(June 11th-July 14th 2011)
Our Story…
At our church's annual Missions Conference in 2007, God turned our hearts towards Africa and we sensed a clear calling from Him to serve there someday (whether in short-term or long-term missions). Since that time we have been preparing our hearts for when God might lead us there, reading books and monthly publications from various mission organizations, looking at maps with our children and checking out library books with them about Africa, becoming our church's African Prayer Team leaders and Uganda Liasons, praying for and communicating with our church’s African missionaries regularly as a family, etc. In Jan. 2008 we began sponsoring 10 children (5 girls, 5 boys) from New Hope Uganda (where our church has a missionary family). God has cultivated in us a deep love for them through monthly letters, pictures, and praying for them. It has been amazing what God has taught us through our relationship with them and how He has spoken to us through their simple yet profound faith….these children truly love the Lord and depend on Him for their every need. We have been “patiently” waiting on the Lord’s timing as to when He would have our family of 4 go to meet our10 precious children as well as visit Calvary’s missionaries there. I say “patiently” because there have been many times over the past 3 ½ years that we have felt ready to drop everything, sell all we own, and move to Africa tomorrow! But we have sensed God telling us “one step at a time, just wait on me”. We looked into going last summer, but God exercised his sovereignty through the World Cup raising all airline tickets to an unreasonable rate. During this time of waiting “yet one more year”, we have seen much evidence of God maturing our children in many ways, but especially spiritually, to be ready for such a trip as this. Meanwhile, we have continued to grow spiritually as well, pouring ourselves into God’s Word and seeking to align ourselves with His will for our lives. We have deepened our love-relationship with Him and continually beg Him to refine and prepare our hearts for serving Him both here at home and abroad. We have continued to build on our relationships with friends and neighbors and had the joy of witnessing the Holy Spirit’s transforming power in the lives of multiple dear family members on Joey’s side. We have also come to understand what it means to “feel called” by God for a specific purpose (even though our US $$ could do so much by us staying home and sending the cost of our trip over there, we know it is His desire for us to go to be His hands and feet). On both of the mirrors in our house is posted a simple phrase: “Our purpose in life is to bring God glory”. This is a concept we have tried to instill in our children (as well as ourselves)….every word, thought and deed, our attitudes, not just what we say, but how we say it, our lifestyle choices and use of finances and time should honor Him and bring Him glory. God paved the way for us to go to Africa this summer and provided great airfare, despite the rising fuel costs! We are beyond excited, as we seek to bring Him glory through this trip!
Our Story…
At our church's annual Missions Conference in 2007, God turned our hearts towards Africa and we sensed a clear calling from Him to serve there someday (whether in short-term or long-term missions). Since that time we have been preparing our hearts for when God might lead us there, reading books and monthly publications from various mission organizations, looking at maps with our children and checking out library books with them about Africa, becoming our church's African Prayer Team leaders and Uganda Liasons, praying for and communicating with our church’s African missionaries regularly as a family, etc. In Jan. 2008 we began sponsoring 10 children (5 girls, 5 boys) from New Hope Uganda (where our church has a missionary family). God has cultivated in us a deep love for them through monthly letters, pictures, and praying for them. It has been amazing what God has taught us through our relationship with them and how He has spoken to us through their simple yet profound faith….these children truly love the Lord and depend on Him for their every need. We have been “patiently” waiting on the Lord’s timing as to when He would have our family of 4 go to meet our10 precious children as well as visit Calvary’s missionaries there. I say “patiently” because there have been many times over the past 3 ½ years that we have felt ready to drop everything, sell all we own, and move to Africa tomorrow! But we have sensed God telling us “one step at a time, just wait on me”. We looked into going last summer, but God exercised his sovereignty through the World Cup raising all airline tickets to an unreasonable rate. During this time of waiting “yet one more year”, we have seen much evidence of God maturing our children in many ways, but especially spiritually, to be ready for such a trip as this. Meanwhile, we have continued to grow spiritually as well, pouring ourselves into God’s Word and seeking to align ourselves with His will for our lives. We have deepened our love-relationship with Him and continually beg Him to refine and prepare our hearts for serving Him both here at home and abroad. We have continued to build on our relationships with friends and neighbors and had the joy of witnessing the Holy Spirit’s transforming power in the lives of multiple dear family members on Joey’s side. We have also come to understand what it means to “feel called” by God for a specific purpose (even though our US $$ could do so much by us staying home and sending the cost of our trip over there, we know it is His desire for us to go to be His hands and feet). On both of the mirrors in our house is posted a simple phrase: “Our purpose in life is to bring God glory”. This is a concept we have tried to instill in our children (as well as ourselves)….every word, thought and deed, our attitudes, not just what we say, but how we say it, our lifestyle choices and use of finances and time should honor Him and bring Him glory. God paved the way for us to go to Africa this summer and provided great airfare, despite the rising fuel costs! We are beyond excited, as we seek to bring Him glory through this trip!
