Another exciting day! We are now just under 25% committed! Although, every single donation is an exciting moment. We've been immensely blessed with all the people who have given money toward our move. It's truly blown us away! We are amazed at the generosity of those we know and even some we don't! God has given us such wonderful people in our lives, and it's evident by the fact that after only a few short months we are now at this point of having a quarter of our funds given.

This leaves us about 20 weeks to raise the remainder of the funds if we want to leave by our goal date of the first of the year. That's about $1,800 a week we have to raise until the end of the year! A pretty daunting task, indeed! Your continued prayer is appreciated and badly needed if we are to meet this goal. We believe that God wants us to minister to his people in Guinea and therefore we believe he will gladly provide for us.

We will be having a fundraiser in 2 weeks. We would love it if any of you who lived locally would come, enjoy food, and some entertainment. And we do think it'll be entertaining.

Why?

Well, because we are having a Weight-lift-a-thon! A handful of brave participants will be featured in events that will test their physical strength [and hopefully raise us some money!] We'll be looking for people to pledge money toward a contestant that they think can outlift, out push up and out perform the others; such as $1 a push up or $1 a pound! There will also be events open for people to try their strength at just for fun. We're pretty "pumped" about this idea!

The event will take place at 55907 East Avenue, Mishawaka, IN at 6:30. With a donation, food and beverages will be provided. We're hoping for a good turnout and are positive of a good, entertaining time! If you're in the area, please stop by. If you have questions you can contact Hannah at hannahgrudda@gmail.com

God Bless!

We've hit our first mile marker... we are at 10% committed/donated! And all this has happened in just a few short weeks since we began our fundraising campaign.

This is for us, even more confirmation that we are headed in the right direction. We are thankful that God has placed such generous, wonderful people in our lives. Thank you for believing in our cause!

It seems many of you have already been on here and checked out our story! That makes us very excited! We're full swing into our fundraising now. Letters have been sent, and fundraising event ideas are in motion!

We wanted to include a link to WorldVenture's website, which enables online donation. If that is an easier method for you, you may go here for Monthly Commitment or here for a One Time Gift.

Again, thank you for being involved in our lives, and being willing and eager to partner with us. It makes our hearts smile!

If you need to contact us for any reason, any questions, or words of encouragement, feel free to send us an email.

Hi! We are Brandon and Hannah Grudda (And that cute furry thing is Fenley, our dog). We are getting ready to embark on one of the biggest journeys for us so far: moving to Guinea, Africa. Where?

Hopefully that helps! Anyway... We're excited to join WorldVenture's Business as Missions program (or BAM for short). You can check out more about what they do here. The plan is to spend one year in Guinea, helping Africans to start businesses. This not only improves the economic climate in Africa, it also opens up doors to build relationships, share the Gospel and minister. We believe that everyone has been blessed with specific talents and ambitions, but how frustrating it must be to have to no way to use those talents or no resources to put into fruition the dreams you have. Business as Missions is a great way to help those without these resources. We like the idea of giving people an opportunity to live up the potential that is boiling up within them.

So how did we get to this point? Well, back in 2011 our church preached a series on Luke 19, detailing the parable of the minas: a story about a master and his ten servants. Each servant was given a mina, a form of currency, to work with. Some of the servants invested the minas and their investment multiplied; others hid them, out of fear of the master's response. To those that hid their mina, it was taken away. We have begun to view our skills and education as such: we must use and invest what God has so richly blessed us with. We don't want to hide it away, or worse yet, have them taken!

Check back often to the blog for updates on how our fundraising is going and other progress we are making toward our adventure. Then... stay tuned for updates from Africa!