OVERWHELMED……….!!!!!!!

Ok, honestly I don’t even know where to begin this blog! Let me just start by saying the missionaries attending the Pure Joy Retreat in East Africa are ALL sponsored as of the writing of this blog on Wednesday Feb. 22, 2011 as all the committed sponsorships continue to come in.

This morning when I opened my emails I opened it to an email that was titled, “Praise God! The red line gets to go up! And that it did to overflowing because the 17 remaining missionary women were sponsored! Wooooooooooooo Whooooooooooooo!

Every retreat God puts a phrase or words in my heart that just come to the top throughout the trip in preparation. Wooooooooooo Whooooooooooooooo wins the prize this time!

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve started this blog - I am so overwhelmed by everything He has been up to on this trip and we haven’t even left the country yet. Praise His Holy Name!

I had a blog ready to send out late yesterday to let everyone know that we had

36 sponsored and 14 more to go but Patty had not posted it yet. So when the person in the email read our blog they saw the last blog that shared the need for 17 missionary women to still be sponsored and they responded to that need. I have asked that they send me a short story of the testimony of how they responded to God without revealing their desire to give in secret. That will come later in another blog.

I do, however, want to share a few more stories of God at work in preparation for this trip!! This one is from Becky Davis, team member to East Africa. I just received it a little bit ago! Enjoy!

As a journalism/graphics teacher, I try to get my students involved in as many real world activities as possible. So, when I found out at the end of January that I would be going to Uganda to minister to missionaries, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to get my students involved and to talk about Jesus with them in the process. I teach a lot of different classes at my school, six different ones. One of these is a graphics/screen printing class that makes t-shirts.

In one of our meetings, making a t-shirt for the conference was motioned. What better way could there be to get my students involved? The day I introduced the idea to my students I announced that there would be a competition to see what the t-shirt design would be. My students were so excited. The room was buzzing with questions. Questions came up, such as: “What is a missionary?”, “Why are you going to Africa ?”, “What kind of conference is this?”, etc. It also gave me a chance to talk about the verse Hebrews 11:1 at length about what it means and the feeling the design should have.

Doing this project really opened doors to talk with my students about God. I loved it.

We narrowed it down to two t-shirt designs, and had a donor that gave money to cover the cost. The t-shirts look great and one of them even glows in the dark.

I can’t wait to come back and speak with my classes and share pictures of what we did and tell them how the missionaries felt about the shirts.

Many of my students are praying for the conference and getting things together to bring. Working in a public school, talking about God is prohibited unless prompted by a student. I am so glad that I was given the opportunity to go on this trip. It has opened so many doors with my students and I haven’t even gone yet.

Becky

And another email I received from Kathy...

Vickie,

I am continuing to be amazed at the favor of God as we prepare for this trip to East Africa. The outpouring of support is phenomenal. And the generosity of people is humbling.

My church, St. Timothy, (that I won't officially be a member of until Sun.) is helping sponsor missionaries.

My daughter, Jenny, and her Sunday School class are leaving me speechless at the gifts they are providing as God impresses upon their hearts to give and to give generously.

People are excited to be a part of blessing others who are sold out to missions.

The body of Christ is joining together to provide for all the details of this retreat. And God is blessing me (and the team) as I (we) see so many people working together to make this retreat His retreat. I feel like I am experiencing a huge slice of heaven on earth with the cooperative, joy-filled effort of my friends and family.

I am so thankful to be able to see God in all the details.

We serve an awesome God.

Blessings,
Kathy

In closing out this blog please know I am Praising God for you His Servants! Also, know any monies that come in beyond that which were needed to sponsor a missionary for the East Africa retreat will be put towards sponsoring missionary women to attend either the Central America Retreat this summer or the South America Retreat this Fall.

Loving you guys!

His,
vickie