These past few days I must admit I’ve been exhausted to the point of despair – lots of new changes and a huge check list as we count the days before we leave. To add to the excitement, my parents John and Jane just told us that they bought a new house and are selling their home and at the same time we are packing and leaving our home – hard to describe all the feelings I have! Yesterday Hannah was crying about leaving and I started crying too..
Anyways, this morning I woke up and read my daily devotional which I recieve by Joel Olsteen and this one was particularly helpful for me today. I realize that I need an attitude reversal!
Sue
The devotional below..
_____________________Do you ever feel like every time you try to move forward in something, you hit a roadblock? Something happens that throws you off course. Be encouraged today because right now in your life, God is going before you. He’s preparing a way. He’s making your crooked places straight. He’s making your rough places smooth. You may be going through a difficult time right now, but it’s not the end. It’s only the beginning. God has equipped you for this journey. You may feel like you’re in a dry season, but don’t look at your circumstances. Look at the promise of God today! If you’ll keep speaking words of faith, God promises that He’ll anoint your head with oil and your cup will run over. That means you’ll be refreshed and anointed to do what He’s called you to do. God is preparing your path and equipping you for the journey. What do you need today to keep moving forward? Start by checking your attitude. Don’t go around complaining and focused on the negative side of things. Put on an attitude of praise and thanksgiving. Thank Him for making your crooked places straight! As you do, you’ll move forward in joy and gladness in the blessed future He has prepared for you!

Today was an exciting day because we found out that there is a two page article about our family in our local newspaper called The Oakville Beaver. They put our picture on the top of the front cover and then another picture of the four of us in the article itself. What a boost and an encouragement! I must say reading the article put a big smile on my face – the past few weeks have been difficult and somewhat overwhelming so this was something to remind us of God’s goodness as we move forward in this process.Thanks to David Lea for taking an interest in our story and writing such a great article.Time continues to tick away..we have 5 weeks before we move out of the house and then another 6 weeks after that before we leave. Today we spent the day packing up the contents of our cupboards and drawers, winter clothing etc… the boxes are piling up in our garage.

That’s all for now! A link to the article is posted in our “links” section off our homepage on the left.

We have lots of mixed emotions as we write this update – in 12 short weeks the four of us will be boarding a British Airways plane for Kenya and finally embarking on this new 2 year chapter of our lives. There are still so many unknowns and challenges on this journey and I guess you could say we’re starting to learn what it means to be ‘living on the edge’! We continue to take each day in stride trusting that God will continue to unravel and reveal his plans and his provision for us. At times we say words like ‘this is absolutely impossible and really crazy’ but there are far more times where we can sense and see an incredible display of God’s goodness -through the encouragement, support, kindness and incredible generosity of others and we can see God’s hand in ways that we have never seen before. This definitely continues to be a roller coaster adventure! This is a long update, we promise these won’t always be so lengthy!

Throughout all of this, a verse that has been such an encouragement to me (Sue) is Jeremiah 33:3, ‘Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.’ I love how the verse says I will answer you. So even though at this point we still have lots of unknowns, we can fully trust that God will answer and provide in His timing and in His way. I hope this can be of encouragement to you as well. God has such a beautiful and perfect plan for each of His children and He desires to make something beautiful in each of our lives. Thank goodness as it says in Isaiah 61: 3 He can make beauty out of the ashes of our life too, nothing is impossible with Him!

Over the past 16 weeks, we’ve been attending a fantastic course every Thursday night called Perspectives in Missions, where we have learnt a great deal about world missions and developing our biblical understanding of missionary work. We have been personally challenged on many levels. We have learned how our lifestyles in North America are so different from third world countries. It’s so easy to get caught up – as we have seen in our own lives – in the whirlwind of success, accumulating stuff, upgrading to the next best thing etc. This frenzied pace and self-focused lifestyle can so easily steal away real joy and peace. We are so good at trying to figure out things on our own and devising plans and creative solutions to make sure that things happen accordingly. Often our own plans would be our Plan A, but when these things don’t seem to work out, or when things start to fall apart, we then go to Plan B which is prayer and petition to God. How it must grieve God when He becomes our alternate, back up plan and thank goodness He is so gracious. There are so many Christians in this world who come to God first and depend fully on Him – He’s not their second choice. We trust that as we move forward on this journey, we will learn and experience first-hand what it means to live simply and depend wholly on God – talk about a challenge, but perhaps one of the greatest gifts!
So now on to some news! Well, Andrew has now officially given notice to his work and he will be working up to the end of July. His boss and colleagues have been really supportive of our decision to go. Just the other day he received an email from a colleague who he doesn’t even know who said, I’ve always wanted to do something like this but never had the guts to actually do what it takes..I admire you! Another of Andrew’s friends from a previous job read our website and then shared it with his wife. They downloaded our little booklet and starting reading the stories. After reading it, they both felt convicted to support us financially and he said, I think we should give them $100 a month for two years. Then a miracle happened .. just moments later the phone rang, it was a law firm settling a class action suit for a company that this man had worked for years earlier – he hadn’t been paid enough overtime while he was working there. They were giving him a large settlement to more than cover supporting us at $100 a month. Isn’t God amazing!! Later when Andrew was talking with him, the guy said, I’m not really into this God stuff but you need to add this story to your book of miracles. So here it is!

