Our first blog post…. Wow. Where do I begin?
I have been sitting here typing, deleting, typing some more and deleting even more. Why is starting a blog so scary? Is it trying to figure out how to articulate my thoughts properly? Is it the fact that we live in a world where we get put down for being too open? Or is it really the fact that I have nothing important to say?
Well, whatever the fear is, today it all changes. I think of this process like ripping off a band-aid. The faster you rip it off the less painful it will be. Sure you will have a moment of sharp pain (which will be the moment I press publish) but the memory of that pain quickly fades.
I am sure you all have so many questions about what we are doing and why we are doing it. I hope this blog gives you some insight into our lives and answers those questions for you.
To begin I would like to give a little bit of a backstory. Some of you may know that my dad was born in the Philippines; his parents were missionaries there for over 30 years. I can remember when I was a young girl hearing stories from my Pom Pom Lolo (Grandpa) of all their adventures in the Philippines. I was in awe of this land he told us about. I loved the people and the different pace of life he would so lovingly describe and I always dreamed of seeing the places he talked about. In 2009 I got that opportunity. My family and I ended up being able to travel on a mission trip to the Philippines. If you have kept up with us on social media I am sure you know how that trip went. We all fell in love with the Philippines because of the caring people and the amazing culture. It was immediately like a home away from home for me. Later in 2009 we traveled to the Philippines again, this time Austin was able to join. Looking back now we see how that trip has shaped our lives. We grew together as a couple as we served others. We both had such strong desires to go back but it wasn’t quite Gods timing. Over the years we have always talked about the “what if”; the “what if God calls us overseas.” We have prayed over that question so many times in our life by asking God to guide us in all our decisions and to make His will apparent to us. Several months ago He began working in our hearts once again. He Stirred up those questions and this time the difference was no longer a “what if”…it was “GO”. We spent many hours in prayer asking for guidance, direction, clarity and faith. In the end we knew God was calling us to follow His command to “go” and make disciples of all nations. Talk about a scary realization. Fear tried its best to creep in but we knew that with all our hearts God was calling us and we wanted to go. We want to be right at the center of His will in our lives.
We needed to have a big faithful “YES, God you can use me!”
Now fast forward a bit, we were officially accepted as missionaries with Kids International Ministries in the Philippines. I want to dive into all that we will be doing and all of the things we are excited about, however, to keep this post from being 5 pages I will save that for another time.
I do want to share quickly what this next chapter looks like for us. FUNDRAISING… why, oh why is the word FUN in fundraising? I think that is meant to be some kind of a joke…. just kidding… well kind of. These next few months will be difficult for us to say the least. This process will bring us so far out of our comfort zone that the only logical thing we can do is fully rely on Christ. Every year I like to choose a word to focus on, this year it is DEPENDENCE. We are striving for
Full dependence on God
Our prayer is that during this fundraising process we don’t just see it as a hard task that we have to accomplish before we can actually begin ministry. We are praying we can learn to rely on God for all of our needs and grow in wisdom, knowledge and faith. We hope that as we raise support we can see it as a ministry where we can invite others in to help further the Kingdom of God and eternally change peoples lives. We pray that we are able to bless all of you along the way. We realize that we, on our own, cannot do this and are fully dependent on God to supply our needs to be able to ‘Go’. We also know how God gets His will accomplished… He uses the body of Christ. This is why we are coming to you. On our own we are unable to do what God has called us to do. Going on our own would be like a foot wanting to move without the legs, the tendons, or the muscles. We cannot do it. We are the foot and we need the body. There is only one way for us to move and that is with the help of you.
We are so excited to see this journey unfold and what God will accomplish through all of us. We hope you can join us by being a monthly supporter or prayer partner.
-Kaitlyn and Austin
