When We Are Coming Home

As our stomachs are finally settling from our 2 week journey around Guinea with limited control over our diets and no control over the road conditions, we’re already looking towards our return to the US.

We’ve begun more earnestly asking God what’s next for us. Honestly, it’s a little frightening, because we’d almost prefer to say, “All right, we did our time, we think we deserve to live in comfort and be with our friends now. You’re welcome, God.” But we do believe that God’s plan for us will always be better and more exciting than our own. It has been eye-opening to see not only ministries here, but to see/read/hear about voids and problems and hurts all over our world. Sadly, the solutions seem so slow and complex.

WorldVenture graciously and strategically broke protocol in letting us leave for Guinea without being fully supported. This would allow us better overlap with our target group of students and professors and we’ve already seen that strategy pay off. The idea was: Go now, and stay until you run out of money.

This may seem like a lot of money, but in Guinea the exchange rates is 7000 Guinea Franc for ever $1 USD.

Despite our frugal lifestyle (we spent $75 on food in January-do that math: $1.25/person/day) the “run out of money” part is approaching. Despite being eager to get home, we also want to stay here as long as possible. We have enough money to last us through the end of March and plan to pay for April out of our personal funds. 

As we try to balance between trusting God and being responsible, we feel confident that we can handle this. God provided someone to live in our house so we only have to pay half our mortgage while we’re gone. God provided someone to watch Fenley (our dog) for free until we return (we kept his papers to make sure we get him back). He gave us money through ZipAfrica bags, a benefit concert, our work, cold calls, a weightlift-a-thon, garage sales, odd jobs, and many of you: our close friends.

We’re going to trust Him to provide what we need cover the rest of our mortgage when we return, to get Fenley back, hold us over until Brandon returns to Global (whose offer of a job was another God-send) and Hannah finds work, and to cover our costs of living here. Guinea ministry money, personal money…it’s all God’s money right?

Maybe you have a desire to be a part of God’s plan to fill those needs both here and in Indiana. There’s an easy, tax-deductible way in that gray button right over there >>>.