Well, we have said all along that we would get to Africa on God's timing. In our minds, WE thought that meant if we raised our funds in time. Sometimes God has other plans and everything is in His timing so we are trusting this too!
We came out to Maine the week before Thanksgiving to see Lucas' Grandpa and other extended family before we left. We left on Saturday to drive back to Indiana, and our plan was to leave for Senegal in six days. We received a phone call Sunday night that Lucas' dad (Bill) had a MILD heart attack (which basically means it was caught early and there was not much damage to his heart). He was transferred to a different hospital on Monday morning that does more specialized heart care. He had a heart catheterization done on Tuesday morning, and the original plan was they thought they would just put a stent in and be good to go. However we received some unexpected results, even to the doctor. We found out that he would be having quadruple bypass surgery done on Wednesday morning. Needless to say, at this point we decided it would be best to stay in the states for a little longer and go back up to Maine to see Lucas' family again.
We are very thankful for a number of things.
1) The heart attack was caught early on and not much damage was done to the actual heart.
2)The doctors' were very pleased with how the surgery went and Bill is now home recovering.
3) Bill was in the states and not in Africa when this happened so he was able to receive immediate medical care.
4) We were in the states and were able to change our plans to come back out to see Bill.
Now by this point we are sure many of you are thinking, so are you still going to Senegal??
Yes, we are! We put our tickets on "hold" so hopefully all we will have to pay is a change fee. At this point, OUR plan is to leave mid-January. (Of course OUR plan was to leave in November, but God knew the whole time we would not leave then and even now knows when we will leave!) If we tried to get tickets now, it would cost a significant amount more to buy our tickets. So we will wait until after the Christmas and New Year "rush" when the tickets are about the same price as before. So we will stay up in Maine with Lucas' family to help around the house some and then celebrate Christmas with them. Then we will go back to Indiana to celebrate Christmas with Bekah's family and stay with Bekah's parents until we leave.
Obviously we have had to stay very flexible over the past week and will need to continue to be. We will try to keep you as up to date as possible! We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and will enjoy the Christmas season!
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Almost That Time
It is crazy that it is almost time for us to leave! We are getting very anxious to get over to Senegal! We can't hardly believe it is time for us to leave because fall has flown by, but on the other hand it seems as though we have been fundraising for quite some time.
The first couple of weeks upon our arrival will be filled with meeting the other missionaries in the area, meeting the Senegalese guys we will be working with to learn what their visions are, and adjusting to living in a different culture and learning to use our French.
We have learned recently of an opportunity in January that we will be able to help with a sports camp in a village. We are excited to see what other opportunities arise once we arrive.
Our official departure date is Friday, November 29th. We leave from Chicago at 10:00 pm and arrive in Dakar, Senegal on November 31st at 8:30 pm (3:30 pm central time). On the way we have layovers in Istanbul, Turkey and Mauritania (directly north of Senegal). Once we arrive, then it is about a 2 hour drive from the capital, Dakar, to Thies, Senegal where we will be living for the year. Prayers for smooth, safe travels and that all of our baggage arrives with us would greatly be appreciated.
We are hoping to be able to keep you updated at least every couple of weeks, but we are not exactly sure what our Internet availability will be while we are gone. We are making no promises on the frequency of our updates but will do our best!
Thanks for the prayers and financial support thus far and for those of you who have committed to praying for us over the next year! Next time you hear from us, we will be on the other side of the pond!
The first couple of weeks upon our arrival will be filled with meeting the other missionaries in the area, meeting the Senegalese guys we will be working with to learn what their visions are, and adjusting to living in a different culture and learning to use our French.
We have learned recently of an opportunity in January that we will be able to help with a sports camp in a village. We are excited to see what other opportunities arise once we arrive.
