The Luggage Monster!

Here is a picture of the kids with all the luggage!  Be scared, very, very scared!

We have been weighing and moving items from bag to bag all day and each of the 13 bags weighs 49.8 lbs to 50.2!  We just loaded 1/2 of it into the car and moved it down to the Jim's sister's house.  Lucky them!

We leave here on Monday the 10th.  It is almost here and very surreal!

There still is a lot of cleaning and packing to do.  Please pray for us and come out to help at the moving day (Sat the 8th at 10am)!

Jullie T.

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.