fly to Toronto for EI orientation and training
• fri-aug 8: weekend with Cambodian missionary friends in Niagara Falls
• sun-aug 17: African church service in Toronto
• mon-aug 18: travel Toronto-London
• tue-aug 19: travel London-Johannesburg
• wed-aug 20: travel Johannesburg-Blantyre, Malawi

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If you would still like to be part of our mission in Malawi by contributing financially, we can foresee two areas of need:

1. help our family cope with rising costs || last week we received an email from EI: "Inflation is very bad, food has either gone up in price or disappeared. Fuel was already at the price we pay now in Canada back in April, and has gone up more than ours!"
2. contribute to our vision budget || we believe God has great plans for Malawi and there will be many opportunities for us to serve Jesus, invest in his Kingdom, and extend God's justice to the hungry, the orphans, and the oppressed. We can't say what that will look like yet, but we invite you to be part of it.

support update

Only 20 days to go! [until training in Ontario; 32 days till we leave for Malawi].

Last week we thought we were at 100% of our support and were ready to celebrate. But then we found out a large sum of "project funding" we were counting on fell through. So after tightening up our budget, we're back at 88% of our support. Another way of looking at it: we have enough support for 1 year and 9 months in Malawi. So we're back to support raising and busy packing up all our belongings. Please pray God will provide the support we need before we leave or consider supporting us.

Our current support situation is definitely not for lack of generous supporters. On our support team we have many encouragers and prayers and 67 financial partners, half of them monthly supporters. Thank you for your generosity and sharing this mission with us!

Out of the Black Shadows: Stephen Lungu

Listen to the powerful story of Stephen Lungu of Africa Enterprise in Malawi on Haven Today [8July08]. Stephen Lungu is one of Africa's top evangelists--saved from a life of poverty and gang involvement to testify of God's grace to change lives.

Abandoned by his mother in Zimbabwe when he was three and later recruited into an urban gang called the "Black Shadows", Stephen Lungu was sent to fire bomb a local evangelistic event. Instead of throwing bombs, Stephen met Jesus.

the countdown is on

We leave for training and orientation with Emmanuel International in Stouffville, Ontario, on August 6. We fly from Toronto on August 18, stopping in London and Johannesburg and finally arriving in Blantyre, Malawi, on the 20th.