Our official departure date is Friday, November 29th. We leave from Chicago at 10:00 pm and arrive in Dakar, Senegal on November 31st at 8:30 pm (3:30 pm central time). On the way we have layovers in Istanbul, Turkey and Mauritania (directly north of Senegal). Once we arrive, then it is about a 2 hour drive from the capital, Dakar, to Thies, Senegal where we will be living for the year. Prayers for smooth, safe travels and that all of our baggage arrives with us would greatly be appreciated.
We are hoping to be able to keep you updated at least every couple of weeks, but we are not exactly sure what our Internet availability will be while we are gone. We are making no promises on the frequency of our updates but will do our best!
Thanks for the prayers and financial support thus far and for those of you who have committed to praying for us over the next year! Next time you hear from us, we will be on the other side of the pond!
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Africa Bound.
We had our last and final fundraiser on Saturday. Thiago, the soccer coach at Bethel, (where both Lucas and I attended and Lucas played soccer) graciously offered to allow us to have a soccer clinic after the alumni game and before the Bethel game last Saturday. We had about 8 kids come which is more than we expected! Thiago also arranged with the alumni office to have "the taco people" come as they are known around Bethel (side note: their tacos are phenomenal!) to come for the afternoon, and the soccer funds and alumni offices paid a flat rate while we got all the profits. We also sold regular concessions. We made over $400! We were very thankful for the opportunity that was given to us, and once again God provided more than we could have ever imagined! Below are a few pictures from the day.
We are very excited and happy to share that we have bought our tickets! Praise the Lord! Our official departure date is November 29th. We are very excited to get to Senegal and see how exactly the Lord wants to use us. It is crazy that we have been able to raise our money in about 6 months. If you would have told us in March that we would have raise just over $32,000 by the end of August we probably would have laughed at you. There is no explanation for us being able to raise that kind of money other than the Lord has definitely paved the way for us to go serve Him in this capacity and for that we are very grateful.
We do still have about $2,000 left that we do need, but they allowed us to purchase our plane tickets at this point anyways. If you feel led to give, there is a donation button on the right side of our blog, or you could mail a check directly to DELTA International Ministries and they will send you a tax deductible receipt either way you choose to donate.
~It has been suggested to us (not by DELTA) that in order to save some money that once we get to Europe, rather than taking another flight that we could just kayak the rest of the way to Senegal. We think we will hold off on that for now, but we will keep that idea in our back pocket just in case :)
We are very excited and happy to share that we have bought our tickets! Praise the Lord! Our official departure date is November 29th. We are very excited to get to Senegal and see how exactly the Lord wants to use us. It is crazy that we have been able to raise our money in about 6 months. If you would have told us in March that we would have raise just over $32,000 by the end of August we probably would have laughed at you. There is no explanation for us being able to raise that kind of money other than the Lord has definitely paved the way for us to go serve Him in this capacity and for that we are very grateful.
We do still have about $2,000 left that we do need, but they allowed us to purchase our plane tickets at this point anyways. If you feel led to give, there is a donation button on the right side of our blog, or you could mail a check directly to DELTA International Ministries and they will send you a tax deductible receipt either way you choose to donate.
1400 NE 136th Ave #201
Vancouver, WA 98684
~It has been suggested to us (not by DELTA) that in order to save some money that once we get to Europe, rather than taking another flight that we could just kayak the rest of the way to Senegal. We think we will hold off on that for now, but we will keep that idea in our back pocket just in case :)
Monday, August 5, 2013
3 Months... Lord Willing!
It is absolutely crazy to think we have been raising support for five months, and the more unbelievable part is that we are 75% of the way to our goal which means we have about $8,700 left to raise! That seems like just pennies compared to what we have raised so far... okay maybe not, but that means we have raised about $25,500! We can say one thing for sure, it has definitely not been by our power that we have raised that money. The Lord has shown up so many times through this process, and we are excited to see how He will show up in the last 25% of it as well!
We can't hardly believe that our tentative departure date is about 3 months away!!! Our goal is still to be at 90% by the beginning of September in order to buy our plane tickets. However, DELTA does not want us to leave until we have 100% of our funds at least committed so we could potentially have to change our tickets, but let's hope not!
