Fully Funded!

We are SO happy to announce that we are FULLY FUNDED for our trip to Southern Sudan coming up in juuust over a month!  Our home church chipped in the final percentage that we were still needing, and now we can focus more on the ministry part of this trip.

I am getting super excited about Sudan because not only will I be evangelizing in the towns and villages and leading discipleship groups, but I am also going to get to visit orphans on this trip!  It's the one thing that I was most hoping to be able to do.  I have a craft all ready to do with about 30 children, and I am also gathering some ideas for simple games and a Bible story or two.

Does anyone reading have any good ideas to suggest for simple lessons or games for children that would work well in an orphanage?  If so, please leave comments!

We have had several training sessions over Skype with our team.  So far, the most helpful thing we have done was our team leader actually led a discipleship group with us.  He made it seem so doable and not quite as intimidating as I first thought.  Pretty much, we each will have prepared several Bible stories (I'm choosing all of mine from the Gospels) and we tell or read the story to a small group of believers.  Then, we facilitate discussion by asking a series of open-ended questions about the text.  Questions like "What did you notice?" and "What does this story teach us about Jesus?" and "How could you apply this story to your own life?"  We'll be trying to get the people in our groups to do most of the critical thinking and talking.  (Sounds like good pedagogy to me!)  Then, we may go with individual believers from our groups to help them share the stories with other people.  

We have an appointment scheduled with a travel doctor in just a week or so.  We will definitely be getting a Yellow Fever vaccination and who knows what else!  I hate shots.  I'll be glad to have that part behind us.  

Looking forward to Mother's Day this weekend.  This one is gonna be good for our mamas... can't wait!