Well it looks like we have a departure date, praise God! We will be moving July 13th! We have raised approximently $86,000 in just 6 months, God is good! This is a little short of fully funded for our family of six. We have been carefully looking at what it will take to care for our family while serving in Kenya which is good. However we felt God prompting us to move from calculating the cost to stepping out of the boat. In Matt 14 Jesus walks on the stormy water towards His disciples boat, He tells Peter to get out of the boat and walk toward Him, which Peter does. He walks well until he feels the wind, he then begins to sink into the water. Jesus reaches out and catches him, lifting him out of the water. If Peter had spent too much time looking at the weather he would have never followed Jesus prompting to get out of the boat. We feel that is where we are at right now, Jesus has called us, we have watched the weather and planned but now it is time to step out and trust that no matter what He is with us, and will uphold us with His mighty right hand! We are believing for the remainder of the funds to come in the next three weeks as well as our house selling or renting. Some of you might be wondering what you can do to help. You could stand in faith with us that God will provide all that we need and you could spread the word, post about us, talk about us whatever means you have to let people know what God is doing.  Below are some pictures of family getting ready.

Kids waiting to get their immunizations 

Abigail worked both days of the sale
 with us, we raised $1,700

The ladies form my moms group held a
garage sale for us.

Abigail holding one of the moms babies named Abigail.

Things continue to progress here at the Staub house.  Landscaping check, packing check, painting check, immunizations check, picking homeschool curriculum check...sleeping one day!  There is a lot of list writing and completing for us at the moment..at times it is completely overwhelming.  So it is important to remember what God is calling us to do and why those list even exist.  This is Faith she is approximately 9yrs old (most of these children do not know their actual birthdays).  She is sweet and funny I am positive she will be one of Abby's best friends! And she needs a safe place to live, a good school to attend, a place to receive medical care, food to eat and most importantly she needs to be loved.  She needs to know that God loves her so much that He gave His only Son so that she could be a part of His family. She needs to hear that God knows her name and the very day that she was born! That is why I am not getting much sleep right now, that is why we are selling our home and moving to the other side of the world.  

Faith wearing my sunglasses

So much has happened this past week it is hard to keep up and yet I don't want you to miss all of the incredible ways that God is preparing us for this move! 

• Sunday we met with Kyle and Victoria for several hours going over all the details....and let me tell you there are a lot of details.  Please pray for God's continued wisdom and favor with perfecting every detail, especially the ones we are forgetting all about! We also bought Menards out of these containers:)

  

  Nathaniel hiding in the container Jonathan is pulling

• Monday Eric painted the playroom and got insurance quotes (one of the many details) while I was at work.
• Tuesday was the kids last day of school! This was bitter sweet for them. They were excited for summer, sad to say goodbye and ready to meet new friends in Tharaka.  Joshua's teacher Mrs D went the extra mile in sending him off.  They had a goodbye party in his honor with cake and cards. He also had the chance to talk about where he will be going and what we will be doing there.  Joshua doesn't make a big deal about things so when he insisted on reading me a couple of cards every night before bed I knew this party really meant a lot to him:). That evening our realtor Reggie came by to see what we still need to do to put the house up for sale! We are so blessed Reggie is offering his services and advertising at no charge to help get us to Africa!
• Wednesday We began the process of finding our dog Max a new home:( We took Max to a park to meet a lady who is interested in adopting him. She has one small dog, Frankie. Max definitely let everybody know that he was part of our family! Eventually he warmed up a little, we will be meeting again soon to see if this home might work out for him. Please pray that we find the right home for Max and that his transition is easy for him and the kids. On the Subject of prayer that is how we rounded out our night..praying with the team that is going to Kenya in June!

  

  Max

  

  The kids playing in the park while Max warms up to his new friends
• Thursday This was an emotional day for me. I am at heart a very loyal person, and I have been blessed to work at the same place for 14yrs! I spent Thursday meeting with my work leadership letting them know that I would be moving. Every person that I met with was very supportive and excited for our family.  I could have just emailed or met with just my direct boss but each of these leaders has poured so much into me as a professional. I believe that God has used each one of them to sharpen my leadership skills and prepare me for the work He has called me to.  Some, especially those who knew me in my younger years (Chris) both called out some of the ugly things lurking in my character and gave me a chance to take on more leadership even though I didn't deserve it. THANK YOU! 
• Friday  Nathaniel turned 5yrs old today! He had a lot of fun playing with his friends at Chuck E Cheese! He insisted that he wanted key lime pie instead of cake:)  Cute story....while we were at Chick-fil-a having lunch the parents of Nathaniel's friends were asking about Nathaniel learning swahili. To which he said" I am learning Chinese"...when I asked him "why he would learn Chinese since we weren't going there." He matter of fact responded "Because when I grow up I am going to China to tell them about Jesus." I love these kids! God has such amazing plans for them.

Nathaniel playing bumper cars on his birthday.

