Last day in the States!

It's crazy how busy things get right at the time of a big event.  I've had months of planning and packing but everything feels like it explodes right when you think you have it all planned out.  I'm mostly talking about my packing.  At the in-laws everything showed the allowed weight, 50 pounds.  I use my sisters scale and everything shows 55 pounds.  That would mean $200.00 each for overweight luggage. I take things out and the scale goes down, put it right back on and it's goes up 3 pounds.  God has been so incredible with this whole journey (selling house, garage sale, family excited for us) that this is my last thing to stress about and I should just trust God that it will be okay.   

On another note, I was talking to my sister about how everything has shown us this is the path that God is leading us down and she mentioned the lady at our church that just showed up and now we will be working with her and her church to help out a village in Senegal.  And I realized I never even put that in the blog!  It was at the end of June, me and the kids were in California and Mike was back in Omaha.  He had been going to different churches that we are connected to to raise money but that Sunday he went back to our church.  I guess as Mike walked in our Pastor Chris jumped up and ran over to him and said Mike had to meet the lady he was talking to. now we hadn't been able to attend this church for over a month and Mike was not expected to be there that day.  But as it turns out there was a lady there from Springfield Mo. visiting and as she was talking to our pastor she just happens to mention her church sponsors a village in Senegal!  What are the chances of that happening?  Only one=God!  We are now in the planning stage of helping their church and since they only get out there twice a year Mike is planning on going around once a month and speaking with them, thru an interpreter, and giving a sermon.  That is just one more assurance we are doing Gods work.

And remember the girl that Mike and I were going to talk to that just got back from DA?  She was absolutely adorable and answered all (yes ALL) my questions. Her name is Lauren.   Poor girl I didn't give her time to eat I kept asking more and more questions, and when I took a breath Mike dove in with his own ?'s.   She absolutely loved her time over there.    She had us even more excited about going.
One last thing about this.  I know, I know enough of all the "signs". But Mike is back in Omaha for his Doctorates residential program where everyone in the program had to be there for a week and it was made known to people that Mike is about to go off to Senegal.  A guy came up to him and gave him his Business card and said his best friend, an ex marine, is in charge of the security there at the US Embassy in Dakar and absolutely loves it!  That made us excited because when we go to Dakar we want to make sure we get out into the town a lot and experience Senegal as a whole and not just what is around the Academy.  So that's nice to know we have one more connection there.

We have had such an amazing time here in California.


Carter got to help out at his Grandparents Church doing the food pantry all summer long!  He really liked working with Ray and everyone there, he'll miss you guys!

The cousins got so close they call themselves "sisouns" half sister/half cousin

The girls even tried on Grandma James' wedding dress.

More incredible feats of Providence!

In the last post, we mentioned that we discovered a young lady here in Redding that taught at Dakar Academy last year. Isn't God great! We had lunch with her yesterday and got lots of great advice about what to bring and what to leave. We found out that there is a local market/grocery store about a 5 minute walk from the campus. Praise the Lord!

 But God was not done with us on Friday. A couple that is supporting us financially wanted to take us to dinner, so we met them at a local restaurant. We got there early and because there were 9 of us, we had to wait while they set up the table. I went to hold the door open for an elderly woman with a walker and by the time I returned to the waiting area, Candace had become best friends with a young lady who was leaving (How this happened I have no idea. I was gone literally less than a minute). Anyway, it turns out this young lady had just returned from a year in India as a missionary and is raising funds to return. Ok, meeting another missionary in a restaurant in Redding,CA is not that strange, right? Well, it gets better. I happen to know a missionary in India. We grew up in the same church together in Ohio and even went to her homecoming together. But that was 25 years ago in Ohio and India is a big place. But, of course, who was this girl's language teacher in India? Of course, Shelley. The body of Christ is a small family is it not? We have not raised all of the financial support we need, but if you are already supporting us, I'd like to give a shout out to Paul and Shelley Somsel serving in India through Christar! I'm sure they could use some support as well.

Time is growing short! I will be returning to Omaha a week from tomorrow and we are leaving for Dakar in 12 days. Wow! Pray that I can fit all of this stuff in our remaining baggage allowance. That will be a miracle on the order of the fishes and the loaves:)

Why are we not surprised?

A friend of the family showed up yesterday for a visit. She was telling us how she walks on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a friend. Well somehow the conversation got on to us going to Senegal. Well, surprise surprise, this friend of hers works with a lady who's daughter just got back from working at Dakar Academy (where we are going to work). She loved it and is still crying about missing all those beautiful children she had taught. She is out of town for the weekend but she will be contacting us when she gets back to Redding. It has been reported to us that she absolutely loved Dakar and wants to go back. I'm excited to speak with her. But when our friend Carole was telling us this Mike and I just looked at each other and remarked that we weren't even surprised by this, God has been showing us this is our journey and this is just one more stepping stone to lead us to Africa. I do have to add that the day before in our prayers Mike had asked God to help show us what to pack and now he sends us a lady that absolutely will be able to answer those questions. God is great!

Redwoods

Since the family has been more then just the five of us lately we decided to take a short trip over to the coast to see the Redwoods, it's only 3 hours away from Redding. We all had a great time. Who knew we were a family that enjoyed going on hikes and looking at big trees! Since it had been 5 weeks for the kids to see their Daddy I think we were all just so grateful just to be our family again.

We even went to the Ocean. This one is taken up on a look out point where you can look down at the ocean and see whales. As you can see, or not see, it was too foggy we couldn't even see the ocean let alone the whales. I'm not sure who was more disappointed Mike or the kids :D