Tuesday, June 5, 2012

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!

6 comments:

  1. \0/ GREAT!!! We have friends there in Kan Kan(Nathan and Becky Kendall). We will be praying for you as you prepare to go.
    Blessings,
    Debra and Pete McClurkin (WorldVenture Senegal)

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    1. Thank you for your prayer! We will actually be working with the Kendalls while there.

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  2. You should post a way to follow this blog =)

    Sasha Roper (WorldVenture Senegal mk, was in the same class as Austin)

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    1. Blog design has been updated (This one's a lot better, don't you agree?) :)

      There's a link on the right hand side now. Put in your email address and recieve updates. Thanks for the reminder to add that in!

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  3. Excited for you; I hadn't heard about this WV business thingy. :-) Very interesting!

    I went to ICA with Bill Grudda (2 years younger!) and we have a picture of him in the group (with some Slaters and a Mills) at my second birthday party, which we celebrated in Torogo. So we go WAYYYY back, tho we are just in touch thru their prayer letters now.

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    1. Wonderful! Thanks for checking out our blog. We're very excited to head to Africa and be third generation Gruddas to be missionaries there!

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