Prayer Request

We've received some discouraging news about the status of our account that we would appreciate prayer for. Due to the increase in insurance costs, our MSR (the breakdown of expenses we'll have over the course of our 5-year term) has risen by almost $1,000 per month. This drops our percentage raised to only 21%. Obviously, our dream of leaving for language school this spring is out the window. We are now praying that the Lord will supply the remaining 80% by the end of the summer so that we can go to language school in the fall. We would also like to attend Cross Training (now extended an extra week--basically the entire month of July) this summer. But this raises some concerns. In order to attend this training session geared toward preparing us for living in another culture, we have to be at 30-35% (I don't remember exactly which) by May, and at 50% by July. Perhaps a bigger issue of concern is this: if we want to go to language school this fall and will not be able to use any of July fund-raising, we essentially need to be fully funded (or nearly fully funded) by July. That's a mighty big prayer request. We believe that the Lord can work miracles and are trying to do our part to make this happen. We've made plans to attend Cross training. We are busy scheduling as many one-on-one meetings during the week as we can. We are also still trying to travel to area churches on weekends.

There are so many decisions to be made and so many what-ifs. Right now we can only handle one thing at a time. So we are asking you to pray that the Lord will bless us with a full meeting schedule. We are also asking you to pray that we will be able to attend cross-training. Finally, we are asking you to pray for the Lord's timing in all of this. He has a perfect time for us to be funded. He has a perfect time for us to attend language school. And He has a perfect time for us to reach Mexico City. Thank you in advance for continuing to lift us up in prayer. We appreciate it!

Spring Break Trips

This month has been extremely busy! A couple weeks ago we drove to Indianapolis for the Evangelical Methodist General Conference and saw a few friends at OMS headquarters on our way. Allow me to say here that I am extremely thankful--not only for a husband who knows about car repair, but to the Lord for allowing our fuel pump to go out BEFORE we got on the road (as opposed to breaking down ON the road). What was originally supposed to be a 5 AM start time was delayed about six hours while Troy dropped the van's fuel tank and replaced the pump, then had to put everything back in its place again. Some of our delay was from waiting until part stores opened--the rest was due to the massive size of the fuel tank! And I think we all know how much help *I* was... ;-)

After our weekend conference, we drove to Wears Valley, Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains for 5 nights and 4 days of income-tax-refund-sponsored family vacation. We stayed in a beautiful cabin overlooking the foothills and enjoyed the wonder and beauty of God's creation each day as we participated in fun activities as a family.

From there we drove to Reidsville, North Carolina to speak in the EMC church our friend Aaron Withrow and his wife Annette are pastor of. We spent the weekend with a wonderful family (Clayton really enjoyed the opportunity to play with another little boy close to his age) and had the opportunity to share in worship with the church Body and one other missionary to Mexico, Wycliffe missionary Kevin Cline.

We arrived home Monday night and have already made several phone calls to establish appointment times for individual meetings. Please pray with us as we intensify our meeting schedule with these one-on-one meetings over the next couple months.