Leaving in less than 3 weeks!

"...I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth."
-Isaiah 49:6

Many of the people groups that are still unreached by the Gospel live in places that stretch across the continents of northern Africa, central and southeast Asia. Many refer to this vast area as the 10/40 window, because it lies inbetween 10 degrees and 40 degrees latitude north of the equator. Current statistics place fully two-thirds of the earth's total population in this window, and an estimated 95 percent of the people living there have never heard the Gospel... not even once. Missionaries in this area of the world are indeed in short supply.

At the end of the month, our team will travel inside the 10/40 window into North Africa. Although we will only be there for 11 days, we are very excited to serve the Lord in whatever capacity he sees fit as we are exposed to Muslim culture in the mission field.

Our team first came together in early January at our first meeting with our team leader, John Hoover. Although we were strangers to each other then, we have become good friends since! We have met nearly every week, and a couple of weekends ago we all came together for a retreat at the Hoover's home on Lake Nottley. We shared testimonies, played many games of Ping Pong, Cornhole (the tailgating-beanbag game) and Catch Phrase. We all pitched in preparing dinner under the tutelage of Kristin and the ladies, and I (David) peeled and diced a cucumber for the salad (don't act like you're not impressed). We also shot some 5 year old dried out fireworks off the dock (the girls' idea). In a short length of time, we are have learned a lot about our team, and we are looking forward to our trip in a few weeks. Our fundraising is still a work in progress, but our goal is to hit 100% by the time we step on the plane at the end of the month. This weekend's meeting we will have some guest speakers who have lived in North Africa so that they can tell us a little more about what to expect in our travels such as food, what kind of clothing we should be expected to wear, etc..

We would like to ask you to pray for us as the Lord prepares our hearts for this trip. Also-- please pray for fellow team member Rick Tuley with his father's passing after a courageous battle with cancer. Rick has truly been an inspiration for the team, and we are so happy to have him continue to come with to North Africa with us even during this incredibly difficult time in his life. It is our hope that all of our supporters will follow our blog and continue to pray for us and the people of North Africa-- even though we are not sure how often we will even have the chance to update this due to the nature of our trip. I think at the very least, though, we will be able to post pictures and comments from our mobile phones, so we encourage friends and supporters to follow along with us, and post your own comments to our posts! As you add comments, keep this in mind... we hope all of our supporters and friends who follow this understand that for the safety of future mission trips to the area as well as for the general safety of all of our team members, our team has decided to refrain from divulging the town locations of the places we will be visiting, even the name of the country. Sorry for the mystery, we are not trying to pull a James Bond or anything... we will just refer to them as the base city, or mountain town or something like that.

Till the next posting, please continue to keep us and the people of North Africa in your prayers! We are very excited! Oh and for the record, Hoov and I are the Catch Phrase Champs. - David