In Preparation & Prayer...

I've been asking God to prepare my heart for this upcoming ministry trip and these are the concerns I'm asking about:

- To have compassion for everyone I'll be interacting with.
- To see people through God's eyes.
- To not be desensitized to the conditions of what I will be seeing.
- To not have fear when sharing the Gospel, but solely rely on God to work through my weaknesses and fears.
- To not be so quick to offer up solutions when I see them (and offend others in doing so).
- To be mindful and observe their culture without offending.
- To be genuine.
- To not have such a picky palate while I'm there.
- To continue to bond with my fellow teammates.

I ask that you, the readers of this blog, to pray these things for me as well. This is a first for me and I want to bring God glory in this step of faith and obedience.

Praise the Lord! We are around 87% (or a little more) in our funding efforts! God is providing! We have one more garage sale coming up on June 5th and 8 hours of volunteering for the SD rock & Roll Marathon on June 6th to help complete our funding!

Keeping you posted- Tiffany

In Preparation

It seemed as if it took forever for the trip to be here and now it is right around the corner. I am so excited that momentum is picking up from the lull that we were having what seems like a few weeks ago.

I am so excited to be ramping up and the only thing that I am worried about is I feel like I am getting sick. My body is constantly tired and I have no energy (work, school and life is to blame). Please continue to pray that God will strengthen my body, give me energy to power through the next couple of weeks until I start my vacation time and that He will keep this sickness at bay until after the trip preferably :)

We have a two support raising events this Saturday (garage sale and support dinner), half of me is saying, "ahhhhh," and the other half is saying, "yippeeeee." I keep praying that God will use these events not only to grow the excitement and cohesiveness of the group, building us up for the weeks that we will be overseas and away from the familiar. I also hope that it will allow us to see just how blessed and loved we are, not only the event turnout but also how the Lord will use it. Secretly I'm hoping this is one of those "bless your socks off" times.

As a team, we know that money is tight and that not everyone can financially support us. Please know that we desperately need your prayer. The power of prayer is awesome and if you would partner with us in that way, our amazing and wonderful God can handle the rest.

I am so grateful that I am on this team and what we will be able to do in the Middle East that I'm trying to make sure that I don't forget to let God in on the process. My natural instinct is to want to be in control, and I can't. I am so anxious to see how God uses me and my teammates and I am trying to stay fixated on that, and leave myself checked at the door, pray for that too :)

Thank you for the love and support.

--Amanda

FUNDING UPDATE: We're currently still about $10,000 behind on our fundraising. We will buy plane tickets for 6 team members today. Please pray that God would provide the funds to pay for the other three! We still have a huge mountain to climb. In addition to your prayers, there are three ways you can help: 1. Team Benefit Party this Saturday! 2. Garage Sale this Saturday! 3. Volunteer to direct traffic at the rock and roll marathon in San Diego on June 6th. Contact adam(at)hammill.com for further information on any of these events or if you have items you can donate for the garage sale. Thanks so much for your support!!

Praying...

O LORD God Almighty, who is like you?
You are mighty, O LORD, and Your faithfulness surrounds You.
You rule over the surging sea;
when its waves mount up, You still them.
You crushed Rahab like one of the slain;
with Your strong arm you scattered Your enemies.
The heavens are Yours, and Yours also the earth;
You founded the world and all that is in it.
Psalm 89:8-11

For the last week I keep coming across verses about His faithfulness. If His strong arm can scatter our enemies, then He can protect us. If He is able to still the waves, the He can still our hearts. If the earth is His, then He is in control of this trip... That's what I need to remember.

Pray our hearts are prepared for this trip and the hearts of the people we meet.
Thank you so much for your prayers,
Sarah

Funding update...

Thanks so much again for praying and supporting our team!! Just wanted to give a quick update on fundraising. We're still at only 38% with just a month and a half left until our trip, so please pray for some miraculous provision! :o) We are also having a garage sale on May 15th, so it would be amazing if you could put aside some unneeded items for us to sell to help reach our fundraising goal! Details will follow as to what you can do with donations for the garage sale. Thanks again so much for your support!!

Adam