August Newsletter

What an adventure August has been traveling back to our home church from Florida, packing a shipping container, saying final farewells, and traveling to The Gambia.

We said farewell to the lovely Kruppa family and staff at Lazy Days Resort in Florida and took three days to travel up north in time to prepare our shipping container and unload the RV and car. While traveling, God took care of settling the matter of how to sell our car and RV. A sister of a friend, of Patrick’s mother, happened to be in the market for an RV, and ours seemed like a good fit. Thank God for mothers that pray, as the price was right, as both RV and car were perfect for them to travel the country. They picked them up a week later in Delaware, where we were staying.

Packing our shipping container had multiple moving parts, and we couldn’t have done it without the many people who came out to help. We had one hour to have completely loaded over two tons of materials into the container, or the shipping company would charge us for every 15 minutes we delayed after that initial hour. Due to arrive at 9 am, we had multiple volunteers ready to go. Just then, the company emailed to delay the arrival 2 hours. We are so extremely grateful for the volunteers who were available at 9 am and then again at 11 am. We had over 20 volunteers available to come back to help us efficiently pack our shipping container with only one minute to spare on our hour time limit. Now our shipping container is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and we pray to see it before October.

Lots of prayer, covid tests, living out of suitcases, a few more farewells, and hotel life began for the next few days. We tried to think of everything we would need to live for two to three months in The Gambia before our container arrived including, getting negative covid results in time for our flights. The wait was a nail-biter, and we were starting to wonder if they would be in on time as we prepared for the worst of having to take a covid test at the airport. We were excited to receive four negative results within 10 minutes after responding to a text from a supporting church member “How may we pray for you?” Then the 5th negative result came in the next morning. Praise God for His prayer warriors who intercede for our family, and a God who uses His children as a comfort in a time of the unknown.

Off to the airport, we went the following morning, driven by a friend from our sending church to Dulles Airport. With 20 bags and 3 kids in tow we successfully boarded the first 8-hour flight to Brussels, where we had a 3-hour layover, and got on our next 7-hour flight to Banjul, The Gambia. Once through another covid test and customs, we were received by veteran missionaries, Joan Schmitz and Joanne Tompkins. They took us to the ABWE Missionary Guesthouse where we will be serving, but until then, we head to live in a village to learn the tribal language of Wolof. More adventure awaits.