Unbelievable...

We are here! Which some of you that are signed up as Friends of Pure Joy already know. Our flights were excellent! God did some awesome things getting us through the airports. As I kept telling the girls it is like being on angels wings. Today, we spent time with our contact missionary learning about her work in this part of East Africa. Awesome, work is being done through Wycliffe Bible Translators to get the Word of God to all peoples in all Nations. Praise His Name!
We are also having excellent team time as well. Actually, as I type this blog I am sitting in a room with some of the team while they are trying to contact family through the internet. Today, some of the ladies took a taxi ride through the area looking at the country. By the way, Taxi here means a motorcycle with a driver from the local people and as many people that are willing to ride behind him! Seriously!!! Sharon, Kathy, and our contact missionary took the plunge each with their private driver. The rest of us rode safely in the van, all the wives confident that their husbands would not want them in such peril riding without a helmet.

We are having a great time getting to know each other as a team. Please pray that God continues to strengthen us as a team while we spend one more day out in another area tomorrow before we begin getting ready for the ladies to come in.

Because we are spending time together we have been sharing stories. Today, during our team devotional time Kathy asked us to share about how God called each of us to serve on this trip. Below is a great story! It is a great story because of when God begin to deal with this precious young mom’s heart about this trip and her journey of faithfulness to the LORD!

Keep Praying! Love you!

His,
Vickie

Colleen’s Story...

What a blessing to be of the “called” of the LORD. As we gathered today to share of the Lord’s call for each of us to take this journey, I had the privilege of sharing His call to me. About two years ago, Vickie came to our church to share of the ministry she was doing all over the world. As she spoke, the Lord whispered into my heart that this would be a place for me to serve. I have been a Christian since I was a small child, but never heard the Lord call me abroad. I have learned through my years of walking with the Lord to wait for His timing. He shares the direction and then I wait on His “go”. My precious friend Janet went with Pure Joy to Poland that year and came home with stories of the missionaries and I again heard the Lord saying I could go and serve. Again I waited for a specific destination, but began preparing myself to go. The next spring I applied for my passport and began getting my shots for travel. The travel Dr. was somewhat baffled at how I could be preparing for a trip I had no destination for, but did inoculate me for the most common ailments. Then this past December my friend Janet let me know she had been invited to attend another mission trip and it would be Uganda. This trip would take place in March. I smiled and commented about how good that would be for her and went on my way into the Christmas holidays. In the meantime my husband and I had been reading several books. I was almost finished with Experiencing God and he was finishing up Radical. We had just been talking about how we needed to be looking for opportunities to “go” and serve the Lord when Janet called to ask if I might be interested in going. It didn’t take us long to meet with the Lord to have an answer. How good God?s timing is for me. He took time with me to be able to plan and prepare. He knows my heart and He knows my ways. He will patiently wait for the heart that seeks Him. “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Eph 2:10. I also praise God for my husband and children who carry on in my absence and support me with their love and prayers.