And So It Begins...

As of March 20th, Mr. Harrod and I officially have plane tickets that will take us to Nairobi, Kenya! God was so good to us on the price. We were able to get the tickets for $1,630 each! That's $300 less than we had expected! What a blessing. Our trip there will take us on May 26 through Minneapolis, then to Amsterdam, Netherlands, then to Nairobi. We will then take public transport to Kitale, which is about 11 hours from Nairobi. We are fortunate to have minimal layovers on our way there. Our return tickets go from Nairobi, back to Amsterdam. I was super excited to find out that we get to spend the evening and next morning in Amsterdam, seeing the sights and exploring a new culture on our way back. We will then make our way back through Minneapolis and get back to Boise on July 25. We are very blessed to have such providence with travel arrangements.

As mentioned above, we received a big break on the plane tickets, which is a huge blessing. Thank you to all of you who were praying for such an event to occur! As of today, I have received $2,140 in contributions to this trip. I've spent $115 on a passport, and $1,630 on a plane ticket thus far. With some of the recent price breaks we have been getting, my overall need of support is down to $4,200, and a minimum of $3,200 to go. That means I only need $1,000 more to leave the country, and $2,000 to be fully supported. Praise the Lord for such generous blessings! I ask your continued prayer as the financial support continues to come.

A turn of events that is somewhat sad for me has occurred in the past couple of weeks. Three of out Servant Team members are no longer able to come with us to Kenya this summer. Traci Harrod, one of the key leaders of the team, has been listening to the call of God in her own life and has deemed it wisest for her to stay in Boise. Danny and Traci have recently taken in a young refugee into their home and the thought of leaving this young man with no one to be with for the summer broke Traci's heart. After many weeks of prayer for several of us, she has decided to stay. With this decision, Leah and Brian Rupp, decided to stay in the U.S. as well. While we will greatly miss her presense and expertise this summer, this has not forced us to change our plans too dramatically. Danny and I will leave in the end of May, and will be joined mid-June by another young man from Oregon, Justin, and at the end of June by my good friend Jacob Vaden.

One exciting change that this does effect is what I will be doing during the first weeks that I am in Kenya. Danny and I will arrive in Nairobi, and after a day of rest will travel up to Kitale. From there we will meet up with the other 3 missionaries that Danny worked with in the 80s and 90s and go from church to church in the bush encouraging the congregations. It will be an rare and very exciting oppertunity to work with such vetrans in ministry and see the bredth of a work God has done through a few lives fully dedicated to Him.

There is much more I could write about, but this is getting rather lengthy, so for your sake I will cease ; ) God is teaching me so much more than I could have dreamed through the process of preparing for this summer. I can only imagine what will happen throughout when we actually hop on the plane. Keep praying!