God is so so Good!

I'm sitting here...the night before we pack up and head to Haiti and I'm just overwhelmed with the love and provision of the Lord.  I wanted to give an update since so many of you have been praying and supporting us!  

About 6 weeks ago, we figured out that our start up costs would be somewhere around $12,000.  That would include our airfare, transportation in country, lodging while in Port au Prince, our furniture and appliances for our new (empty) home, generator, solar panels/batteries and our first 6 months rent of our new house in Haiti.  We were so overwhelmed and thought that there was NO way that we would ever be able to come up with that amount of money in that amount of time and we considered pushing our moving date back.  Well, to make a long story short, we were able to keep our moving date and we have our $12,000 AND we were able to put $1000 in our emergency fund!! GOD IS GOOD!  We needed to sell our Toyota 4Runner and we priced it fair, but since we needed to sell it quickly, we were willing to drop our price. Today, only two days before leaving, we sold it...for our ASKING PRICE.

As far as housing, we have signed a lease for a house in Haiti that has security and water and possibility of electricity once we hook up a generator or solar panel/battery system. That is a story in itself...but to make this a bit shorter and still give God credit - we were thinking that what we paid last summer for our two months at the Wesleyan station would be our cheapest  option at $600/month.  Well, we secured a house for $4500 for the year!! ($375/month!)  

We also, just this week, signed a lease for our house here in Indiana. We now have a young married couple who are working at Indiana Wesleyan University who will be renting our home for the next year (maybe two).  You can still pray about our one bedroom rental property that is still empty.

Also, just this past week, Craig was offered a second part time job that should completely cover (to the best of our "guesstimate" budget) our monthly costs!

We are so so thankful for all of the prayers that have been sent our way. We know that God is faithful and we can trust Him, even if it seems like He's waiting until the very last minute :)  Just like in Exodus when Moses was leading the Israelites through the desert and they had gone without water for three days...the longest you can humanly survive without water...before God provided water. He knows us best. And He loves us and we can trust Him. It has been so much fun being a part of what He is doing! What a blessing to trust God completely and see Him do things that ONLY He can!  

We continue to ask for your prayers. These next few weeks will be difficult as we are saying goodbye, adjusting to our new home and way of life. The kids are very excited but they still have their moments where they will break down and cry because they think about missing their friends and family.  I've also learned that God even cares about the small things that matter to us, so I'll ask that you pray for the kids as we fly. We'll be flying Monday morning 6:45 and arriving in Port au Prince at 3:00 that afternoon.  They both always have trouble with their ears really hurting when we're in the plane - and they even hurt for days after we fly. They are really not looking forward to the flight. I have some "home remedies" that I've researched that we'll try.

Thank you so much for your support of our family!! It is such a blessing to know that we have people back home lifting us up in prayer (and giving our parents a hug now and then :) ).

Craig, Renee, Morgan & Jaron