A Tale of Two Cities

Polly and I had a great trip to Bolivia last week. We left feeling encouraged and further confirmation that this is the country where God is calling us to serve. In our last blog post, I shared about how we came to this point. Today I wanted to share about some of the process and prayer requests to actually get us there.

The Switch

We knew we were going to switch from missionary associates to career missionaries after one term in Costa Rica. Knowing we were going to switch and actually walking through the process are two very different things. We have already completed most of the application process with only a few simple steps remaining. Assuming all this goes well we will be invited to our official interviews in Springfield, MO in October. If all goes well there, we will leave as officially appointed career missionaries.

• Please pray that all our paperwork is well received and for favor in the last real step we have remaining, our physicals.
• Please pray for favor in the interviews. This is not like a regular job interview. We're not just trying to show qualifications. We need to express our heart and why we desire to go to Bolivia. Please pray that God would give us clarity and the right words to communicate all that we need to communicate.

Partnership Building

We will actually begin sharing at churches before we are officially appointed. We are limited in what we can really do and accomplish prior to appointment, however. After appointment, we will have to redo paperwork for all current financial partners who want to stay on board with us and then will have to pick up a lot more.

• Please pray that churches and individuals will want to stay on board with us and that redoing paperwork and commitments will go smoothly.
• Please pray for God to already begin putting more churches and individuals in our path to financially partner with us.
• Please pray that God would help us build a stronger prayer partnership for our time in Bolivia.
• Please pray that God will work out all the details regarding where we'll live and what we'll drive, etc. while we're in the States working on this part of the process.

The Ministry

We still need to decide exactly which ministries we want to be involved with when we arrive in Bolivia. We feel good about a couple of things already which fit into our vision of "Seeing entire families made whole."

• Please pray that God would help us as we make decisions on which ministries to be involved with.
• Please pray that God would help us develop those ministries and help us prepare well once those ministries are identified.

A Tale of Two Cities

A big decision we need to make is which city we will live in once we go to Bolivia. There are 3 major cities and we are really only considering 2 (though who knows if that could change as well): Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. We visited both during our trip. There are many aspects that go into such a decision including: family considerations, team building, location with regard to ministry endeavors, need, etc. Ultimately we want God to show us and not just make a decision based on our own wisdom. We will also be looking to seek guidance from leadership to help us with this decision.

• Please pray for God to clearly reveal His will to us with regard to the city where we should live. 
• Please pray for constructive and helpful conversations with leadership regarding this topic.
• Please pray for God to send more missionaries to all 3 of these cities.

There's obviously more things to consider and more that needs prayer like how the transition will affect us personally, the kids, etc. But I wanted to highlight some of the major things. Please feel free to trust God and pray as He would lead you, even beyond what I've shared on this post.