How we will be serving...
We will be flying over with a neighboring team from Ill to serve with First Love, Int., in Kenya. During the day we will be leading VBS for Muslim children from the Kibera Slum (1.5 million people living in 1 square mile--google it!) Joey is in charge of games and Alea and I will be helping with crafts. The theme is F.R.O.G. (Fully Rely on God) from Prov. 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding”. We will doing daily dramas, acting out the story of Esther. We will be staying on the First Love property in a dormitory that houses 46 orphans, whom we can help with homework in the evening, join bedtime devotions, and just love on them as much as possible. We will also be visiting a Deaf Bible training and translation center in Nirobi (D.O.O.R. Intl)!
After the rest of the team flies back to the US, our family will fly over to Uganda. We will first be in the capital of Kampala, visiting one of our church's missionaries, Pastor Micah at University Campus Fellowship. UCF serves students at Makerere University (southeast Africa's largest university), discipling and equipping future leaders. It has always been a dream of ours to worship with those college students who meet under a deteriorating tent every Sunday! We helped raise $6000 to help them build a church by selling paper beads made by Ugandan widows (see "Beads for Bricks" on their website). Unfortunately not enough donations have come in yet to start building the church, so we won’t be able to help with any construction as we’d hoped. (If you would like to donate, write checks directly to PIE Intl, 5518 Diversey Ave., Chicago, IL 60639 and mark the memo line for “UCF Building Fund”).
Then we will be venturing out to Musana Camp (through New Hope Uganda) where a young couple from our church serves. We might be going up country to visit a Bible School our church is hoping to partner with. We are trusting God with all the details of that week until we meet up with our 2nd team coming from North Dakota to serve our last 2 weeks with New Hope at Kasana Children’s Center, where the children we sponsor live! They will be in school while we are there, and given our teaching background, we will spend most of our time helping out in the classrooms, but Alea is also excited about helping in the Baby House! We will of course be spending as much time with our 10 students as possible….Jonas can’t wait to play “football” (soccer) with them! We will be flying back on July 14th, a family changed forever!
We will be flying over with a neighboring team from Ill to serve with First Love, Int., in Kenya. During the day we will be leading VBS for Muslim children from the Kibera Slum (1.5 million people living in 1 square mile--google it!) Joey is in charge of games and Alea and I will be helping with crafts. The theme is F.R.O.G. (Fully Rely on God) from Prov. 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding”. We will doing daily dramas, acting out the story of Esther. We will be staying on the First Love property in a dormitory that houses 46 orphans, whom we can help with homework in the evening, join bedtime devotions, and just love on them as much as possible. We will also be visiting a Deaf Bible training and translation center in Nirobi (D.O.O.R. Intl)!
After the rest of the team flies back to the US, our family will fly over to Uganda. We will first be in the capital of Kampala, visiting one of our church's missionaries, Pastor Micah at University Campus Fellowship. UCF serves students at Makerere University (southeast Africa's largest university), discipling and equipping future leaders. It has always been a dream of ours to worship with those college students who meet under a deteriorating tent every Sunday! We helped raise $6000 to help them build a church by selling paper beads made by Ugandan widows (see "Beads for Bricks" on their website). Unfortunately not enough donations have come in yet to start building the church, so we won’t be able to help with any construction as we’d hoped. (If you would like to donate, write checks directly to PIE Intl, 5518 Diversey Ave., Chicago, IL 60639 and mark the memo line for “UCF Building Fund”).
Then we will be venturing out to Musana Camp (through New Hope Uganda) where a young couple from our church serves. We might be going up country to visit a Bible School our church is hoping to partner with. We are trusting God with all the details of that week until we meet up with our 2nd team coming from North Dakota to serve our last 2 weeks with New Hope at Kasana Children’s Center, where the children we sponsor live! They will be in school while we are there, and given our teaching background, we will spend most of our time helping out in the classrooms, but Alea is also excited about helping in the Baby House! We will of course be spending as much time with our 10 students as possible….Jonas can’t wait to play “football” (soccer) with them! We will be flying back on July 14th, a family changed forever!
