The Stretch Run

Happy end of summer! Our kids are in their second week of school, our travel calendar is kicking back up, and we are making our preparations to move to Chile.

A quick rundown of this past summer:

• Our family trip to Chile was very beneficial. The kids are more able to visualize what life will be like there. They liked the church where we will be serving. We got to visit several schools (more on that further down), we got to drive around a lot (navigating on your own in some ways makes things seem much more real), and we were able to get leads on some housing and vehicle options.
• We also had a week in Guadalajara – we are so thankful the Lord allowed us to do that! The church plant is doing well. They have now made it 13 months without us, and the congregation appears to be growing! It was a great time of seeing old friends, enjoying great food, getting to eat lunch at the proper time of the day (about 3:00pm), encouraging friends and being encouraged by them, and also being able to see that we have moved on without Guadalajara – and Guadalajara has moved on without us.
• We’ve been blessed to be able to be involved a bit more with a couple of our supporting churches. Christ Pres in Nashville is our original “sending” church, and we’ve been able to be with them on a few Sundays. Zion Pres in Columbia, TN is our “hosting” church while we’re in the USA, and it’s been a privilege of mine to help fill the pulpit while pastor Paul Joiner has been on sabbatical.
• In other news, by the end of this month we expect to have 3 teenage drivers in the family. I think Johnny wants to take his permit test on his birthday. This is actually an unexpected blessing of the time of our home missions assignment. It allows our kids to have all the U.S. documents in order, and it gives them the opportunity to have driver’s ed classes and driving experience. Learning to drive in Latin America is much tougher than it is here.

Over the next few months, we’ll be making decisions and taking steps to move to Chile.

• Our plan is to move in early January. This allows us to get a full semester of schooling here, move to Chile during the southern hemisphere’s summer break, and be somewhat adjusted to Chilean life before school starts up in March.
• Joseph will not be accompanying us in the move. He’ll be one semester away from graduating high school and so will stay with Thomas and Anna Quinn (brother-in-law and sister, but more importantly our dear friends) to finish school.
• We will be in the process of getting all sorts of documents together for visas and the children’s education. That includes getting all of the kids’ school records translated by an official Chilean translator and approved by the Chilean embassy in Washington, D.C.
• We have had an apartment and vehicle offered to us, and we’ll be evaluating these and other options for living there.
• Schools in Chile often do not allow new students to enter after 10th grade. Mary Beth will be an 11th grader, and we’ve only found two schools that are willing to explore the possibility. Please pray that we can find the right place for her.

At the same time, we’ll be engaged in several other activities during our final months in the USA:

• Traveling. In my role as coordinator for our South American missionaries, I’ll have a series of trips abroad – so far on the schedule I have trips to Bogotá, Colombia; Cusco, Perú; Santiago, Chile; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and again to Bogotá. These will be for the purpose of team building/vision building, training, and creating some new partnerships.
• Connecting with you. We are also still trying to see as many supporters as we can. If we haven’t seen you yet, please know that we’re doing everything we can to be with you before we move south!
• Maximizing family time. As you might well imagine, Chile is not as easy or affordable a ticket as Mexico. It will be harder both for others to visit us and for us to travel to the USA. We want to make our time here count.
• Raising additional support. The move to Chile will require a hefty one-time expenditure (airfare, shipping, initial deposits on housing, set-up expenses, etc.). We also need additional monthly support. Our current support raising needs are these:

1. MONTHLY SUPPORT – $800 – This is due to the higher cost of living in Chile, an increased travel budget for my role as regional coordinator, and some lost support as some of our givers have had to make adjustments to their own budgets. Would you prayerfully consider whether you or your church could take on a portion of this need?
2. ONE-TIME SUPPORT – $21,000 – This is due to costs related to getting us to the field: travel and shipping, visas, initial setup of an apartment, hefty rent deposits, and so forth.