In the Thick of Getting Ready

Well, we are in the thick of it now!  Getting ready to move sure does make for a messy house!  But that just means that I don't need to clean it (for now)!
We have had some major milestones accomplished in the last week or so:

1. Meeko was transported to his new place up in Petosky - Thank you Lord for good weather!
2. Daisy has found a wonderful home down near Jim's parents with a lady and Nibbler (her other dog that is crazy in love with his new girlfriend)!
3. Doodle has found a great home with a friend from church and their 2 other dogs.  She fit right into the pack.

Christmas is almost upon us.  I hope you are all enjoying the time spent with family.  We sure are (Mom is here, but not feeling well so please pray for her).  We want to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and great celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Jullie T.

Dec 12 - "Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...."

     Today we got our first big snow of the year.  There were 6-8 inches when we got up this morning and it was heavy!  Jim shoveled the porch and then had Trevor do the sidewalk (it's good to have a useful child)!  We made it to church this morning, but are now encamped in the house and plan on making cookies and getting some things done to progress the move.  Life is good!
    We have scheduled a "Moving Day" for January 8th, and are looking for some abled body help.  If you think you might be able to come, please let us know.  We will start around 10:00 (get here earlier if you want some good coffee)!  We will need to move some furniture and boxes to the upper level of the garage.  It should not take too long if we can get a few bodies to help.  We will throw on some hamburgers or brats when we are done.  So don't worry - you will not go hungry!
   Love to you all!
Jullie T.

WE ARE ON OUR WAY!

What an amazing day!  It is Dec 1st and we are on our way.  Today we rented the house to a wonderful family. They will move in sometime later.  We feel blessed by them and I hope they by us.  We also purchased our tickets to Nairobi today (non-refundable)!  So it is a done deal!  We get back from Colorado on Jan 22nd, celebrate Timothy's birthday on the 23rd, do laundry on the 24th and leave on the 25th.  It feels very cemented now.  We still need a home for Doodle though.  You can see her Bio on the "animals" page.  Please ask all your friends and family if they need a great dog for a few years.  We also need to finish our fundraising.  But it is coming together with the help of all of you.  We feel blessed!  And we need to pack up the house and pack our few bags.  Now, I can do what I can do and God will do the rest, as Psalms 86:10 says "For you are great and do wonderous things; You alone are God."  We sure have seen that happen in the last few months.
Thank you for all of your prayers! 
WE ARE ON OUR WAY!

Jullie T.

Giving Thanks

We are so thankful for all God has done in the last few months of our lives.  We have seen amazing things happen:
We have a wonderful family that wants to rent our house.
We are close to our goal for financing due to some amazing friends and family.
We have most of the animals new homes (Doodle still needs a great home).
We have our tickets to Colorado Springs for training.
We are close to buying our tickets to Nairobi.  (I need to make sure we are within 12 months of returning to meet the requirements).  We plan on coming home for Christmas next year.

I just wanted to let you all know, that it looks like we will be here till Jan 10th.  Then we will fly out of Detroit on the 12th to go to Colorado Springs.  We will be back in Flint on the 22nd, celebrate Timothy's 10th birthday on the 23rd and fly to Nairobi on the 25th. So, details are coming together!   Please pray as we get closer!  There are still so many things to sort out.

Thanks to you all.  I know there are so many things to be thankful for in all of your lives.  This is the time of year that we really focus on thankfulness, but just look at your life everday.  There are things that you can be thankful for all the time!
LOL
Jullie T.

This is a picture of us at the football game in Evart watching Trevor play in the Band

I am thankful for my amazing Family!

(Sallie, Me, Timothy, Mom, Angie, George (significant other!)) I guess Jim took the picture!

11 November 2010, Seven Weeks and Counting

GOD continues to show his grace and blessings as we move forward.  We have had so many wonderful people support us both in prayer and in finances it is amazing.  We are now at 85% funding and only have about 800/month to raise to be fully funded for the first year and 1/3 into the second year.  We trust GOD is going to finish what he has started so we are now comfortable with purchasing our plane tickets to Nairobi for the end of January knowing that we won't have to change the flight dates.  We still have a family interested in renting the house to we are praying that the rental works out.  A couple weeks ago we spoke at Ainsworth Baptist Church about our mission and needs, and found a potential home for Doodle.  We will do a trial run at this home in a couple weeks. 
As Jullie and I are reading books on long term mission trips and crossing cultures into the African Culture, we are learning that we have a lot to learn.  This is so far beyond what he have experienced living in La Maddalena Italy and Stuttgart Germany.  We spend at least one night a week in "Kenya Family Meeting Night".  This is when we discuss, as a family, the cultural differences in how we do things in day-to-day living and how the people of Africa do them.   We are all excited at the prospect of being with the local Kenyans and other missionaries there in Kijabe and doing GOD's work.  We know that there will be difficult times and joyous times.  We are learning the importance to embrace the culture and not shy away from it.  The kids are learning Swahili every day.  Jullie is a wonderful teacher.  I on the other hand still have a problem with foreign languages. In fact, English is a second language to me (or so Jullie states). 

A friend, Alicia Ventura who was part of the EMI team on our design trip to Kijabe Hospital in May, made this video.  It is very warming and gives you a bit of the sense of what Jullie and I experienced on our two weeks in Kijabe.  Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07koJ5-L6ZU

Things are Moving Along!