The Big Picture
We have strived to raise globally-minded children who have a broad world view; understanding that the USA is not the epicenter of the universe! In fact, we are only 4.5% of the world’s population! Yet we sadly consume almost 30% of the world’s resources. Our family has become increasingly disturbed by the exorbitant lifestyle in the USA and the excessive materialism that our culture promotes. We did not choose to be born in the US; therefore, our family strives to be the best stewards we can be with the financial and environmental resources that God has entrusted us with. We desire to make a difference! And we rejoice along with those of you who are also making sacrifices and intentional life choices to make a difference in your corner of the world. We celebrate the way we see God stirring hearts among the body of believers and celebrate how many of you have responded in obedience to the call and have stepped out in faith! I love how God keeps his own "checks and balance system" by calling each of us to different areas of ministry, both locally and abroad. Some of you are doing foster care, some have adopted, some of you are ministering to the elderly, some have a passion for prison ministry, some of you have thrown all your energy into children and youth ministries. Some of you give your time and money to disaster relief, feeding the hungry, providing medical care to impovershed countries...the list of worthwhile causes goes on and on and on! We can't do everything, but we can all do something! In whichever area God moves our hearts and ignites a passion, we need to go for it! It is ALL kingdom work!!! Our story, our family's passion, is just part of the larger tapestry woven together by God's people doing God's work.
How you can partner with us:
As the time gets closer, and more details are solidified, we will send out a prayer calendar so you can keep track of our itinerary and how to specifically pray for us throughout the 4 ½ weeks of our trip. But for now, we ask that you pray for our preparations, especially our hearts. We also ask you to seek if God might be prompting you to partner with us financially. We have been saving for this trip since 2007 and are contributing $10,000 to the cost of airfare, visas, trip insurance, shots/medicine (which was $1400 out of pocket for the 4 of us), but we still need around $7,000 to cover our expenses while in Africa. Our church is helping us some, but if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, please make checks out to Calvary Community Church and send to PO Box 1200 Williams Bay, WI 53191 and mark the memo line as “Haywood Africa Missions”. Thank you for prayerfully considering this! Although we appreciate even the smallest contribution, please only give if you feel God's leading. The prayer support is more important to us than the financial support...we would be thrilled to have you on our team of prayer warriors!
As the time gets closer, and more details are solidified, we will send out a prayer calendar so you can keep track of our itinerary and how to specifically pray for us throughout the 4 ½ weeks of our trip. But for now, we ask that you pray for our preparations, especially our hearts. We also ask you to seek if God might be prompting you to partner with us financially. We have been saving for this trip since 2007 and are contributing $10,000 to the cost of airfare, visas, trip insurance, shots/medicine (which was $1400 out of pocket for the 4 of us), but we still need around $7,000 to cover our expenses while in Africa. Our church is helping us some, but if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, please make checks out to Calvary Community Church and send to PO Box 1200 Williams Bay, WI 53191 and mark the memo line as “Haywood Africa Missions”. Thank you for prayerfully considering this! Although we appreciate even the smallest contribution, please only give if you feel God's leading. The prayer support is more important to us than the financial support...we would be thrilled to have you on our team of prayer warriors!
The Organizations we will be serving with:
First Love Kenya
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”Galatians 5:6
Operation Hope
Serves over 900 slum children hot meals twice a day, builds housing for orphans.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer. 29:11
D.O.O.R International
http://www.doorinternational.com/ and www.umcdhm.org/2028.html
A Bible Training and Translation Center for the Deaf, partnering with Wycliffe Intl.
D.O.O.R International
http://www.doorinternational.com/ and www.umcdhm.org/2028.html
A Bible Training and Translation Center for the Deaf, partnering with Wycliffe Intl.
University Community Fellowship
Serving students at Makerere University, discipling future leaders, 2 Sunday church services with dynamic worship.
New Hope Uganda
Bringing the Fatherhood of God to the fatherless. Ps. 68:5-6
Provides religious &academic education to orphans who are placed in “family” groups.
God sets the lonely in families. Ps. 68:6
Musana Camp provides spiritual retreat on the beautiful shores of Lake Victoria.
Jesus said:
“I tell you truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.” Matt. 25:40