We have had an extremely busy July between both fundraising as well as just life in general. We figured out this past weekend that this past Sunday was actually the first "weekend day" that we have actually been home since the end of May! It was very nice just to be able to have our Sunday around home, go to church, and rejuvenate as the Lord intended for the Sabbath.
In July we had the privilege of speaking at Bekah's parents church in Portage, Indiana. Pastor Bean graciously allowed us to come share our plans for the future, and they took a love offering for us! It was very kind of their church considering Bekah's parents had relocated after she moved to college so other than on breaks, Bekah has never consistently attended there. The people of their congregation were very generous, and we received a very nice check from them from the offering!
On this past Saturday was our 3 v. 3 Soccer for Senegal Tournament at Bethel College. We ended up having a beautiful day for it and a really great turn out! We had eight guys teams and six for the girls division. Thanks to everyone who had been praying for the tournament. Many of you know that we were really struggling to get teams to sign up almost until the Monday or Tuesday before, and we were very blessed and thankful to have as many teams as we did.
Also a big thanks to the volunteers we had for the tournament as refs and for the concession stand. We definitely would not have been able to have everything run as smoothly without them! We were able to raise over $500 dollars through the tournament!
Praise be to God for the tournament running smoothly and for us being able to raise money to go over to Senegal to serve. Our prayer, even while we are doing fundraisers in the United States, is that we would honor and glorify God through any events we are doing!
We can't hardly believe that our tentative departure date is about 3 months away!!! Our goal is still to be at 90% by the beginning of September in order to buy our plane tickets. However, DELTA does not want us to leave until we have 100% of our funds at least committed so we could potentially have to change our tickets, but let's hope not!
We have had an extremely busy July between both fundraising as well as just life in general. We figured out this past weekend that this past Sunday was actually the first "weekend day" that we have actually been home since the end of May! It was very nice just to be able to have our Sunday around home, go to church, and rejuvenate as the Lord intended for the Sabbath.
In July we had the privilege of speaking at Bekah's parents church in Portage, Indiana. Pastor Bean graciously allowed us to come share our plans for the future, and they took a love offering for us! It was very kind of their church considering Bekah's parents had relocated after she moved to college so other than on breaks, Bekah has never consistently attended there. The people of their congregation were very generous, and we received a very nice check from them from the offering!
On this past Saturday was our 3 v. 3 Soccer for Senegal Tournament at Bethel College. We ended up having a beautiful day for it and a really great turn out! We had eight guys teams and six for the girls division. Thanks to everyone who had been praying for the tournament. Many of you know that we were really struggling to get teams to sign up almost until the Monday or Tuesday before, and we were very blessed and thankful to have as many teams as we did.
Also a big thanks to the volunteers we had for the tournament as refs and for the concession stand. We definitely would not have been able to have everything run as smoothly without them! We were able to raise over $500 dollars through the tournament!
Lucas was a ref for the day.
Bekah was in charge of registration, making the schedules for pool play and the tournament, and trying to make sure was stayed on schedule!
Here are just a few of the teams that came out
to play in the tournament.
And last, but not least, here is a picture of the 2 Time Champs from both of our soccer tournaments for the men's division!
Praise be to God for the tournament running smoothly and for us being able to raise money to go over to Senegal to serve. Our prayer, even while we are doing fundraisers in the United States, is that we would honor and glorify God through any events we are doing!
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Busy, Busy
We have been very busy the last couple of weeks! On June 21st and 22nd, we had our BIG garage sale at Bekah's parents house in Chesterton, Indiana. We were very blessed by all the people willing to donate items! With all the items donated, it took Bekah about 4 days to price everything!
Here were all the larger items that we had!
We had LOTS of kids toys and clothes donated which went over really well! We also had quite a few household items.
We also had lots of adult clothes all of which were very nice! Some of the clothes donated still had the price tags on them. Surprisingly, the clothes went over pretty well too which most people don't usually even look at clothes when they are at garage sales. (which tells you how nice the clothes were!)
