Time to say goodbye...but new things are coming.

Well we just said goodbye to Kaelee. She is now one of our very good friends. We certainly enjoyed our time with her her in England. We hope to see her again very soon! Thank you, Kaelee for all the laughs we shared and of course for the chocolate and ornaments and Pringles..lol We will definitely miss you!! 

We would like to let you all know what is going on right now. We are so blessed to be able to spend Christmas with John, Liz, and Izzy! They have asked us to come spend Christmas Day with them and we will spend Boxing Day with them as well! It is sure to be good fun! Right after Christmas Laura (GAP youth leader) has planned a sleepover (lock-in) that We will be helping with! It sounds like it will be a night full of adventures. Then this coming year is going to be an adventure all on its own! We will be moving into a house of our own! The church has bought a house for us and in the new year we will be moving in. I must say that the Lord knows that we needed that! It has been very difficult living with other people. We are now at Martin and Janette's! They are a lovely couple! Living here has been much easier than the last place but it is very difficult never being alone. We have not really had any time for just us. We are always surrounded by people. So we are sooooo thankful that The Lord has provided the church with money to get a house for us! 

Also in the new year, we will be the leaders for the Children's Saturday Special. We have lots of help and it is always good fun. Instead of it just being once a month it will be twice. And there are already 15 children coming in so we are hoping that this will bring them into Junior Church as well (which we are also the leaders of.) We are making plans to get in to schools. Mostly for 16-18 year old's. They go to 6 (6th) form college. Not sure which it is called. But they call it college and then after that they go on to university. So college and university aren't the same thing like we would normally say. Anyways we would like to get into the colleges and the universities to invite them to "Convicted" which is still the first Sunday night of the month. So please pray that this will happen! We will also get to be apart of a bible study for the 20's-30's of our church. It will be once a month and everyone will get to lead the discussion and it will take place at different people's houses! It will be good fun!! Also another Q & A night is coming up on the 15th of January. Pray for Joey to have the wisdom to share the truth of God's word! 

Well I believe that is all that we have! We are still in love with this place! But it is going to be very difficult to be away from everyone this Christmas. You can pray that we don't get homesick! Also thank you to everyone who is giving to us! We have truly been blessed!!!! And my dad and sister are coming in March and I am just so excited!!! Well that is all for now!! We will write to you all again soon!!!

By His Grace!
Joey and Brooke :)

So what's next?

It has been awhile since I wrote to you all! Nothing really big has happened lately. We are trying to plan for the next year. We are finding it a little difficult though because we don't have many children to start with. It seems like that coming to church on Sunday is intimidating to people here. It's just not very popular. We have on an average 5 children that come to Junior Church.  Sometimes it's not even that many. We are finding that more parents will bring their children to the church for a few hours on a Saturday. For the last Saturday Special we had 13 children, which is AWESOME!! We are thinking that we may do the Saturday Specials more often. Last time a Muslim mom brought her 2 sons and asked us if we could do this more often because she liked having something for her son's to do when they aren't in school. She stayed with them the whole time, during the story and everything. It was very encouraging. I wish there were a way to get more children in but for now all we can do is pray that God will bring them! So please be praying with us!!! Pray that we will be able to come up with some creative idea's for events that we can do with the children! And if you have any ideas we will take them. haha

I have some other news that I would like to share with you all. I know I have told you all about Philip, the pastors son. We got into a really good conversation with him last night and we ask that you all pray really hard for him!! He is really heavy on my heart and I would so love to see him come to know the Lord! It is really hard to be a Christian here because it's just not the cool thing to be, especially for teenagers. He told us yesterday that on his school there is maybe 20 Christians of 1200 students (maybe that helps you see what I mean by it being hard to be a Christian here.) We are just praying that he would see how important this decision really is. And that he would learn what it means to be a man of God. Please be praying for him!! 

I suppose that is all for now. Thank you to everyone who is helping to support us by praying for us and sending money to AIPM! We wouldn't be able to stay here without you!! We love and miss you all! We will write again soon!

Question and Answer Night and Holiday Club!

Well it has been a long week!! But we have definitely enjoyed ourselves! I will start with how the Question and Answer night went last Saturday! Well it went really good!! lol The panel only had an hour to answer as many questions as they could. How is worked is that Caroline (David's wife) drew the questions out of a hat. During that hour they only answered 5 questions. One question was about Predestination and free will, another was can demon possess us, another one was about the Apocrypha and why we don't use it in our Bible, another was can babies be born with the Holy Spirit like John the Baptist, and the last one was can you be a christian and not speak in tongues. On the panel was Joey, Mike, and David. They pretty much agreed on everything. It was cool to listen to all their opinions though. People in the audience wanted to debate them but they decided that they wouldn't do that for times sake. They one that they disagreed the most on was the demon possession one. Mike believes that demon possession doesn't really happen. He believes it is really a mental disability. David believes that demons can be internal but can only externally attack you. Because if you say demons (fallen angels) can possess a human body, you are making angels more powerful than they actually are. So one can't actually be living inside someones body. Joey believes in possession can occur internally and externally. So this was the only question where they didn't really agree. It was a really fun night and a great fellowship!! They are already planning the next one and that will probably occur on January 15, 2011 so if you plan on coming to visit (and we hope you do!!) that might be a good time to come!!! haha :) 

