Lesotho Living

Hello friends,
We are happy to report that we are settling in more and more each day here in Lesotho. Getting around in our car, buying groceries, getting phones and internet and adjusting to the language and Basotho way are more and more familiar to us.
The weather is unbelievably beautiful. Consistently sunny and blue skies, between 80 and 90 degrees, no humidity and cooling down considerably at night.
We enjoyed getting together with staff and volunteers on Tuesday night for a Bible Study and discussion. It was good.
We also came together as a BG family to watch online the funeral of a young man from Haven. Such a heartbreaking time but good for us to be a part of that and spend time in prayer for the family.
Yesterday one of the volunteers who has been to BG several times before and heads up mission teams, took Grace and I (Karen) out for an adventure discovering a neighboring cultural village. It was quite a beautiful drive through some mountainous areas and we enjoyed exploring the village. On the way home however, our car broke down. A radiator hose had come detached (which we didn't know..just thought there was a leak) and we were losing fluid rapidly. Thankfully our guide Jenny, had 5 liters of water along in the car so we poured that into the radiator and prayed that we would make the 20 mile drive back to our home up and down hills. It was a little stressful at times but we made it! So now I can say I've had my first adventure in the hills of Lesotho!
Grace started right into her job at the baby house the day we arrived and has been loving it as she did last year. She spent some time hanging out with the worship team from church last night and we invited some BG volunteers to our home for a game night on Friday which are all very important times of community. We have realized that our BG community is our family and we will be relying on them for those connections that are missing when so far from home.
Ron and my jobs began today. I was in training and went to my first managers meeting and Ron spent time studying in the chapel where all good pastors go to study. :)
We attended the local church yesterday. The service is spoken in English with familiar praise songs and everything! Worshiping with these people was such a joy. God is real and alive and well in Lesotho!
In between our work duties there are always opportunities to play with the children and provide one on one interaction with them. Always a joy!
Thank you again for your love and prayers and support. We need them and can feel them.
Until next time,
Ron and Karen

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness. "  Lam 3:22-23

PS. Pictures coming!

Today Life Changes

    Today life changes. We have been thinking about this day in some way since mid April of last year. After our two weeks at Beautiful Gate God has been leading us to take this next step...(he's actually been leading us for a long time now) So to follow Him we knew what was in store. Following meant quitting our jobs, selling our house, raising our own support and beginning to say goodbye's to family and friends for a while. And although none of those things have been easy or simple, one thing we know for sure is that God has been clearly orchestrating every aspect of these last nine months.
    Nine months...the time that it takes for a new life to be conceived, developed and birthed. And just like a pregnancy you have a pretty good idea of what those nine months will hold. It's what happens once there is new life that is very uncertain. Taking this next step will be quite a bit different. While we know on some level what we will be doing, we really aren't sure what God has in store for us. But in the same way that trusted God to bring us to this point, we will continue to trust him and follow him and and listen for his voice that was so clearly speaking to us along the way.
   So we look forward to what lies ahead and we have been humbled by the love and support and generosity of you who have been playing a major part in God's story that is being written in our lives. On behalf of my wife and daughter I want to thank you for walking with us on this journey and we look forward to how God will use willing hearts to further His Kingdom...the hearts of those who say yes to a "big' call and go, as well as those that say yes to committing to support and encourage and prayer, being called to send. May God's Glory be revealed through all who follow Him!
   
   

God Continues to Provide

God never ceases to amaze us!
    From the moment we made the decision to follow God's leading to serve at Beautiful Gate, God has been paving the way, and in a way that only He could orchestrate.

    And now we are happy to announce that we have sold our house! Praise the Lord!
We have never doubted that God would work everything out for us to be able to move to Lesotho...although there were times when it was difficult to discern what He was doing. From the beginning of listing our house for sale by owner we were always given hope and encouragement that He had a way to make the house sell. From the woman who walked through the neighborhood and knocked on the door across the street from us wanting to move into this area to the many people who went through our house and had the same time-line for moving in as we had for moving out, God kept showing us ways that it could work. And now a wonderful young couple will be moving and starting their family here much the the same as we did 24 years ago.
God has continued to provide and has provided everything at just the right time.

A prayer request for the closing of the house:
    The bank has requested that the closing happen before we leave, so we are praying that all of those details get finalized in the next couple of weeks.
    We are also so thankful that the funds keep coming in....thank you so very much for your partnership in this mission. Saying thank you just seems inadequate! Hopefully when you see the fruit of God's hand at Beautiful Gate; that will convey our gratitude more adequately!
Also, Bryan and Anita have found us a house that is fully furnished! And complete with a dog! (Karen loves that!) So grateful for God's provision in a house too!
They have also found us a car that we have agreed to purchase! Praising God for that as well!

