Shots, Car Repairs, and More!

This week was full of all sorts of surprises. Some good, some not so good. Thursday we went into Rochester to get some of our shots that are not available in our county and I ended up writing a check that was the equivalence of one of our mortgage payments! The next day our car went into the shop for what we thought were some inexpensive repairs and we ended up making a payment the equivalence of one of Ray's weekly paychecks! Those were NOT good surprises.

Now our checking account has very little in it. I told Ray we should be glad we actually had the money in our account to pay for these things. That is one of the reasons we sold our bed, to help pay for the immunizations we needed (the other reason being that we didn't want to pay for storage for it).

Today we spoke at a church right here in town and were so blessed by their congregation. We were feeling discouraged going into this weekend and the Lord lifted us up. That was a good surprise.

Lastly, during (my) choir rehearsal this evening Miss Anna pulled out tooth number 6 leaving her with a lovely gap in the middle of her mouth. She can now sing the song, 'All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth' and yes she is only 5 years 2.5 months old. That was a fun surprise since that tooth was dangling at an awkward angle that was making Mommy queasy.

Please continue to pray that our house will either sell or that we would find the perfect renters for it. And also continue to pray for our support.

Fall Fun

Before the leaves came down in early September I let the girls have a picnic lunch on the trampoline in their princess tent. The rest of the pictures were a couple of weeks ago when the girls were playing in all of the leaves on the trampoline. They had a blast!

2nd Yard/Porch Sale

Today we had a 2nd yard/porch sale to get rid of our last few pieces of furniture that needed to go. We were able to sell both Ray's and my desks and both Ray's and the girls' dressers along with the remaining rocking chair. The desks and the girls' dresser were very heavy so we had a friend come over early this morning to help Ray carry them outside. There is no way I could have done this. Apparently they had to lift Ray's desk over the upstairs stair railing to get it downstairs and sweat was dripping down Ray's face by the time they got it all the way outside! Thankfully today was in the 50s and though cloudy it was dry.

We know that people are concerned about our lack of furniture but it really isn't that bad. We just owned a ton of furniture to start with. Anytime someone had something they were getting rid of we would volunteer to take it and thus a house full of furniture, some nice, some not so nice. The air mattress we are sleeping on is comfortable, really. The hardest part is actually getting out of bed in the morning and realizing you have to stand up from the floor. Yes, we got rid of two couches and a love seat but we started out with 3 couches and 2 love seats! We had 3 rocking chairs and we had 5 dressers. We collect furniture, what can I say. Someone is throwing out a couch and we go and get it. It may not be in great shape but we stick it on the porch with a blanket covering it's flaws, you get the idea.

Right now we have a couch and a chair sitting out front of our house waiting for garbage day. It is so abused that no one will take it and so we will have to pay for the garbage company to take it away.

We are still waiting to hear back about our house. I really thought two of the families that came through our house last week were interested. I'm not very good at being patient.......

Our support is steadily climbing but not very fast. We are at 45% of our support for our training/airfare and we are at about 19% of our monthly support. We have to be at 75% monthly support to be able to go and live on the Africa Mercy. So there are a few things that have to happen in a short amount of time. Our house has to either sell or we have to find a good renter for it. And we need our monthly support to increase in a very short amount of time.

Please pray with us as we wait upon the Lord. And thank you so much for those of you who are already partnering with us financially and prayerfully. We are so grateful to you and your faithfulness.

Please Pray

We have three different families/individuals coming through our house this week. Two today and one on Friday. We would really appreciate your prayers as we seek God to find the perfect buyer and situation for our house.

The girls and I had the flu for the past two weeks, fever, chills, and the cough that seems to last forever. We finally seem to be past it.......I hope.

We were able to present our future ministry with Mercy Ships at our church this past Sunday during the kick-off for our Mission Conference. We were so blessed by the reception of our church family and we are so encouraged!

We are at 16% monthly support and at about 33% towards our airfare and training. The second number is hard to nail down because we don't know how much our tickets are going to cost. In an act of faith I went ahead and had money transferred as a deposit for our training in January! Lord willing we are leaving in two months and one day!