Blessings.

We feel like God has just been throwing blessings at us! The Yountville Community Church hosted a going away/ support raising party for us a couple weeks ago and it went GREAT! We jumped from 73%-80% monthly funded in one evening! And then by the end of the weekend, we were well over 85% funded! It was our prayer and goal to reach 95%  by the end of that following week- It took us a couple days longer that we were shooting for, but as of last Tuesday... We are 95% monthly funded!

We also made a big step last night by finally purchasing our plane tickets!! We're really leaving! Of course it's still a very bittersweet experience. We are not looking forward to having to say goodbye to so many people who have loved us so well. But we know they just keep on loving us and thinking of us and praying for us, just as we are them.  

As far as apartment searching goes, we found one that we feel would work great for us (at least the first year or so). Waiting to hear back from the elder at the church who is going to go check it out for us in the next couple days. Pray that it stays available until we're able to make a decision, and also pray that all the communication between us and the landlord goes smoothly and that this whole process works out without too much frustration!  

We are in communication with a few different churches who may be interested in joining our support team! Please be praying that everything that needs to, gets worked out in the very short 3 weeks we have left! We are so close to our 100% monthly goal! We still have about 20% left to raise for our start up costs, pray that God provides for those needs as well!  I know we have quite a few prayer requests- but it's very exciting to have such big things going on in our lives right now!

Thanks all! We love ya!  

Last Days in Napa...

...California and America! Yikes! We have about a month until we head out to Germany. Here is a bit of an update on what's been going on around here...

Planning: We have some major events coming up that we have been spending a lot of time on. This  Friday (sept. 27) we have a going away party for us being hosted by Yountville Community Church! Nearly 300 people have been invited, so hopefully it turns out to be a great evening with lots of family and friends! If you're in the area, please stop on by! You SHOULD have received an invite via mail and/or FB. If you didn't get an invite for some reason, come anyway! Free food and fun :-) We are also in the planning and organizing stages of our majorly major garage sale happening toward the end of October. If you have anything you and your family would be able to donate to the sale, that would be awesome! Just let me know! The garage sale will be October 18th and 19th- mark it in your calendars! Buy all our stuff! :-)

Packing: Ugh. I'm so tired of packing. We're trying to organize all of our things into 3 categories: Sell, store, take to Germany. We're trying to not keep much of anything, and take even less with us, it's just so hard to part with some of this stuff! God is definitely teaching me some major lessons about letting go. I'm a veeerrryyy sentimental person, so I'm trying to hold onto the good memories instead of the things attached to them.

Savoring: We have been trying to enjoy every moment we have left in this beautiful place. Napa is just amazing, we're going to miss it here so much! We have a list of places to go, food to eat, and walks to take before we leave. Since Ryan went back to work at the hotel, we've been using his tip money to go do some fun things while we're still around. It's been really great actually, to get away from all the stresses of moving and support raising, to just relax and enjoy. Grandma and Grandpa dont mind the extra time with Oliver if they babysit either :-)  

Support raising: We really feel that God is going to have to work a miracle in this department :-) While we are well on our way and feeling good about where we are at, we still have quite a ways to go and not much time to get there. We're still at around 70% monthly funded with 60% of our start up cost needs covered, which is awesome! We would really LOVE to be at 100% in both categories before we leave! We have faith in that God has called us to Germany, therefore He will make it happen! Please consider how you can be involved in sending us to Germany. The people who choose to GO need to be SENT by God's people. Please help send us to Germany!

That's it for now! Hope to see you local people at the party on Friday! Blessings!

xoxo elyse

Some prayer requests: 

-Please be praying HARD that we figure out our housing situation in Dresden soon. Pray that Gods provides us with an apartment that we can call home.  

-Pray that God provides us with the last of our funds needed for leaving. 

-Pray that lots of people come to the party on Friday, and that their hearts and ears are open to hearing about the need for more believers in Germany. 

2 Months Left!

We are getting so close to our departure date! 2 more months! Yikes, where has the time gone?! We have been staying busy with support raising, getting back into the swing of things here in Napa, and Ryan has had to go back to work part time at the hotel he had been working at before. It was nice while we were in Illinois to have all of our time available to devote to support raising, but back here there are so many other commitments that grab our attention and time. Please be praying that we find and make the time for support raising and preparing to leave for Germany. 

We have also been spending a lot of time apartment hunting through a popular German website. It's a good combination of fun and terrifying :-) It's so hard to know what will actually be good for us when just looking at pictures! We sent an email today to one of the elders at the church in Dresden with a couple ads for apartments that we're interested in. Hopefully he can go check them out for us, or find other similar apartments for us to consider. So much to do!

Here is the most recent update on our support raising. Thank you to those of you who have given/ are continually giving! If you have not joined our support team yet... Please do!

Romans 10:14-15

14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”