In summary:
We have sold our house
We have a house ready for us when we arrive
We have furnishings for our house
We have a car
We have a dog :)
We have funding for the first year and commitments for more than half of the second year!
What a God.....what provision!
His amazing provision at exactly the right time confirms for us this calling and we are so humbled and grateful!

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,

“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
(2 Corinthians 9:8-11 ESV)

In gratitude to Him who has called us and to you His people,
Ron, Karen and Grace

DEPARTURE DATE...CHECK!

Well, we finally have our departure date!
We've purchased our tickets and will be leaving Jan. 31!!!
Praises:
~We have the funding needed for the first year and part of the second is committed.
~We have the green light from Beautiful Gate that they are ready for us.
~ And we have an offer on our home!
So the packing and the farewells begin. My last day at Talsma Furniture was Dec.24 so thankfully I will have plenty of time for these things. Ron will be finished at work on Jan.16 and Grace will continue with her part time jobs until the week before we leave.
We enjoyed the Christmas season with extended family and our parents which were treasured times. And we were so happy to be able to spend our last Christmas on Van Raalte with our precious children and grandson. We had such a wonderful, memorable time. Those times will surely be missed.
Prayer requests:
~For our children and family members we will be leaving behind
~For the goodbyes...already have had a few...harder than we thought :(
As we look forward, we continue to trust in God's provision in all ways. We were called to this mission and believe God will equip and provide for that calling...and He already has!
Philippians 4:19
"But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory which are in Christ Jesus."
Thank you again for your financial and prayer support, without which none of this would be possible.

Love and Blessings

YEP, EVEN WHEN WE CANNOT SEE!

God has certainly been moving!.... In ways we can see and in ways we cannot see!  We can see God working and are always encouraged by that. And we are also finding out as time goes by that there have been many things happening behind the scenes that we cannot see that amaze us and quickly cause us to be in awe of our great provider. The old hymn speaks truth: God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
We are thankful to announce that we have our first year funded!
Thank you to those whose gifts have made this first goal possible ...you are a part of this amazing story and the furthering of His kingdom! We cannot express enough the gratitude we feel towards your generous hearts. We are truly humbled.
The next step now for us is to finalize the sale of our home. We have some options we are working on with the bank and our realtor and are hopeful we will be able to work out something that would allow us to leave soon!
Our goal is to leave around the end of January if all works out with our house and also our housing in Lesotho. As of right now there are some great possibilities. But again, as challenging as it is to do; we trust God and His timing.
Praises:
~Funding for the first year is in place
~People are coming forward to help before we even ask
~We are in training to 'wait on the Lord'
~We get to spend our last Christmas in the house with our kids and grandson
Needs:
~Large suitcases. (We have plenty of carry on size) We are fine with used suitcases and we continue to  check thrift stores for them.
~Prayers as we start to make final preparations and say our good-bye's

Thank you so much friends and family for your love, encouragement and support!
Hopefully our next blog post will have a definite departure date included!

He Is Always Moving Even When We Cannot See

It has been a little while since our last blog post. In ways a lot has happened and in other ways not much has happened since then.
This journey so far could be described as a roller coaster ride, with many high points and many low points. For me personally, I have a hard time not letting my emotions get the best of me. Trusting is hard.
But all in all, God has proven to be faithful and true to His promises. He encourages when we need encouragement and gives guidance and leading when we don't know which way to turn.
I am happy to report that God is blessing the fundraising efforts and the goal is getting a bit closer.
We enjoyed a beautiful benefit concert on Saturday night listening to some very talented people and experiencing the blessing of family and friends. The prayer time, the encouragement, the emotional and financial support were amazing. What sweet fellowship! Thank you to all who came and helped make that night possible, we were truly blessed!
Our church also blessed us on Sunday by taking an offering on our behalf..wow! God provides! Thank you Haven family!
Also our deep gratitude to those who have sent gifts to AFBGI already....it is making a difference, thank you!
Updates:
1. Our desire is to leave mid January but need more funded to be able to purchase our tickets and set the date.
2. The interest in the house stays consistent but as of yet, no offers. There are things brewing under the surface and we sense the Spirit's working here, just praying for discernment on what direction to go.
Prayer requests:
1. That we not get discouraged when we don't see things happening.
2. For discernment. We hear many voices and sense many things but we are not always sure what God is saying through those things and if it's even Him saying them.
3. For the funding to be there so we can set a date. We are excited and want to go soon!
We praise God for His moving and for His provision and we want to continue to give Him the glory in all of this!
Thank you so very much for your love and support. We will talk again soon!
Karen

