August 2022 Newsletter
Hello Nyayo Family!
We’re getting busy as we get closer to our mission trip in October :) We can hardly believe we have less than 7 weeks remaining until we will be at Ibonde Children’s Home!
August Giving Report
Donors gave $3,455.45 towards Basic Needs this month! In addition to this, we had donations towards the mosquito net and mission trip campaigns. Money for 4 new mosquito nets was given that will be added/saved to the 2 that were raised in in July. We are going to continue to collect donations and save for additional nets before sending the money in September or October in anticipation for our trip (we hope to help install them while we are there!). We received a couple more donations from two traveling on the mission trip that will be allocated toward the airline tickets. A summary of funds raised and allocated this month can be seen in the graph below. Please click Monthly Financial Report for a full detailed breakdown.
A special thanks to our regulars and one time givers for this month’s allocation:
Cindy Dorsainvil, Arman and Leslie Jahandarfard, Curran Hyde, Josh Cornett, Brandon and Mahalie Todd, Jacob and Amanda Patterson, Joyce McConnell, Alex and Michelle Moore, Taylor Sutton, Sebastian and Eun Joo Tarchala, David Phillips, Sierra and Sam Smith, Taylor Handley, Lydia Foutch, Stacey and Early Sutton, Pat and Alex Burgess, Lauren Russo, Anna Barrera, and Armin Jahandarfard.
Thank you all, we truly would not be close to meeting the needs without your help!
What’s New?
7 weeks until we leave for Uganda!
We now have a webpage dedicated to capturing all aspects of our Nyayo 2022 Mission Trip. It is listed under “Our Work” or you can click here to visit it. We plan for this to be our one stop shop for all things concerning the mission trip. We will be updating this page with everything we plan to do, who’s going, etc as well as populating it with what actually occurred with lots of pictures and maybe a video or two!
Gordon, Hunter, and I are starting to talk on the phone once a week to make sure we’re all set and prepared for our trip. We talked for about a hour on Monday 29 August and on Tuesday 6 September and covered a multitude of topics, one of those being the schedule for the mission trip. The below schedule is a work in progress but shows where we’re at. We are not sure about several things like if the safari day will fall on Friday or Saturday yet or what we’re going to do on the day that we don’t go to the safari. However, we do know God will help us with those plans and guide us by the Holy Spirit.
Those traveling with Hunter and I are slowly but surely completing all that they have to do to get to go (passport, travel visa, yellow fever vaccine, etc). Please keep them in their prayers that God guides them in how He wants their help on this mission. Some of that is starting to clear up but it’s only the beginning.
As much time as we are putting into planning, it really has been amazing to see how things are falling into place without us and how connected our thoughts have been. And I’m not just talking about myself, Gordon, and Hunter but also with those who are going on the trip and others who are supporting us or we just bump into. Gordon, Hunter, and I remarked at our last tagup how neat it is to see God’s hand and His favor on this trip. We’ve been praying for months that He would direct our steps and we feel like He’s doing more than what we prayed for and our excitement grows as we get closer to takeoff!
Just as a recent example…the morning after our 29 August tagup, I received an unexpected email from our travel agent:
Needless to say, I said yes please :) There are several other expenses associated with the trip such as transportation in Uganda, food, etc that we were planning to have to pay for. So this $1,003.20 is a true blessing and we are incredibly thankful. We don’t know what God wants with this money (it may not be for our expenses even) but we are starting to pray that He shows us how to allocate it. This is just one example of how God is working independent of us. We did not pray or seek this out, He simply gave it to us.
Things We Are Praying About
We continue to ask for your prayers for God’s continued guidance as we follow along wherever the Spirit leads. Prayer is clearly being answered in ways we aren’t even asking for help in. If you’d like to pray along with us, these are things Michael, Gordon, and Hunter are currently praying for:
Blessings for the children and caregivers of Ibonde and Jinja Children’s Home
Guidance for Michael, Gordon, and Hunter as they continue to plan this trip and operate Nyayo
Guidance for our 9 travelers in how they will serve and contribute on this mission trip
Guidance on what we should bring with us on this trip for the children, caregivers, and anyone else we are guided to
Guidance on how to allocate that new ~$1,000 refund
Bible Study
Weekly Zoom Studies
Please reach out if you’re interested in joining our bible studies via zoom every Monday at 7pm CT! We welcome anyone who wants to learn more about Jesus, even if you just wish to keep your camera off and only listen in on our discussions! We like to keep it light and informal as we have casual conversations about the various chapters we read throughout the Bible! Currently we are studying the book of Psalms.
Peace and blessings,
Michael, Gordon, and Hunter