Thankfully Bekah's aunt lives in Gary, IN, about 15 minutes west of Bekah's parents. On Friday she called at about 2 and told us all of a sudden a storm has blown up, and it was pouring. Luckily we were able to move all the tables together and get them covered as well as get all the large items into the garage before the storm hit!
Garage sale number two was in Mishawaka at Lucas' brother's house, where we are currently living as well. It was the following weekend, and we just took the "left over items" from Bekah's parents house back to Mishawaka with us. (We had pictures of this as well, but they won't load) We were able to make $1600 from the first sale and $300 from the second sale! A total of about $1900 from the two sales, not too shabby! We are thankful and blessed for the dry weather and all the donated items!
We also did our first church visit on this past Sunday to Open Door Fellowship in Kouts, Indiana which is the church that Bekah grew up in. They graciously allowed us to come and share our plans for serving over the next year. It was nice for Bekah to be able to reconnect with people and for Lucas to meet some of the people that Bekah had grown up with. We are very thankful for the opportunity to be able to share and for people to support us through prayer and financially.
We are currently 63% of the way to our goal! We have just under $13,000 left to raise. We are hoping to be at 90% by the beginning of September so we are able to buy our plane tickets and leave in the beginning of November. We are speaking at Bekahs' parent's church and are having a 3 v. 3 soccer tournament at Bethel at the beginning of August. Please pray that both of those fundraisers will go well.
Bekah has been working hard doing most of the fundraising as Lucas is still working full time until we leave. She works at setting up the next event and making sure everything is in order and ready. Bekah is also planning on subbing once school starts in the fall until we leave as well.
Bekah also started French lessons at the beginning of June. There is a lady from Bekahs' parent's church who graciously offered to help. They meet once a week, and then Bekah works on practicing what she learns throughout the rest of the week. It also has been helpful for Lucas because even though he speaks French fairly well, it has been almost 6 years since he has had to use it. So it has been good for him to help Bekah which reminds him of vocabulary that he has not had to use for a while. Anyone who speaks a foreign language knows that it can go away very quickly!
Upcoming Events:
July 14th: Speaking at Crossroads Community Church (Bekahs' parent's church)
August 3rd: 3 v. 3 Soccer for Senegal Tournament at Bethel
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Blessed
We feel very blessed over these past few months as we have started our fundraising. Believe it or not we have only been working at raising support for about 3 months, and we are about 48% of the way to our goal. We can't believe we are almost half way there! It is very exciting, but we still know that we have a long road ahead for raising the second half as the second half is often times more difficult. But we have to keep reminding ourselves that we need to adhere to God's plan, not ours. With that being said, if God wants us to leave at the beginning of November then He will provide money in order to make that happen.
Our cookie bag fundraiser has been a much larger money maker than we ever would have anticipated. We are very thankful for the willingness of Bekah's mom who took the time (which was a lot) to sew all the bags. Both Bekah's mom and Bekah sold cookie bags to the teachers at their schools, and Bekah's Aunt Lynn graciously offered to have us come sell them at her house during her town garage sale. We have currently made about $900 in profit from the cookie bags and are still selling a few!
We had our Nelson's Port-a-Pit this past Saturday. First of all we are very, very thankful and feel blessed yet again because it did not rain. It had called for rain, not just rain but storms, all week long. Bekah checked the weather the morning of our sale, and it said that there was a 60% chance of rain pretty much all day. Needless to say, it did not rain one drop on Saturday, and it was almost sunny a couple of times! We were able to sell all of our pit-a-toes and had about 70 chicken halves left over. Thankfully we found some people to buy the extra chicken halves, and we ended up with hardly any leftover! We were able to make about $900 from our chicken sales! Thanks to those of you who were praying for good weather and came out to buy chicken to support us!
We would like to share a story from our sale on Saturday.
A 5th grade student from Bekah's school came to the sale on Saturday to support us. Her and her mom bought a cookie bag and some chicken. Just as they were leaving, she turned to Bekah and said "Mrs. Grudda, can I just give you money to help?"