Saturday  So some of you may know that Abigail is a competitive gymnast.  She loves her team, her coaches, her gym and the sport in general. There is no place for her to continue gymnastics while we are in Kenya.  That said I fully believe that God honors our obedience to His call and that if she is supposed to do competitive gymnastics when she comes back that He will open that door for her and nothing will be lost due to our time on the mission field.  Today was her last gymnastics practice.  Several weeks ago Eric approached me and said that Abby needed to be done with gymnastics June 1st. That we were going to be too busy preparing for our move to support her going(she would be doing 12hrs a week). I told him that although I understood what he was saying that I felt that Abby should make that decision. Reluctantly he agreed. About a week later Abby came to me and said "mom I love gymnastic, I mean LOVE gymnastics! And I love my coaches and teammates....but the last couple of practices something is different." I pulled her close and told her that Jesus loves her so much that sometimes when He knows that we need to give something up that we really love He will change a heart about it..so that it is easier for us to obey Him. I told her to take some time to pray about it and let me know if/when she thought she was supposed to be done with gymnastics. Last Saturday while we were on our way to gymnastics she stated that she was supposed to be done June 1st. What an awesome and loving God we serve!  

She Placed 7th AA

Abby at her State Competition

3rd Place Floor

We are 75% monthly funded!! Praise God:) We also received the offering form April 26th....we are so humbled that God continues to speak to peoples hearts on our behalf and that they have been moved to give so generously.  We are waiting on the kids passports to be processed and our visas to be finalized.  Today we are getting our carpets cleaned so we can put the house up for sale by the end of the week.  We are moving forward and doing whatever we can in the physical to be ready, which puts us in an interesting paradigm.  We know that we are to move forward as though we are going mid July and that in doing so we must step out in faith. We also know that we are to wait upon the Lord and His provision.  As the time draws near it becomes increasingly hard to wait on Him and not attempt to move things along on our own.  It has been a season of recalling the specific words and scriptures that we have received leading up to this moment.

• First Eric received 1Thessalonians 2:9 "Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that our expenses would not be a burden to anyone there as we preached God's Good News among you."  This is when we decided that we did not want Each One Feed One to pay for our family going to Tharaka....we would rather see that money go towards the projects that will help the people in Tharaka directly.  With this we began raising support and partnership to cover all of the costs for our family.
• Next God reminded me that He is the God in control of it all...Creator, Provider, Protector, Savior, Redeemer, Healer....There are too many scriptures on this to put in the post:)  However God used the specific example of Jesus calming the storm Matt 8:23-27 to remind me of this.  If you lose sight of Him being any one of these you lose sight of it all.  If I do not have faith for God to provide all that we need how can I trust that He will protect us..or heal the sick..or save us form our sins...the God of one is the God of all.
• As I have been asking God about lessening our goal...do we go on tourist visas...without a car...if we are only 85% funded...the very strong response has been Hagar. You may ask what does that even mean...well Hagar was Sara's solution to getting older and knowing that her husband Abraham had a promise that he would be the father of many nations.  When it didn't seem as though God could do it Sara offered her maid Hagar to provide Abraham with a child. In the end Hagar and her son created nothing but heartache for Abraham and his decendents Genesis 16.  So I am waiting on the Lords promise that "He will liberally supply our every need according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus". Philippians 4:19

All of these confirming words help us to patiently wait upon the Lord for His perfect timing. Our hearts are in Tharaka, Kenya and we are asking that God would move quickly to get us there.  We are waiting and resting in the confidence that He has a specific plan for our family and He is causing the plan to come to pass in His perfect time.

One more post that is back dated and then we will be all current :) I just want to share because it was such a tremendous blessing  to us!  So back to April 26 (big day for us).  That night we had our Awana's award night.  This is a ministry that I have been serving with since it was first introduced at our church three years ago.  Toward the end of the ceremony Pastor Michael brought me up to thank me for serving and to announce that they will be sponsoring our Awana club in Tharka! We are so excited to be partnered with them in bringing God's word to these kids! As if that wasn't enough My nine year old daughter Abigail sang this song right after. What blesses me the most is knowing that she has memorized this song in it's entirety and will carry it with her to Kenya.

Ok, I am new to the blog world, but I feel the prompting of God that it is and will be an important means for us to communicate while in Tharaka.  I also feel that I should invite you on this journey with us as we go deeper into the plans God has for us.  With that said please forgive me as I catch you up a little today.  I will be making every effort to update at least weekly form here on out.

This first excerpt I wrote on 4/8/2015 less than a week after the Garrissa school attack in Kenya.  It was a week full of fear for our extended family.  Interestingly for Eric and I it was a moment of confirmation once again that the safest place for our family was to be in God's will regardless of the circumstances around us..........I am sitting here talking to God listening to the words of one of my favorite songs “ I am Yours…. You are mine…and we’ll be together forever.  Outside of my window there is an incredible thunderstorm booming.   I hear Him saying “Julianna, don’t forget who is in the boat with you.  I am not only the lover of your soul, I am the one who calms the storm.”  In light of recent events unfolding in Kenya some may question why we would go into the storm.  Although I understand the concern I would point out that we are not alone in the boat. 

The next is April 26th.  This was an emotional and encouraging day for us.  Our pastor invited us on stage to take up an offering for us.  To hear his heart concerning our family and the ministry that God has called us to was incredibly humbling.  Knowing that both our Pastors and our church family are for us is tremendously comforting.

This is our first post to get things started. Check back later for more.