You can partner with us in what God is doing in SE Africa!

As always, prayer is the single most important thing you can do for us. We have never felt such an intense prayer covering over our family, as we did those 5 weeks in Africa in 2011.  Everything that we were worried about, or predicted might be hard for our family, was a non-issue! So a HUGE thank you to all who prayed for us and we once again humbly request your prayers! Last time we had a prayer calendar, this time we will be mailing/passing out Prayer Cards as the time gets closer. In the meantime, we have a lot of money to raise, if you feel led to help us in that way.  As soon as we got home last time, we started saving right away for another trip back. This time, our expenses will be even more since we are staying longer & since Alea is now at the adult rate for plane tickets. We have already purchased our plane tickets, out of pocket, but we are writing letters & doing team fundraisers to help cover the rest of our trip costs.  We have had some financial set-backs this year: a fire in our condo in AK, we got rear-ended & our car was totaled (forcing us to buy a new car), Anissa cut back her work hours to homeschool Alea (in obedience to God), but we are trusting God to provide the needed funds for this trip since He is the one calling us there! Last year in Kenya, we taught the kids FROG (Fully Rely On God) and that is what our family is doing! We know that God is sovereign & His timing is always perfect. If you feel called to make a tax-deductible donation, you can make a check out to: Calvary Community Church & mail it to PO Box 1200, Williams Bay, WI 53191.  Write: “Africa Missions” on the memo line, but do not put our name anywhere on the check (this is a new 501c3 policy).  Please enclose a short note or sticky note to designate the money for the Haywood's account.
We sincerely appreciate your prayer & financial support!!!           

Going Back!!!!

We are thrilled that God has called us back to Africa again to serve this summer with the amazing missionaries & organizations that we love & support!  If you are new to our blog and/or didn't follow our first trip 2 yrs ago, you can scroll down to our first post in May 2011 to read "Our Story" if you are interested in hearing how God first turned our hearts towards Africa.  Our family came back from that first trip forever changed! We left the US with 10 sponsored children and came back with 8 more! Who knows what God will do in our family's hearts & lives this time around!! We can't wait to see all the children we sponsor again, visit the missionaries we support & all the friends we made along the way!  We look forward to making even more new friends on this trip!  Mission Trips have a way of bonding you with others on a very deep level in a short amount of time.  The love runs deep and the quality time is rich indeed!

In 2011 we went to Kenya for 2 weeks & Uganda for 3 weeks.  This time we will be going to Kenya for 3 weeks & Uganda for 5 weeks.  8 weeks total!!! We will be visiting all the same places and working with the organizations, but this time we will be leading a team of 9 from our church in WI who will fly over to join us for 2 weeks. So that definitely adds a different & exciting twist!  Planning for our team's trip has been ALOT of work and being team leaders definitely comes with some stress, but this is something God has called us to do and we love the amazing people who have joined our team!  We are excited to see how God is going to use our team to build & strengthen His kingdom! 

We are looking forward to some other new aspects on this trip as well....
*As a response to the Watoto Children's Choir touring Wisconsin and performing at our church, we will be visiting Watoto Children's Home in Uganda. Two of our team members who started sponsoring children after the concert, will get to meet their sponsored kids!!   We know the intense joy of hugging them for the first time, hearing their voice & laughter, playing with them, etc. and we are soo excited for them to be united! We will be leading team games & crafts with the children.
*Anissa will get to visit the little Deaf boy, Najib, at his new Deaf School! She recruited sponsors and raised enough money for his tuition & other expenses so he could start going to school for the first time!  She is also hoping to visit a Deaf School in Nairobi that is near the First Love Property.  Last time she learned some Ugandan Sign Langauge, and is looking forward to hopefully picking up a little Kenyan Sign Language as well!
*Last time we only got to visit MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) in Uganda, but this time we're going to visit MCC Kenya as well.  Besides the Mengo Aides Clinic we visited last time in Kampala, we are eager to see first-hand some of the other projects that MCC has going in SE Africa.

We are excited to see what other adventures God has in store and other ways He might line up for us to serve! We have lots of details to take care of between now & June, and we are trusting God for those details.