Bekah said, "Oh sweetie, you don't have to do that."
She said, "But I want to."
She reached into her little purse and pulled out everything she had in it and handed it to Bekah.
It was a very cool thing to watch and very humbling. It reminded us of the widow in the Bible that gave everything she had. It brought to mind of how the Bible talks about having a "child-like" faith and also how God works in amazing ways through the most unexpected sources.
What's Next?
June 21st-22nd~ Garage Sale @ Bekah's parents house in Chesterton, IN
We are getting items donated from many different people to try sell at the garage sale. If you have anything you would like to donate please let us know and we would love to come pick it up from you! (Within reason, we aren't going to drive to California to pick up a box of things to sell!) But we would be more than willing to take things off your hands if you live slightly more local! Email us at lrgrudda12@gmail.com or call Bekah's cell 765-432-7687.
Please be praying that we have nice weather again on the 21st and 22nd of June!
Our cookie bag fundraiser has been a much larger money maker than we ever would have anticipated. We are very thankful for the willingness of Bekah's mom who took the time (which was a lot) to sew all the bags. Both Bekah's mom and Bekah sold cookie bags to the teachers at their schools, and Bekah's Aunt Lynn graciously offered to have us come sell them at her house during her town garage sale. We have currently made about $900 in profit from the cookie bags and are still selling a few!
We had our Nelson's Port-a-Pit this past Saturday. First of all we are very, very thankful and feel blessed yet again because it did not rain. It had called for rain, not just rain but storms, all week long. Bekah checked the weather the morning of our sale, and it said that there was a 60% chance of rain pretty much all day. Needless to say, it did not rain one drop on Saturday, and it was almost sunny a couple of times! We were able to sell all of our pit-a-toes and had about 70 chicken halves left over. Thankfully we found some people to buy the extra chicken halves, and we ended up with hardly any leftover! We were able to make about $900 from our chicken sales! Thanks to those of you who were praying for good weather and came out to buy chicken to support us!
We would like to share a story from our sale on Saturday.
A 5th grade student from Bekah's school came to the sale on Saturday to support us. Her and her mom bought a cookie bag and some chicken. Just as they were leaving, she turned to Bekah and said "Mrs. Grudda, can I just give you money to help?"
Bekah said, "Oh sweetie, you don't have to do that."
She said, "But I want to."
She reached into her little purse and pulled out everything she had in it and handed it to Bekah.
It was a very cool thing to watch and very humbling. It reminded us of the widow in the Bible that gave everything she had. It brought to mind of how the Bible talks about having a "child-like" faith and also how God works in amazing ways through the most unexpected sources.
What's Next?
June 21st-22nd~ Garage Sale @ Bekah's parents house in Chesterton, IN
We are getting items donated from many different people to try sell at the garage sale. If you have anything you would like to donate please let us know and we would love to come pick it up from you! (Within reason, we aren't going to drive to California to pick up a box of things to sell!) But we would be more than willing to take things off your hands if you live slightly more local! Email us at lrgrudda12@gmail.com or call Bekah's cell 765-432-7687.
Please be praying that we have nice weather again on the 21st and 22nd of June!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Keep the Fundraising Rollin'
First of all, thanks to those of you who participated in our Dribbling to Africa 3-on-3 Tournament and also to those of you who helped make the day run smoothly. Also a special thanks to those of you who even though you weren't able to attend the tournament but committed to pray that the day would run smoothly and that we were able to get teams to sign up! We ended up having a really good turnout. We had 11 futsal, 9 men's basketball, and 7 women's basketball teams. Lucas and I ended up making $802 that will go towards our trip! Praise the Lord!
Chocolate Chip
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk
Snickerdoodles
Oatmeal
Here is a picture of the futsal tournament champs.
Unfortunately, we got all the way to the end of the day, and realized we hadn't really taken any pictures! Neither of us do a great job of taking advantage of when there are opportunities for pictures, but we will try to do a better job in the future!
