You may notice when you first arrive at this wonderful site that there are several contributors! There might be more than one unfamiliar name on the list. This site, is in fact, a transitional sort of site. The founding parents for this blog spot are Aimee Jo and Andrew Martin with some assitance from a good friend; Allan White. The Martin's opened this blog to make it easier to communicate with their supporters while they were on their survey trip in 2005. Now that they have made the final decision to make the move to Fort Portal they have given us (billy & Brenda) the use of this blog for our survey trip information. We will be updating regularly (as long as there are developments to report) for those of you tracking our progress. Here are a few details about our trip:
Dates: October 2-30th
Fundraising goal: $8000
Reason for making the trip: Please see below!
We are like many young people our age who have been under the impression that mission work cannot be done by just anybody. We never really believed that mission work was a realistic option for us. It seemed like a wonderful thing that happened to someone else. I, myself, as a young high school girl had high hopes of becoming a doctor and then a medical missionary, then life happened. I met a ga wonderful man, decided I didn't want to be in school for the next ten years and here we are. Both of us thinking the other would not be interested in joining the mission field. The subject never really came up until our good friends Aimee Jo and Andrew left for their six week survey trip to Uganda. Upon their return they told us all about their trip and their plans to move there. They told us that Jeff and Cheryl Cash were really interested in building a team of missionaries (they have been living in Uganda for 10 years and are the current team). The Martins also told us that they feel more prepared for this type of work after all of the time that they had been working with Pump Church of Christ. Hey! We have been working with Pump Church of Christ for 5 years! I had wanted to do overseas mission work way back in high school! What a coincidence! I felt like we were handed an opportunity that neither of us really expected, but both unknowingly wanted. We don't know what will happen when we go, if we will feel drawn to move there, but we both feel it is really important for us to give this prayful consideration. Of course we cannot make a decision without having been to the country, and thus began our journey to Africa.
We have begun the process by sending out fundraising letters to everyone we know (whose address we could find). I guess we will find out if the Lord wants us to go to Africa by the financial response we get! No funds, no trip...
If you have accidentally stumbled onto this blog and happened to read up to this point, and you feel it on your heart to help support us on this journey please send tax deducible supporting checks to Pump Church of Christ (labled Mckenzie mission, of course)!
Stay tuned to see whats next! I am getting a copy of my birth certificate tomorrow so we can all apply for passports! Ah, the exciting world of planning an international trip!
