Exciting News

Yesterday I was commended by my church, Northside Bible Fellowship. Basically what this means is that they support my decision to go to South Africa and will be accountable to me just as I will be accountable to them. They will support me both financially and in prayer. Northside has set me up with a prayer partner and expect me to keep them up to date with what's happening in my life in regards to South Africa. At first the reason I was getting commended was so that there would be a way for Canadians to donate to me through Northside and still get a tax receipt since I'm going to South Africa with an American organization, but now it's grown into something much more meaningful. When this whole process first started I googled what it meant to be commended by the church and this was one of the coolest descriptions:

 A commending, which is distinct from ordination to church office, is the solemn recognition of a person as set apart for a particular work of ministry.

I believe that in this description they are talking about commissioning a pastor rather than commending a 'missionary' but it still stuck in my mind. I like the idea of being 'set apart' for something specific. I don't know if I'll be a full time missionary when I get older or not but I believe that all of us are 'set apart' for work in ministry where ever we are, whether that means going overseas or simply going to the office. Everyday we can be ambassadors for Christ representing him in the way we live our lives.

Some more exciting news is that I might have a good friend coming with me to South Africa! She is still in the application process and has run into some difficulties already but hopefully she'll be able to come as well. That would be so amazing. Though I'm fine with going by myself it's always nice to have something familiar with you, that and this friend is such a blessing to my life it would be magnificent if we could share this experience together.

So I know that I'm not following the normal two question format but I really can't think of anymore questions so I'm going for a new format. I will still have questions each entry but they may end up being the same questions each time, so here they are:

1. How far away are you from your goal?
Well, physically I'm 15732.6 km away from South Africa. Financially I'm $2,173 away for my goal. Compared to the original amount it seems small but it's still a lot money left to raise. If I had 217, 300 more pennies I could reach South Africa financially. physically it would take around 82,803,160 pennies laid out flat to get from here to South Africa.

2. How can I pray for you?
Some prayer request would be:

• That my yard sale on May 4th would be successful in raising funds
• That my friend will be able to come with to South Africa as well
• That the team that ends up going to South Africa bonds really when and is unified.  

Well, that's all folks. More to come I'm sure, just stay tuned in.

The April Addition

Well, I'm not sure what other question I could answer. I think I've covered my 5 Ws so I just I'll just come up with a question...Okay I've got one or two.

5. What are you going to do after your trip?

I will be getting back from my trip in December 2013. I plan to work until summer then I'm open to anything. I've always thought that I would become a nurse but now I'm not so sure. I dream of mine would be to do the COLTS program at Crowsnest Lake Bible Camp next summer, but again I'm not sure. It's God's call, not mine and right now I'm don't really feel that He's pulling me in any one direction. To answer the question, after my trip to South Africa I plan to work and then go into college or university for some program and maybe do the COLTS program in between.

6. Tell us about how you're preparing for this trip? (but feel free to go off on random tangents)

At the moment most of my preparation for this trip consists of raising money and praying. At first my big income was people buying my crafts but now that has died down so my main income for this trip consists of babysitting money as well as my salary from my job at Target. I have also applied for a summer job at a camp which I'm really excited for assuming I get the job. Another (hopefully) big source of income will be from the yard sale I'll be having in May, which I am also excited for. As for prayer, I'm praying for anything and everything for this trip, mostly I've been praying for unity in the team that is going. I've been on a missions trips where there was discord between some of the team members. I found it was really hard to show God's love when there was little love within the team. I've also been praying for the families we'll be staying with and the people we'll meet and so many other things.

There we have it. Two more questions finished. But I'm seriously running out of questions, I don't know what you guys want to know about (assuming anyone is really reading this) So let me know if you have a question for me no matter how random.