Hey All,
Thanks so much for following our journey!  We have had a few good weeks.  We went to a wonderful, welcoming church in Flint last week end - the Ainsworth Baptist Church.  We told our story and the people there were so encouraging!  It was such a small church, but the love of the Lord there was amazing.  If you are ever in Flint and need a great church to go to, this is the one!

We are still moving forward with fundraising and renting the house.  Neither is complete yet, so please keep us in your prayers.

We have decided to take the kids with us when we go to Colorado Springs this January.  Tim and Nancy Marburger (our great friends from Germany) have offered to host us (OK - we had to talk them into it!) But it is going to happen!  We are going to try and ski just one day, and then attend the training that is required before we leave for Nairobi.  It will be a blast!

Please keep us in your prayers! 
In His Hands,
Jullie T.

Trudging on with Fundraising and House Renter hunting

Hello All,

We are trying to move foward with the fundraising and finding someone to rent our home.
We have sent out over 200 letters to family and friends asking for support.  It's a great opportunity for people to "live through us vicariously" in our trip!  Please pray that we will be successful.  We plan on visiting some churches of friends and family to present what we are doing and hopefully raise some support that way too.
We are also getting into the thick of things with getting the house rented.  Jullie has lost 2 weeks with being in the hopital and recovering.  So, she is hitting the pavement this week to talk to real estate/property management people.  Please pray that that will also be successful.
Set back for the week:  The home we had arranged for Doodle is no longer available.  Please pray that we will find a good home for her while we are gone.
I am adding a video of the house on the "house for rent" tab today.  You can go and see what the inside of the house looks like.

I can not believe that it is almost October.  Time is moving rather quickly!   The trees here are looking beautiful!  But, that means January is coming up fast.  We need your prayers please.  I am trying to not stress knowing that God has it all worked out.  I am not very good at that!

Take Care,
Jullie T.

We Have an EMI Account Number!

We finally have an EMI account number and can move forward with our fund raising - Yea!
I will put a "Donate" heading at the top of the page so that people can link directly to EMI.  We are so thankful that our Navy pension will be going to support us on this, God's mission.  But we do need additional monthly support in order to make this happen.  We have about 3 months left before we leave in January, so we need to let this be in God's hands to make it happen.  Jim is going to drop most of the incoming AHC jobs (at least down to 2 days a week) and devote 3 days a week to fundraising.
Please pray for us and if you feel lead, go to the "Donate" page to help us financially.

This week has been tough for other reasons.  Jullie had a small surgical procedure that went wrong and is now layed up for a while.  Please pray for quick healing so that she will be back in the "running" soon!

Our Next Biggest Hurdle

Things are moving forward a bit.  We had a successful yard sale last Thurs and Friday (thank you JC and Sandy for use of your yard)!  Trevor got his shots last week (ouch)!  Timothy and Sallie go for their's this week - here come the tears.  School starts this week also.  I can not believe that is already here! 

But, what I really need to move on is getting the house for rent.  By the end of the week, I will have a video posted of the inside of the house (it is way to messy right now to take that video)!  Then I will be going to every agency I can find to let them know what I have.  Please pray that this will happen with in the next 2 weeks so that we can actually start looking for the wonderful family that will be moving in here.  I know they are out there, and God knows it too.  I sometimes think He is up there laughing at the way I worry about these things, knowing that He has it all figured out and I will realize that at some point.

Please pray for us this week that we will get the things done to move forward in renting the house.
Thank you for all your love and support!

Jullie T.

We have submitted our Finances! And I can breath!

We have given over our budget and sponsor letter for approval to the office in Colorado Springs.  We are "patiently" waiting for approval to come back.  After this, we will be able to get an account number and officially start raising funds!  When this happens, we will put a heading on the main page here with a direct link to donations.  That way, people can go directly to the EMI (Engineering Ministries International) site and donate through them (tax free!).  This will be a big next step for us.  Essentially, Phase II.  But, it will be a lot of praying and work to get through Phase II  !
About being able to breath:  I have just this week, found some potential homes for Riley, Meeko and Doodle!  It is so good to have hope and be able to breath again!
PS - Today is our Anniversary - 24 blissfull years! (if you believe that, I have a bridge!)  But we had a wonderful day full of soccer, and more soccer and some shrimp scampi and creme brulee (thanks to Trevor!)

We have Been Accepted!

We have been officially accepted by EMI - Yea!  Our term will start on Jan 1.  Now comes the fun part:  we need to get our budget approved and start raising the necessary funds.  Not sure how all this will play out.  We are all in His hands!

Moving To Kenya!

Hello All,
Well, we have made the decision to move to Kenya.  We are going to Kijabe, Kenya to help with the construction of an extension on a Hospital.  It will be a new experience for us!  We are used to working on Nuclear Power plants, not kid's wards! 
We are all very excited.  The kids are going to go to Rift Valley Academy (http://www.rva.org/).  It is an amazing school.  A great book to read (or site to visit) to learn more about living there is http://www.yourpal-steve.org/
It was written by a man named Steve Peifer that has been living and working at the school since 2000 ish.
We will be going with EMI (Engineering Ministries International) (http://www.emiworld.org/)  We are waiting for our official approval letter.  After that, we will be focusing on raising the funds to be able to go.
Please check in often as I will try to post many of the trials and tribulations of this adventure!