God is many things and has revealed Himself to us in many
ways throughout this journey. His
provision over the past year has served as confirmation for me that we are
indeed walking in what He has called us to.
We have seen His provision for our family over and over again in so many
ways and we’re trusting for His continued provision as we anticipate
transitioning from the US to Peru.
I’d like to share a few of examples today to bring glory to
Him.
Last January the Lord told Josh it was time to leave the
factory. In obedience, he quit his job
in February without any specifics about what was next. God’s financial provision came a year prior,
when Josh received a promotion at work. The
promotion was an unexpected answer to prayer and we were unsure how to use the
extra income when someone prophesied over Josh that this season of plenty was
to prepare us for a dry season. We began
to save the additional income and 10 months after Josh quit his job, we’re
still able to pay our bills. Praise Him.
After spending 2 weeks in Florida getting to know our
mission agency (MVI), we decided in early June that we were ready to visit the mission
in Peru. As a stay-at-home mother who had
never left her children for more than a weekend, I knew the hardest part would
be leaving them behind. I wasn’t even
sure who we would leave them with as our family members all work. God knew my heart though and how stressful it
would be for the kids and me if they were passed around day and night for 10
days. We only had 2 weeks to plan our
trip and make arrangements. The first
call I made was to my sister-in-law.
When I told her the dates that we were scheduled to be gone, she said
that she happened to have that week off work and nothing planned. She’d love to keep the kids! While that may seem small to some, to me, it
was huge. My kids love their aunt (and
uncle!) and are very comfortable in her home.
They would not as I feared have to be passed around to different friends
during the day and different family each night.
God is good!
Josh and I knew very little about missions when we started
this journey. God has continued to open
doors this year and we’ve continued to walk through them. It wasn’t until June that God we said yes to
God’s call for us to join His work in Yurimaguas. In July, we went to North Carolina for a
month of cross-cultural training. It was
there that we met many other missionaries going around the world with many
different mission organizations. Support
raising became a topic of conversation and we learned that some had been
fundraising for 18 months, others had spoken at 50+ churches, and most were
over 50% funded at that point. We were
0% funded at that point and shocked that fundraising may take us so long and we
didn’t even know 50 churches to contact!
While there we mailed our first letter to share with family and friends
how God had been moving in our lives.
With just that initial letter and God’s leading to faithful family and
friends, we reached 50% of our needed monthly support and 50% of our one-time
needs! We’re now at about 70% of our
monthly support and trusting that the Lord for the remainder.
Where we’ll end up in Peru is pretty remote and we knew when
we visited that we wouldn’t be able to bring much with us. During our visit, we priced what it would
cost to set up a home. Two weeks ago, we
received word from another American couple living in Yurimaguas that they were
returning to the US and offered to sell us all of their home furnishings – at a
third of the cost I had calculated to furnish our home upon arrival! Now nearly everything we’ll need is waiting
for us when we arrive!
Looking forward, I am trusting the Lord to provide a good
friend for myself and Lucy in Peru. The
two young women from the US that we initially thought would be in our town will
not be there. One of them just sold us
our home furnishings. I had thought God
would provide me a friend in her but His plan was to provide furnishings
through her. His ways are better than
mine and I’m excited to see how he provides friends and a community for us in
Yurimaguas. For Josh, we’re trusting
he’ll provide quick language learning.
For Henry we’re trusting that the Lord will give him a sense of security
throughout this transition as change is difficult for him.
~Jennifer
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