Greetings!
Since the first of the year, God has been doing amazing things to move us closer to our departure to the mission field! In the last 6 weeks alone, the Lord has brought us 10 new ministry partners for a total of over $630 in monthly pledges! We've also had almost $2,500 come in for outgoing expenses! We are well on our way! Pray for God's continued favor as we invite people to partner with us to take the Gospel to Italians.
Tomorrow our whole family will pile into the car and head to Union Mills, NC for 2 weeks of training on second language acquistion. The course is taught at The Center for Intercultural Training (www.cit-online.org) and will help us learn principles of effective language learning. While we won't actually be learning Italian yet, we will have the opportunity to practice language learning methods with native speakers and get practical advice on how best to approach language learning when on the field. Bryson and Laynie will also be taking language classes with other missionary kids from all over the country. Be sure to check our blog (vernerverbiage.blogspot.com) over the next couple of weeks for updates about our experiences there!
Until All of Italy Hears,
Stephen and Brandy
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E-Team
A while back, the Lord laid it on our hearts to put together a team of people to encourage and hold us accountable during our remaining time of support raising. After a lot of prayer, we felt like God showed us the people He had appointed for the job. So on February 13, we met for the first time with our E-Team.
Now you may be wondering what the "E" stands for. When we were praying about a vision for the team, the Lord gave us three E words that described the roles our team should play in our lives.
Encourage - 1. to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence; 2. to stimulate by assistance, approval, etc.; 3. to promote, advance, or foster
Exhort - strongly encourage or urge (someone) to do something
Exemplify - to show or illustrate by example
The members of our E-Team have already been doing these things and we know that now they will help us even more than they have been. During our initial meeting, we were able to update the team on where we are in the process of getting to the mission field and then we spent time in prayer as a group. We look forward to meeting with them monthly until time for us to leave for Italy! |
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Photo Shoot
A friend of ours, who is an amazing photographer, recently
started her own company and decided to bless us with a family photo shoot. We headed down to Atlantic Station in
Midtown Atlanta and spent a fun afternoon together as Sonji captured our memories. Below are a few examples and you'll see more in the coming months as we incorporate them into our website and print materials. You can also see some of our pictures featured at www.imagesbysojo.com.
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