It seems like nothing has come easy as we have made preparations to serve in Nakuru, Kenya this July, but God has always come through for us.
Last summer’s plans to serve in Kenya fell through because of problems with flight arrangements. I thought we had overcome that problem this time around when I reserved 10 flights with a missions travel agency back in January. But then 2 weeks ago our agent told me the taxes and fees on our tickets had gone up an average of $200 a ticket. Waaa???
On top of that, back in January no one had committed to the trip, so I sent the travel agent the names of the people I thought were most likely to go with assurances from her that we could change the names later. But when I sent her the final list of names, I was informed the price would be nearly $600 higher for those who weren’t on the original list. (We could change a name like Dave Smith to David Smith with no problem, but Dave Smith to Bill Jones would cost us.) Double waaa???
It was frustrating, but like I said, God has come through just in time each step of the way. So, yesterday armed with 3 credit cards, I spent 2 hours on the phone with an agent from CheapTickets.com and when all was said and done, we had great flights on good airlines (Continental & Swiss Air) for about $100 more than our original reservations. We’ll even have an extra day at Springs of Hope, because our return flight doesn’t leave Nairobi until 11:30 PM Monday July 18.
Is God awesome or what?!?
Team Down to 6
On a disappointing note, Jennifer and I decided that this will not be the year for Ainsley to serve with us in Kenya. It was a tough decision, one which is sad for all of us, but we sensed God leading us in that direction.
More Hurdles Ahead
The plane tickets account for $2,000 out of the $3,000 total cost of the trip. Each member of the team paid for their ticket with a combination of money raised through the Chili Cook-off and Auction, donations made by friends and family, and our own savings.
Each of us will need to raise/save about another $1,000 for immunizations, visas, food and lodging, and to help the people we’ll be serving in Kenya.
We’d appreciate any financial support you can provide and we’d appreciate your prayers. Sometimes there’s a tendency to take for granted or make light of the importance of prayer, but our efforts to serve in Kenya this summer would have fallen apart long ago had God not had his hand in this thing.
[...] But through God’s provision we were able to purchase airline tickets for the entire team last week for only slightly more than our original reservation. And the flights are much better – through Tampa instead of Orlando, and giving us an extra day in Kenya! Yeah! (Read the whole story airline ticket story) [...]
[...] weeks ago, I told you about how God helped us overcome a breakdown with the travel agency we had made our airline reservations with and secure our airline tickets to Kenya. At the moment [...]