We will be moving out of our house on July 1st and our Kenyan friends Irene and Mumo and their two children will be renting from us over the next two years. What a blessing to have friends that we trust in our home. It will remain furnished and so we basically just organize, pack up personal things, clean up and walk out! As we shared in our booklet, this is a huge answer to prayer and takes an incredible amount of stress off of us that we don’t have to worry about moving and selling all our stuff. In early July we will head up to Andrew’s parents cottage and joined by Andrew’s siblings and their families for a family vacation. Hannah and Bea will probably spend more time there and we will come back to the city to continue getting things ready. Please pray for the girls as they will face many transitions, especially how hard it will be to say goodbye to grandparents and friends and house. They are both so excited but there are still very real worries they have which we continue to talk them through. Hannah is very relieved to hear that Santa still comes to Kenya even though there is no snow at Christmas! There are lots of administrative details to iron out and Sue has a lot of running around to get all the paperwork filled out for Kenyan nursing requirements. Our dear friends Jan and Helena Ouwehand have graciously offered for us to stay in their home as they will be going to Holland in mid July and they even have a pool – what a perfect oasis for us! In the beginning of August we will move back to Sue’s parent’s home in Mississauga and spend some time with them before we leave on August 10th.

We have had some great news from Kenya! The couple who is currently living in the apartment that we are moving to is leaving for good back to the States after having worked at RVA for over 10 years! They emailed us and asked us if we wanted to purchase their house contents from them. Everything from beds and couches down to a Christmas tree and garden tools – we have purchased all their loot for a very reasonable price. This takes a great deal of stress off of us and means that we don’t need to ship anything over, just pack our 12 suitcases! I’m sure it will be like a treasure hunt when we get to our new home and we’ll be sure to post pictures when we get there. We are now focused on writing up packing lists of things to bring with us and we’ve been in contact with a host family from RVA who have given us lots of advice and good suggestions. We have quite a varied jumble of things to bring with us and they suggest we bring things like taco mix, onion soup mix, the cheese mix from Kraft Dinner, saran wrap, craft supplies, good shoes, larger size clothing for the girls, a few Christmas ornaments, and things to personalize our home. I am definitely bringing the quilts that Grandma has made for all of us!

We had written about the Uniforms for Akobo project in our little booklet and there is a page on our website dedicated to this special project. Hannah’s kindergarten class took this on as a class fundraising project and 34 kids raised $1160 (116 uniforms) which is absolutely incredible! In this picture, Hannah is holding the poster with the hearts. So now, we have the money to purchase a total of 570 uniforms, with only 30 more to go. We have been in touch with Dr Michael Tut Pur in South Sudan and he is so excited about this opportunity to gift the children from the local school. We hope to purchase the uniforms in Nairobi and fly them out before Christmas.

Our Support Numbers – As of May 17, 2008 we have raised: $3300 in ongoing monthly support which is 72% of our target goal of $4600 per month $18, 000 which is 80% of our outgoing costs of $20,000 $5000 which is 33% towards the purchase of a vehicle costing approx $15,000 for a 12 yr old vehicle
You can view a more detailed description of our financial status on our website www.faber.to under Partnership opportunities.

We are so thankful to so many people who are supporting us on this journey – with prayers, finances and words of encouragement and support. Words cannot satisfactorily express our gratitude and thankfulness for you. We are committed to prayer and intercession on behalf of our supporters and we ask that you email or write us your prayer requests so that we can pray effectively for you too. Love, Andrew, Sue, Hannah and Beatrice Faber