Mission Impossible

   When we (Karen and Ron) came back from our two week trip to Beautiful Gate in April we immediately started to talk about going back someday. Why not use our vacation time next year to go and serve again? But this time just the two of us to try and spend some focused time using our gifts. Our thoughts quickly went to staying for a longer amount of time. What if instead of two weeks we went for a month? The ticket price would still be the same, food wouldn't cost that much more, we could probably even get that time off work. That sounded great! More time serving the kids and working with the staff and a bigger percentage of our time actually on the ground and not in the air. Wait!!! What if?...
   Wouldn't it be great if we could go for three months?! Or even six months?! Oh, that's right... we have jobs. And we have a house. You can't just pack up and go to the other side of the world when you have a mortgage that needs to be paid, which means earning money to pay the mortgage. But there was something stirring in us that kept us asking those questions. The fact of the matter was the stirring had been there for quite some time already. It was several years earlier that God seemed to be calling us to the ministry. I (Ron) started taking seminary classes at the Christian Leaders Institute. We figured that I would end up serving in a church somewhere (hopefully local) as an assistant pastor or some secondary pastor type of position. It was not really on my radar to be a missionary, but to be honest I didn't know where this would all end up. What I did know was that God was preparing us for something beyond what our normal lives consisted of.
   So back to those questions. How long should we consider going for? And what would it take to go for more than a month? We began to have conversations with people. We skyped with Bryan and Anita the directors of Beautiful Gate and told them where we were at in our thinking and some of gifts and abilities. They were very open to the idea of us coming back. They always like it when people have a desire to come and serve. We also had a conversation with a couple from our church that actually went for five months. That was very helpful for us to hear that it could be done...they were (and still are) great encouragers of ours.
   But the questions kept coming to our minds and hearts... how long should we go for? We continued to ask ourselves questions about what that would mean in our situation and sought out answers and direction from God. So with more prayer and further conversation with Beautiful Gate it became very clear that God was calling us to serve there. In fact we made a commitment to serve for a minimum of two years. Two years?! That means we quit our jobs and we need to sell our house right? Not to mention leaving our family and friends. But, we wouldn't be the first couple to make this decision and do something like this.
   There is one big problem though...we are upside down in our house. No, we don't walk on the ceiling! We owe more than what the house is worth in the current market. That could be a problem. Actually it sounds almost impossible. But when we started to go down the path of serving as missionaries we knew that selling our house was going to be basically impossible from a conventional standpoint. The whole idea kind of felt like Peter walking on water. It cannot be done! You can't expect to step out of a boat and put your feet ON the water and stay on top! It's crazy to think you can...it defies logic and reason...it's impossible!! Except of course if Jesus tells you to do it. And you know what... Peter did it! Because Jesus called him out of the boat.
   We believe that since God has called us to do this, whatever needs to happen to fulfill the calling IS going to happen. Whether it's the house or the fundraising or the time frame we believe we will be there, all of it is possible because Jesus said to take this step. Actually there plenty of stories in the Bible about God doing the impossible in people's lives. Like Moses and the Isrealites standing at the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army closing in; or Abram and Sarai who were told they would have children in their old age; people like David facing Goliath or Daniels three friends, Gideon and on and on the list goes.
   But just like Peter looking at the waves and getting fearful, or Abram and Sarai coming to a point of wondering and impatience, we recently found ourselves fearing the circumstance we were in and becoming less patient to let God do it all. We tried taking matters in our own hands, against what we were convicted God would do, and in a matter of a couple days our peace in the decision was gone. The lack of peace was so great that it was starting to physically overwhelm me. It was time for prayer...desperate prayer, fervent prayer...a concert of prayer! We immediately called our prayer team. What came about after a beautiful Sunday night at church and an hour in prayer after was a complete restoration of the peace we had lost and the confidence to move forward with our original conviction that God has everything taken care of. We are again on the path where God gets all the glory because it will be His plan that is fulfilled.
   And as soon as we recommitted to what he called us to He began to bring back hope in amazing ways. So even though our house isn't sold yet and we have a long way to go on fundraising, we are looking forward with a hopeful, confident expectation of what God is about to do. And... because this is all God purpose and plan, and because it all rests in His hands...It really ISN'T IMPOSSIBLE at all!!