Merry Christmas!
Wow, a lot has happened since my last blog post, which is why, of course, I haven’t posted anything. The bane of the blog existence is that when I have time to post there’s nothing to say and when there’s lots to say there’s no time.
Things were pretty busy and exhausting as we sold and gave away 85 percent of our stuff and moved out of our apartment. I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to deal with all my stuff disappearing and moving out of what has been our only home as a married couple. But God is so faithful to remind me of his good plan and why I’m doing all this.
After quitting my job Dec. 17, we flew to San Antonio to spend time with my family before Christmas and then up to Washington, D.C., Dec. 22 to spend two weeks with Brandon’s family. That’s where we are now. We’ve spent a refreshing and relaxing time with Brandon’s parents the past week. We’re looking forward to Brandon’s brother and his family are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.
Brandon wrote our long-overdue e-mail update and we sent it out to many in our community. If we haven’t added you to our e-mail list, you can read it at the bottom of this post. If you’d like to be added to our (semi-)monthly e-mail list, please shoot Brandon a line at mbjones@gmail.com.
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Dear friends and family,
We just mentioned that we reserved our plane tickets. We now have confirmed seats leaving on February 4th (arriving in Cape Town late on February 5th). On one hand we are incredibly excited about this but on the other are feeling the time crunch. We have less than a month before we hop on a plane to start life anew on the other side of the world. In this time we’ll be spending as much time as possible with family and friends and Brandon will be finishing up his job at the university. We’ll also be condensing, as much as possible, our life into 3 duffel bags (weighing less than 50lbs each) a piece.
As far as things that need doing before we leave, the only major thing we have left is obtaining the visa. It’s a straightforward process but required having some of the other agenda items in place first (health insurance, plane tickets, support base). That this would be as straightforward as it sounds is definitely a prayer request. We have other requests too that we covet your prayers on:
Strength and joy: Life hasn’t slowed much since our last email; it’s actual probably “sped up.” Between traveling and meeting people, and pressing on with our daily lives, free time seems scarce and it is easy to feel overwhelmed. We still wake each morning with new joy and new strength in the Lord; pray that we would continue to seek Him and not lean on our own strength or understanding in any of this.
Continued guidance in community raising: God has been faithful in leading us to people with a genuine interest in our lives and HIS vision in it. Pray that he would continue to do this.
Provision: We still have monthly support to raise (we have ~$900 pledged of our $2500 goal). We are definitely encouraged but have a ways to go. Thankfully, as it was due up front, we have what was needed for the first 5 months of training but will have additional expenses as we press on in this mission. If anyone is praying about year-end-giving and thinks of us, the Journey is ready to accept checks on our behalf.
Finishing well: It’s important to us to finish this season in Norman well. Brandon still has a few days of work left and we have lots of goodbyes to make.
For the establishment of HIS kingdom, Brandon & Julianna Jones |
This site belongs to Brandon and Julianna Jones. They are 20somethings that want to live life church planting. Jesus is taking them to Africa first, it seems, but keep tuned here to see what other adventures await us!
