We're Now Official!!!

It’s been a busy and exciting couple of weeks (and should’ve been reading this last week…but I typed it and it disappeared. If you’re reading this, I’ve got it right this time…if you’re not, I’m talking to myself J)

Church Support

Great news! On Wednesday evening the All Saints PCC approved the Mission Awareness Committees (MAC) recommendation to formerly make Allie and I Mission Partners.

This followed a great evening with the MAC recently, where they probed, questioned and challenged for a couple of hours. It was good to be put through our paces as we felt very comfortable with all the questions. I managed to keep my gags to a minimum and, when asked whether we expected to encounter corruption, resisted the urge to say that it was an essential part of my retirement plan.

Being Mission Partners at All Saints is really key as at it enables the following:

·         Sharing our journey with the church

·         Sharing our blog more widely

·         Lots of prayer support

·         Opportunities to fund raise

·         Some financial support

I am, however, still waiting for my membership card that, I assume, will give me preferential seating and complimentary snacks at the 10:45 service.

Although that, in some respects, nothing has changed since Wednesday, it does make our journey and plans feel a little bit more real!

Please pray that God will help us to really promote awareness and support in the church.

Give thanks for the MAC's support.

Blogging

We really want to be getting our blog out there….so please:

a)      Sign up for regular updates

b)      Pass on the details to other people.

We’ve ordered some cards with the website address on it to give to people. If you would like some to hand out, please just ask.

Please pray for discipline in our communication with supporters and for many to sign up to the blog.

February

The flights have been booked and some of the children will start their vaccination programmes. All very exciting, although it’s a shame I can’t get the time off work to go. No money yet,  but God will provide when we need it.

Please pray that we will continue to trust the timing of God’s provision.

Tough Times

The family’s had a tough and tiring couple of weeks…usual family stuff…but it’s really made us reflect that we’re having tough times in a familiar environment now and they’ll still happen in the much more difficult environment of Bujumbura.

Please pray that we will continue to seek to be ‘God-sufficient’ rather than ‘self-sufficient’.

Planning

Both Allie and I have time allocated to preparing for Burundi each week. This is fantastic and really helping us to read, plan and generally get on top of what we need to do for next year.

Please pray for us to use our time wisely.

French

My French progress continues to be slow and I’m still very anxious about attempting to utter French. The children are making better progress than me.

Please pray for my lunchtimes with Christophe.

That’s all from now. Allie’s hoping to write the next blog…so finally something worth reading on this blog.


Jez

Learning, Planning and Stuff

We’ve had a busy few weeks full of challenges and answers to prayer.

We’ve seen letting agents for our house, submitted our applications to become mission partners with our church and started to think through vaccination programmes for the children.

I’ve also added some FAQ’s to the blog. Do have a look and do remember to subscribe to this blog for automatic updates.

There seems like so much to do and it’s really overwhelming sometimes; but we keep putting one foot in front of the other trusting that God will guide us on what to do next and give us enough time to do everything.

I recently found this thought from UCB really helpful:

Who Are You Depending On?

'My help comes from the Lord...' Psalm 121:2

If you desire to do God's will but don't draw on His power, you'll fail in spite of your skill, your connections and your resources. You must develop an increasing sense of dependence on God. Now you can't just sit on the sidelines expecting Him to do everything for you. You've been called to step out in faith, obey His instructions - then trust Him for the right results. God-sufficiency should become your goal, not self-sufficiency! This calls for praying, 'Lord, I'm tempted to do things in my own strength, but I don't like the results. Teach me to strive for excellence, not omnipotence; to maximise my talents and minimise my ego. Remind me that You will never give me an assignment that doesn't require obedience, commitment, and Your enabling grace.' The Psalmist cried, 'My help comes from the Lord.' Think: if He's Lord of every situation and He's promised to help you, then your victory is assured. It's when you think you can do it without Him, or with limited input from Him, that you get into trouble. Jesus said, '..."The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do..."' (John 5:19 NKJV). Jesus knew He couldn't do anything apart from the Father, so He never bothered to try. We, on the other hand, quote the verse, '...without Me you can do nothing' (John 15:5 NKJV), then go out and act like it all depends on us. And what happens? We fall flat on our face. So learn to stop regularly and ask yourself, 'Who am I depending on?' Then answer, 'You, Lord!'

February

One of our biggest next steps is for Allie to take Andrew (17) and Harry (10) out in February for a visit (Becky Longman (17), a friend of the family, will be joining them as well). Whilst for Caspar (4) and Felicity (3), home is where Mummy and Daddy are, for Andrew and Harry, this move is going to have a massive impact on them. As such we feel it is reallyimportant that they get a chance to see where they’ll be moving to.

Flights are being reserved, vaccinations booked and passport forms filled out…all in faith as we don’t actually have any money for this trip. The total cost is likely to be just under £4,000!

This is going to be a common theme for the next few years I suspect. However we have really seen recently how God provides what we need, when we need it…so I guess the money will turn up when we need to pay for these things.

Please pray for us to have peace about God’s provision and timing

Stuff

For a little while now we’ve been wrangling with whether to store or ship our belongings…both of which are really expensive options. However, recently, we’ve felt really challenged about our ‘stuff’. And it’s not our stuff; it’s God’s and we should hold on to it lightly.

That’s all well and good until you find yourself in a situation where you’re talking about getting rid of most of your stuff…then it’s just really scary!!

Please pray that God will help us to hold on lightly to ‘stuff’

Learning

Allie’s been great at making contact with so many people in Burundi and the UK who have experience of living in Burundi. Their support and advice has been wonderful.

Please give thanks to God for providing us with some many great friends and advisers

We’ve also been eagerly reading ‘Funding The Family Business’, which is a ‘how to’ guide to raising finances and living off gift income. Its bible based approach is really helping us to adjust to a very counter-cultural way of living.

Planning

Finally, despite my moan at the beginning, the planning is going well. I have managed to change my working hours so that I now have one morning a week to prepare for our move.

Please give thanks to God for how EDF have been so accommodating with our plans.

New FAQ section

We've added a new FAQ's section to our blog to, hopefully, answer some of the basic questions about why we're going, what we'll be doing and what it'll be like.


I've put loads of links in too which help to explain a bit more about Burundi and the organisation we'll be working with.


Do take a look...and don't forget to subscribe using the box to the right of this post.


Lots of love,


Jez and Allie