Less than 3 weeks until Departure!

Dear friends and family, 

Here we are less than three weeks away from our departure date! We are incredibly excited and overwhelmed by God's grace and provision in our lives. 

We want to say a huge THANK YOU! to all of you who have encouraged us and/or supported us financially and in prayer. We are at 116% of our funds needed and we are beyond thankful! On top of that we have felt overwhelmingly blessed by those who have committed to pray for us now and as we go to Japan. As Christians we are called to live in community and we honestly could not do this without you. 

At this point just about everything we need to do is wrapping up, basically Jared has a doctors appointment, we are collecting little gifts for people we will meet in Japan and we are planning for packing. 

A little update on our lives before we go:

~ Jared finishes his first year of electrical schooling this week, pray with us as he takes his final exam on Friday. Overall these last two months of school have gone very well.

~ Lily is working diligently memorizing and studying for her third module in her Ballet Teaching Program, it is definitely keeping her busy. 

~ In the coming two weeks Jared will be returning to work, with one of these weeks being out of town. Lily plans to vacation with the girls of the family to the mountains, which will hopefully be a time of rest. The week after she will teach a dance camp as well as attend a dance intensive. 

As you can see we are entering into a very busy time even before we go, we ask that you would pray for rest and peace in this time. We know that God will be with us before and as we go, we are grateful to a Heavenly Father who never leaves our side. 

Some specific prayer requests: 

- Praise that all our financial support is in! 

- Praise for a wonderful birthday celebration for Lily with friends.

- Pray for Christian and Therese (the long-term family we are going to serve) as they prepare for a busy summer.

- Pray that there will be time to plan Jared's doctors appointment to renew his puffer prescription. 

- Pray that we would head to Japan well rested. 

- Pray for our health. 

- Pray that Jared's final exam would go well. 

- Pray that Lily would continue to be diligent in her studies so that there is not a lot to do in Japan. 

~ Philippians 1:3 ~