He Moves

Awake at 2am is what happens when I randomly fall asleep with all the lights on after putting my little ones to bed. Today (or I should say yesterday) Michelle and I reached our financial goals for our trip to Africa. I opened an envelope with $1,000 and was floored yet again. Thank you to everyone who has contributed!!! We are both overwhelmed by your generosity and willingness to partner with us. We have received SO many amazing cards and words of encouragement. We can not tell you how much we truly appreciate those of you who have prayed and continue to lift us up in prayer.

Last June, when we decided that we would travel to Africa together, we both strongly felt that we wanted to be purposeful about our time leading up to going. I can honestly say since I committed a lots been being rearranged in me. He has broken me in ways that I could have never expected, He's drawn into me and pulled out things I didn't even know I was living with. Walls in relationships, lies accepted as truths, patterns of behavior, limiting view points. All the while speaking and calling, stirring and moving in His gentle strength. With correction and care to beautiful for words..... He is getting me undone continually.

Tonight as I was sitting here worshiping, God spoke this again to me:

Do you trust me? Do you trust me with your heart, with your brokenness, with the girls...? Do you really know that I am in your midst, that I have conquered death and suffering? Do you believe that I will rise you up from the ashes, that I already have? Do you know I am using you as an instrument to share the hope that lives, to share me? Do you really believe I live in you? There is nothing that can separate us. Do you believe me.....?
Then go and freely love as I have freely given you love. Tell the world who I am, and the things I have done, and I will do even more than you can possibly imagine. Say yes, I have already said yes to you. Trust me with your heart and live. And yes, you will be pressed on every side but I will not let you be crushed. I will never leave you, you are mine and I am yours from now unto eternity.

He moves on our behalf, he moves on behalf of his children. He calls to us, He calls to others and draws us into each others lives. Thank you for your support, we feel so blessed to be able to go and answer this heart cry God placed within us.

Ethiopia!!

We Wanted to share with you all the amazing things we will be doing while in Ethiopia!

We leave home on the 22nd and land in Ethiopia on the 24th...and then it begins.

May 25th

• Visiting No Ordinary Love at their Children's House and Community Center. Loving on kiddos.
• Travelling 6 hours south to Awasa to prepair to hopefully install 2 water treatment systems.

May 26th

• Working with Children's HopeChest and installing water treatment/purification systems in Chapa and possibly Tullu.
• Activities and games with the children in those areas.

May 27th

• Working with Bring Love In. Day of pampering for the widows.
• Playing, teaching English, activities/crafts with children after they arrive home from school.

May 28th

• Visiting the Embracing Hope Ethiopia daycare and playing with the children.
• Meeting and talking the women at risk who are apart of Live FashionABLE. 

May 29th

• Working with with Children's HopeChest to install a water treatment system in Korah.

May 30th

• Visit the Hope For the Hopeless orphanage in Salulta and love on the kiddos.
• Fly home and arrive on the 31st.

We are beyond excited for this opportunity!! We are close to raising the funds needed to cover the trip. If you still would like to donate - please click on the donate button on the right of the blog. Thank you all so very much for your support!!!!!

Love,

Michelle & Renee

Journey To Africa

Welcome to our blog! Here is the recent support letter we sent out today. Any contribution helps - $1, $5, $150, $500 - you get the idea :)

We love you all!!

-Michelle & Renee

A new season

So.... Michelle and I have some updates about our trip. It looks like we will be going to Ethiopia this MAY!!!! We are both very confident in the timing and the way all of the pieces are coming together. We will be mailing out letters very soon and are in the process of making a little video to share online as well. We would both very much appreciate your prayers as the details of our travel plans are being worked out.

As I'm sitting here writing, a blog post by Levi Benkert (from Bring Love In) that I read a couple weeks ago keeps coming to mind. Follow this link to read it yourself. The post is about a woman, named Hawa, and her incredible testimony of God's faithfulness. The part in the article that continues to stand out to me was how frequently she said, "Praise Him" despite such hard and terrifying circumstances.

I can not begin to imagine the struggles this woman has experienced nor the goodness and closeness of the Lord's touch on her life. I can glimpse it, relate her experiences to my own loss but I can not touch it or fully grasp it, only God can. In Psalm 51 it says "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.  You, God, will not despise."

It is in these humble vessels that He finds good pleasure. Princes and princesses awaiting an inheritance greater than anyone can imagine, full of life that this world does not hold. I see glimpses of this eternal glory in her simple words, Praise Him.

I do not have the answers to most of the hard questions... questions that often rise up when reading life accounts of people like Hawa. I don't know why one person is given so much and another so little... and I don't attempt to judge who has more in God's eyes.

Every moment that passes life and death occur somewhere simultaneously. One person's dream comes true while another falls apart. Someone's happiest memory will transpire at the exact moment someone's saddest or most frightening happens. This truth both eludes and breaks me.

All I know is that when I have known nothing else, I have known Jesus. And He passionately pursues me. His love never gives up, he chases me with it. He covers me in it. He reminds me with creation, with testimonies surrounding my life, with promises that death and suffering can not quench or take.

I feel so fortunate to be stepping into this new season with such a dear friend, not having any clue where this trip could eventually lead either of us but very hopeful for what lies ahead. Michelle and I both feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity and are continuing to pray for the Lord to prepare our hearts. 

-Renee 

A Quick Note

I love my pal, Renee, for a whole truckload of reasons.
A really BIG truckload.

I won't get into it much because then it would involve tissues and smearing mascara and so on and so forth.

I'll just be brief.

She gets me.
She gets me and she encourages me
and then she sends me this video:

"What will you create that will make the world awesome?"

<3