We have some good news as far as our support raising. We are officially 30% of the way to our goal of $34,200! Our goal is to leave at the end of October or early November. We will have to raise about $4,000 a month through October in order to be able to leave on time. Please pray that our support would continue to come in, fundraisers would go well, and that we are able to set up more fundraisers. Also please pray that we would not get discouraged. Anyone who has had to raise support before know that there are alot of ups and downs which can be very discouraging at times.
Cookie Fundraiser~ Bekah has been busy putting together "cookies in a bag" to sell. Below is a picture of what the bags look like. They include all the dry ingredients. All you have to do is add the wet ingredients. They are $5 for a bag, and it is for such a great cause! We have five different types available:
Email us at lrgrudda12@gmail.com if you are interested in placing an order. Even if you live far away, we could work something out! They also make great great gifts!
Upcoming Events:
June 1: Nelson's Port-a-Pit~
Please pray for good weather and that we are able to sell all the chicken
June 14-15: Garage Sale~
Please pray for good weather again! Also we are trying to get as many items donated as possible, so if you want to get anything off your hands during spring cleaning just let us know!
Thanks so much for your continual prayers and support! We get more and more excited as more support is coming in, and we have to give all the credit to God for providing for us thus far.
Let the Fundraising Begin!
On Saturday, April 13th we are having a 3-on-3 futsal and basketball tournament at Bethel College. We will have both a girls and guys division for you both as long as enough people sign up for each division. It costs $20 to enter a team, and the winning team for each division will recieve $100!
If you are interested in more information, check out the event link below on facebook. Let Lucas or I know if you would like to enter a team!
Dribbling to Africa Tournament
Please be praying specifically for this event. As of right now, we are really struggling to get people to commit to play. We are hoping as the event gets closer that more people will sign up. Also please pray that Lucas and I will trust that God will have this tournament go as He sees fit, not how we "think" it should go, and that we will not get discouraged.
On Saturday, June 1st we will be having a Nelson's Port-a-Pit Chicken sale. Please be praying we will have nice weather for the day, at least that it doesn't rain because that will be huge!
We have some other events that are in the works, and we will be able to focus on getting those events together and nail down dates after the tournament is over because right now that is taking alot of our time and energy. Some of our other ideas are having a garage sale with people donating items, having a silent auction, and some sports camps.
If anyone has any other ideas for fundraisers that work well, please let us know! We are definitely open to new ideas!
Support Update:
We are currently 6% of the way to our goal of $34,200.
Why Senegal?
Alot of people have been asking Lucas and I, why did you guys choose to go to Senegal? Well Lucas and I "officially" started our life long journey together last summer June 16, 2012. While we were dating, we had talked about possibly going overseas together at some point to do missions. After we got married we quickly came to the realization by ourselves and talking with other couples how easy it can be to get sucked into the "American Dream" style of living. Not only by buying the perfect little house, having kids, and keeping up with current technology and the latest styles, but also how after living together for very long and living in the same place, people have the natural human tendency to become comfortable where we are at in our lives and find it even more difficult to leave. We both were determined that we didn't want that to happen to us and started really seeking out and praying about where God would have us. But going overseas actually started to become a reality this past fall in about October. Both Lucas and I have a strong passion to further the kingdom of God and to honor and glorify him in everything we do. Anyone who knows us also knows that we both also love sports. So why not do the best of both worlds?!? Play sports while also being able to build the relationships with people and share Christ!
So this past fall, we began the process of starting to look into opportunities to go serve. We were looking at different opportunties in West Africa to see where God was leading us. He led us to Thies, Senegal where we will be serving and living for a year. As we live in Thies, we will be serving and working with the local Senegalese people, primarily children. We will be working with some of the local churches to build relationships with the Senegalese people. While we are there, we will be trying to set up and run sports camps, tournaments, and possibly coach teams. We are excited to see what God has in store for us, and to see how he will use our talents and abilities in Senegal to honor and glorify Him!
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