Attending LAUNCH at CMF was an encouraging time for us! We got to talk with lots of old friends on the staff and even meet some recruits like us that will be joining us in Kenya.
We have lots of information to process as we start support raising. We’re starting right away and presenting our ministry to a church in Fort Recovery, Ohio this Sunday while with family on vacation!
Tomorrow is the first day of LAUNCH at CMF!!!
We’ve been working towards this day for months. Please keep us in your prayers Mon-Wed as we go to classes and meetings all day. This is where we find out our budget, learn the nuts and bolts of support raising, and are oriented to how CMF does things.
Great News! Hannah was just accepted to Rosslyn Academy, a great Christian school in Nairobi, Kenya!
Now just need to move there!
Here’s a fun game:
Think about everything you own and decide what you would keep if you had to fit everything in 5 suitcases.
Seriously that’s how we’ve started looking at things. The truth is everything we own in the next few months or so will need to either fit in our suitcases or be sold or gotten rid of or paid to store.
I’ve never liked accumulating things, but this is a whole new worldview as we go through life still in the American culture where things are cheap and there is always a new and better thing to have.
I’m often reminded of driving through the countryside in England with Katie years ago. We were so confused by seeing signs in the middle of fields advertising a “Boot Sale”. When we returned to town we asked a long time missionary why people will be selling boots out in a field. She explained that people bring their extra things to sell in their cars and park in these fields. Then they raise their car’s boot (trunk) to sell those items. She went on to say that even in a rich country like England, the idea of having so much extra stuff that you need to fill a garage or even a yard and have your own sale was crazy.
I think this time of getting rid of things will be good for us and our faith. I suspect that even if you’re not planning to move everything you own in a few suitcases, your life and faith might improve with accumulating fewer things or even having your own boot sale.
We love when Hannah gets excited about Kenya. She keeps surprising us with little clues to how she feels about all of this. This morning she was trying to find a better app for learning Swahili.
This week we showed her pictures of the beautiful school we’ve applied for her attend. She was SO excited about the photo of the library. That’s our Hannah.
Hey Indianapolis friends! We’re excited to be coming to town next Sunday (June 7th) to worship with our friends at East 91st Street Christian Church before our missionary training at CMF International that week. Hope to catch up with you then!
We are OFFICIALLY cleared for LAUNCH!
CMF’s medical team had us retake some tests, but just cleared us to go to the training in Indy on the 8th!
Thank you for your prayers! Praise the Lord!
CMF is VERY thorough during the application process, including a complete medical work up. Both Katie and I had one test each come back “elevated”. This could block us from the June training and set us back months or be nothing. A medical consultant from CMF will determine that soon.
Please pray that there is nothing wrong and we can move forward. If there is something wrong, part of our testimony will be that these tests caught it early. Either way it’s in God’s hands.
Thanks!
June 8-10th we’ll be traveling to Indy for CMF’s orientation & support raising training, called LAUNCH. We should learn lots of details then! Can you commit to praying for our preparation & @CMFmissions’s preparations of our budget?
This is BIG NEWS for the Gerber family! The story is too long for this post, but we wanted to share this news with you as quickly as we could. We have felt God’s calling to move to Kenya and after a 3 month process with my old employer CMF International, they’ve invited us to join their ministry in Nairobi.
As you would expect, I’ll be doing Photo/Video/Communication stuff and Katie will be developing children’s ministries at all of the new churches.
This is a long process and we wouldn’t be able to go until we raise the support. That could take 6 months, it could take 2 years. There will be plenty of time for us to tell you more of the story.
