Dear friends,
We are nearly ready to depart for France. God has provided much of the funding necessary for us to begin our ministry. We currently stand at 82% funded, with $5,888 out of $7,220 per month raised. We need a total of about $32,000 to reach our goal. Please consider contributing financially, if you are able. We thank you for your prayers and financial support so far; we truly couldn’t have gotten to this point without you.
As we have discussed beginning our ministry with our partners in France, they have advised that we take a two-phased approach to our transition to France. We already have tickets to visit in late March until early April. During this visit, we will meet the board of the Maria Skobtsova House, and they will introduce us to the work in-person. We will also have the opportunity to meet people from local organizations and churches who have been doing work among the exiled people in Calais and who have been involved with the Maria Skobtsova House. We look forward to getting to know the individuals with whom we will be serving during our time there.
We will then formally move to Calais in August. We have chosen to wait until then to move in order to let Elijah finish out his school year and ensure that the members of the Maria Skobtsova Association will have ample time to prepare for our arrival and make the transition as smooth as possible. This will give them time to search for housing for us and for us to find schools for our boys in the area. We are convinced that taking this approach will allow us to transition to our new lives in France with as little difficulty as possible.
I will take this opportunity to emphasize how important the work we will be doing is. On the way to daycare this morning, Micaiah was crying because of how cold he was before the car warmed up. This got Rachel thinking about what it would be like if we had to live in a tent. What if Micaiah were crying in a tent at night because he was cold, and we had no way to help him? What if our kids were crying because they were hungry and we could not provide them food? That thought should break the heart of every parent. Yet there are thousands of people in Calais who face that fear as a reality every day. We hope to work to ease that suffering in some small way.
On a final note, this is the last newsletter we will be sending via physical mail. We will be transitioning to all electronic communications after this, in order to make things easier while we are overseas. If you would still like to receive our letters, please send a message with your email address to any of our social media profiles or email us at givenscalais@gmail.com. We understand that some people do not have email or easy access to a computer, so if you would still like to receive physical letters, we can arrange to have them sent to you. Please return the enclosed commitment card and mark the option that you would like to receive snail mail updates. We will make sure you still receive our communications.
Peace and blessings follow you in this new year.
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