A little gift or reminder from God

I've been feeling like the weekend would never get here! It's been a long week. Heather has had strep throat. Kyle has had pink eye. I have some things in my mind that are kind of "hanging over my head" with regard to missions work. Just when I feel a little "weary", God sends some "energy" my way! 13th Floor came to the Grove last night! Probably no one knows this except Ken and the kids...my dream has always been to go to Africa! Now you know it too! I've always had a desire to visit the Sudan and minister to the children there. I feel like I at least went to Africa last night in worship and spirit. Just a little God gift! African music reminded me of the Costa Rican music, very upbeat! Someone said to me last night, "I know you were all into this tonight"! Actually though, I love old traditional hymns, contemporary worship, bluegrass, gospel. For me, it's not so much about the music or the style. It's about the words written. Last night they did have worship music. We sang the song, "Here I am to Worship". These words, "..and I'll never know how much it cost, to see my sins upon the cross"...moved me to tears. Can we ever really comprehend the cost that was paid for us? The love of a Father to give His only Son. The agony suffered by His child, as He watched. My mind can't grasp it.

Ministering to Costa Rica - US side

Mission: Ambulance to Costa Rica! We got a phone call from Global Outreach on Thursday with an unusual request for help. (It made us laugh that they would call us, considering we are always calling them needing answers to questions). Apparently our friend, Dr. G in Costa Rica, who is also a missionary with Global Outreach and on our team there, also a Costa Rican native, has been given an ambulance as a gift! The ambulance is located in North Carolina and we live in North Carolina! We were asked if we would be willing to get the ambulance to Port to be shipped down to Costa Rica. Our initial response was of course, whatever we could do to help we would be more than willing to do! But then, after just a few minutes of thought, the enormity of what we just agreed to do set in! So, we began to pray as we had many more questions than answers! Through the help of a friend at church we have been able to find out more information about which Port to ship the ambulance out of here in North Carolina. Someone else has offered to help us in a big way to transport the ambulance to the Port. What I forgot to mention about Dr. G is that not only does he oversee the medical clinics that the teams do in Costa Rica, but he is also a first-responder to disasters in Costa Rica. An ambulance will go a very long way in serving the people of Costa Rica! God is amazing!

Thank You - Prayer Requests

Thank You!!!
It's hard to know where to begin. Thank you to our Hickory Grove family & Pastor Bob, Sherri's family in New York for housing, food and laughter, friends, neighbors, our prayer support team and everyone else who has remembered us this past week. The love and support that you have shown to us has been overwhelming! Most importantly, we know that you prayed us through!

We arrived home safely on Sunday evening feeling like storm chasers, but not driving into the storm, fleeing the storm! The city where Renee's memorial service was received at least 12" of snow while we were there (it never fails) and we are glad to be home and praising God for green grass and dry pavement!

Prayer Requests
We have a small-group presentation this Saturday evening in the home of some dear friends in Princeton, N.C. The last week and a half has put us a little bit behind in our preparations. Please pray that we will be able to clearly communicate our ministry needs.

We have three more presentations to do up in New York State and are praying at this time about logistics (vacation time, Global's missions conference) are factors in our determining when we can return to do these. Please ask the Lord to show us His perfect timing.

May God continue to bless each of you!

Happy Trails

I'm posting from New York. We arrived safely last night and had an easy trip, not much traffic and no accidents/delays. Danielle was a big help with sharing the driving duties (she helped drive her grandparents vehicle). It is cold...brrr...and a significant snowfall is forecasted for Friday into Saturday. If the conditions get too bad we will head out right after Renee's memorial service on Saturday, getting three to four hours south of here and spending the night. It will make our Sunday ride home a little shorter and probably a little safer if we do get the bad weather since we have not driven on snow covered roads in almost ten years! Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our trip up here. It's good to be with family during this time.

Christianity

"The only thing Christianity can not be...is moderately important." C.S. Lewis

Ministry Needs for serving in Costa Rica

Ministry Update
Right now we have two very specific needs and each is equally as important. We need people to come alongside of us and commit to praying for us, regularly! You see, it's not like we feel we are necessarily fully equipped to be missionaries, but we know we feel called, and so we believe that God will do the equipping! We will update you through this blog and a newsletter that we hope to soon launch on things to pray for. We'd also like to pray for you too, so if you have a need that we can join you in praying over, please let us know.

Those who would commit to supporting the ministry financially with monthly support. In December we were at 28% of our monthly support. We are happy to report that we are at a solid 33% now, but we still have a long way to go. In September we launched our "131 x 30" campaign asking people to join our "team" by committing to support us in the amount of $30/month. Some have been able to give more, but with a lot of people doing a little, we are now in a "97 x 30" campaign, to God be the Glory! We still need to raise $2,935 a month in support. We believe that God wants others to be involved in this ministry by sending us to Costa Rica with an entire "team" of supporters!

Would you consider "joining us" on the mission field, becoming our teammates in Costa Rica by supporting us each month? You can join the El Jardin Team by informing Global Outreach Mission that you would like to support us. The address is Global Outreach Mission, PO Box 2010, Buffalo, NY 14231-2010. Please specify on your check or an attached piece of paper that the funds are for "Ken & Sherri Dundon". Global's web site is: www.missiongo.org

God is "at work" in Costa Rica!