April Report

Hello Again!

After spending March hyper-focused on fundraising, it was nice to relax in April and think about other things for a while.  As mentioned in my last post, I have updated the blog-site with a new look and a new name so for all you "Eating for Africa" subscribers, please don't spam me when you see the new name "Go Bondo 2010".

April was BUSY!  We started the month by celebrating Easter then a couple of weeks later, I had a birthday.  I tried to ignore it and honestly kept forgetting it was even coming, but my loving friends and family kept reminding me that yes, I'm another year older!  The family took me out to eat and blessed me with an awesome gift that we have all been enjoying...a Vitamix blender.  Yes, I wanted it for health reasons, but it sure makes a mean milk-shake! 

Five days after the birthday, Dave and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary.  It was a low-key celebration this year and had it not been for dear friends cooking us dinner that night, we probably wouldn't have done much at all.  Now before you start scolding us for letting the romance fizzle, we had spent a very active weekend just prior to the anniversary eating out, seeing movies, etc.  I am so blessed to have Dave in my life.  He is my best friend and it is great living life with him!

Soon after our anniversary, I had the pleasure of attending a Beth Moore workshop with my Mom.  It was really great to study God's Word with my her.  It was a new experience for us and it was so wonderful!  Another fun dynamic of that weekend was that I got to road-trip up there with a girlfriend of mine so that was a ton of fun too.

Yet despite all this fun stuff, the event that has most captured my attention during April was the open heart surgery of Chrissie Patterson [click on her button to link to her story].  Chrissie is the 4 year old daughter of our friends, Matt and Lorraine Patterson.  She was adopted from Serbia and has major heart defects that I won't even begin to explain well.  The Patterson family has been an inspiration to many people this month by sharing very honestly the struggles they have endured with Chrissie's health via their blog.  Most inspiring is how God has been showing His presence each and every day of this ordeal.  Along with many others, I have been praying for Chrissie and it has been awesome to see how God has answered those prayers.  Please take the time to visit Lorraine's blog [again, Chrissie's button found on the right side of this page will link you to it], scroll back to April 19th and check out the story for yourself.

Now May is upon us and once again I must turn my focus to our upcoming trip.  Please pray for our team that we would be spiritually prepared for the work God has for us.  Please also pray for God's continued provision in financing the physical church building and all the team expenses.

A special shout-out of thanks to all of you who have shown support for our trip.  I am blown away your generosity and friendship and hope to one day return the favor to you.  FYI, we only have one month to go for getting our airline ticket money turned in.  So far we are about $1,000 away from airline tickets and an additional $3,000 from being completely financed for in-country expenses.  We need your prayers that Dave and I will be able to discern what else we can or should do to raise more of our funds. 

That's it for now.  Just wanted to let all of you know that I hadn't abandoned the blog, April was just a very full month.

Hoping your May is outstanding!

- Julie