La Fuente/ cold feet?

Welcome to "La Fuente". As my description notes, this is what I am titling this blog as well as my newsletters. Fuente means fountain in Spanish and I hope that my trip will be a fountain of growth for me and for you in the Lord through reading my updates.

The latest update . . .support raising has started, I've now sent out 75 letters, and have had a pretty good response so far. I had some misunderstandings after I had already prepared and sent out a lot of my letters, so my target goal has changed (not to mention my budget was bit higher than anticipated). My official goal: $1750/month in monthly pledges (for 24 months) and $4500 for training/one time costs. In addition training will not end on October 13 with the Chicago portion, there is a second correspondence course I must do that will take up to 13 weeks. So, this means that I will not get out the door until January. It has been frustrating as my departure date keeps changing. I'm sure it's just impatience that makes it frustrating and that's what God is teaching me, but if it happens again, I may seriously question my calling to the field. I do currently still feel called and some recent events I feel have confirmed that, but if the Lord isn't letting me leave, maybe it's not meant to be as this is now the second delay. . .Please pray for me on this, as it is a serious concern, especially being so far along in the process. I will be praying about this as well as I move forward and try to discern where I can best serve God. I think my support may be a big indicator as well. If I'm not at least 25-30% to my goal before training then I think I may need to rethink things. Whatever happens (and I do hope it's still in the mission field), I have learned a lot about myself during this process and that will aid me in the next stage wherever/whatever that may entail.

However, a January departure does have some bright spots. On the one hand, the directors of the project will be back for good then from their furlough in Scotland and I will only have to endure about a month with no school (which could be very boring), but will still give me ample time to plan and prepare for the 2007 school year which in Bolivia begins in February. And of course, I'll get to spend the holidays with my family.

Making progress

I have started raising my support as of three weeks ago and so far God has been faithful and generous. I have received several very large donations, but while this initial period has been good, I still have a long way to go. Fortunately I have about two months to do it. I did finalize my budget yesterday and the final figures that my advisor and I came up with are:
~$1750/month in monthly support & ~$4500 in training/startup costs. I am told this is very cheap for a missionary, even to Latin America. With a very generous donation I am receiving from my church, I have nearly reached the $4500, so I am focusing now on trying to recruit monthly partners.

You can pray for me as I have been under a considerable amount of stress and even some spiritual attack. It is obvious that Satan does not want me to go and he is filling my mind with lots of doubts and reasons to stay. Support is definitely an area like this. I am struggling mentally with fundraising and this is an area in which I am being attacked. I quickly realize what it is and shake it off, which is in a way affirming to my calling because I realize if Satan doesn't want me to do this, it must be God's will.

And finally, some great news on preparations, I may have a potential buyer for my car! I believe this is another situation God has put in my life as I am a HORRIBLE salesman. A guy contacted me off of a local online classified board to which I posted an ad. We talked on the phone and through our conversation I discovered he is a believer and actually runs a Christian camp in the mountians and he was happy to hear of my plans to go to Bolivia. Apparently his wife owned an Xterra exactly like mine but was hit by a drunk driver two weeks ago (thankfully she's ok!) and so now she's looking for a replacement. I am convinced this is divine intervention as this is probably the worst time to sell an SUV with skyrocketing gas prices and also the general idea that 2 year old cars don't sell easy. Although it has been up for several weeks, I was hoping to sell it around this time so that I can afford to get a rental car to get around in my last few weeks here. But it has eliminated my biggest fear of getting scammed since I know I can trust this guy and also because it will be a win-win situation for both of us.