HOLIDAY CLUB!!!!! The Fiesta Holiday Club has come and gone! I can't believe it!! A holiday club (VBS) would go very differently back home. It is not nearly as big as one at home would be. I will let you guess how many children we had. okay well maybe I will tell you! Monday-2. Tuesday-3. Wednesday-8. Thursday-2. Friday-9! It was way more laid back too! There was like no stress at all!! It was great! Without stressing we were able to enjoy everything along with the children! We made maracas and sombreros. We watched Chadder's Adventures. We played games. We had story time with Maggie. We even had a pinata!!! We were kind of disappointed about the numbers because we advertised like crazy! But we know that God brought there who he wanted there and so we learned to just have fun with what we have! 

Well now we are saying "What do we do know?" haha but I am sure soon that we will find another big project to work on! We do have Sunday School, a once a month young adult service, and a weekly Bible study that we are involved with so that should keep us pretty busy! I think we will be trying to do a Children's Christmas Special. So that will be fun!

The Thursday night Bible study has been going really well!! Joey does such a good job with them all! And they all seem to really like his teaching! I love to hear him as well! :) We have been building relationship with all the young people! They are all so brilliant! Pretty much all of them are going through hard times right now though and with most of them it is family issues. So please pray that we will be able to give them Biblical advice and that they will be able to do what is right! We love them all already! 

Well we love you all and miss you!
We will write again soon!!

Oh really?

It has been a while since I wrote you all on here! I hope everyone is okay! We do miss you all very much! I really don't have a certain thing that I want to write about. I think I will just kind of write about what ever comes to my mind.

I do want to remind you that tonight (afternoon for you) will be the "Question and Answer" night. I am really excited about it. Joey is too! He is actually doing more research now for it. There are 18 questions all having to with various subjects. I will give you some examples here: "Why do the Catholics not believe in Birth Control? Where in the Bible does it say we can't use it?" "Why is there so little worship during communion at NLBC." "Is it Biblical for women to be ministers and lead a church?" one more, "Can you be a Christian and not believe in the trinity?" So these are a few of the questions. So I think tonight will be a very good night!! But I would ask that you pray because some of these questions are very important and I know that Joey is probably a little nervous. 

I also would like to talk about the Holiday Club. For some reason I am very nervous about it. I am not as prepared as I would like to be. I really hope that at least one child leaves knowing more about Jesus than when they first came! We have absolutely no clue as to how many children are coming. We will just work with what we get.  If there are no children at least all the adults will have fun! haha Oh this is good...Last Sunday Mike, who announces church news, said that we only had 2 volunteers signed up for the Holiday Club and he told everyone we would like more. So when we looked at the sign up sheet after church there were at least 10 names on it!!! That was such a blessing to us because we only needed about 5 or 6 people. We were very pleased with that!

I thought you might be interested in knowing some things that we have noticed living here in England that may be different from living in Alabama. Some things are the words/phrases they use.
1. taking the mic out of someone means making fun of them. (I like this one)
2. car park is a parking lot
3. a queue is a line of people (you would say it like "Q")
4. Pudding is just dessert in general.
5. "what did you have for tea?" is like "what did you have for supper?" so tea is another name for supper and they also use it for the drink too.
6. a bloke is a man
7. an advert is a commercial
Those are just a few we have noticed and we are trying to use them! haha We have noticed some other things as well. Joey and I went to the city center yesterday to meet up with Erika so that we could have tea with her and her husband Peter. When we were waiting to meet her we were just watching. I noticed a few things a little different that I haven't really seen in Alabama. One was how many different cultures we saw! I mean it was unreal! I was pretty amazed. Then I noticed something not so good. That is that there are a lot of younger girls smoking. I have talked to David about that before and he said that most men here are attracted to women who are very thin. So to keep the weight off young girls smoke. I mean I know that people at home smoke but it is just seems different here. We have also noticed another thing. When you are a Christian back home and you are looking for a mate. Generally you would look for another Christian. Well here that is definitely not the case. Christians are so few here so what Christians look for are people with morals. We asked David about this and he said that there are usually more Christian women than men. So it would not be fair to say to the women that unless they can find a Christian man then they cannot get married, because if you said that then most of them would never get married. And it is not fair to them. I found that very sad! What happens then after you marry a non-Christian? Do they quit going to church to make their mate happy? Will they skip over 2 Corinthians 6:14-15? This is hard, right? We are also learning that people here (a lot like people at home, including me and Joey) think that..."well we know that Bible says this...but times have changed and that just isn't our culture today." So do we look at the Bible and say well this is good, but this part wouldn't really work for today?  We have all been taught things that is said to be in the Bible but isn't actually there. So now we are having to look and search the Bible for what is truth. One thing we hear is "if women cant be pastors, why cant they wear hats?" Which seems like a good question until you actually read that verse. Paul says to "Make up your own minds". But it makes you think about what we do at home. What do we do that's cultural but not necessarily scriptural? Of course to us, there is a line we see here, that we separates us from some. Some say a lot of issues in the bible is "cultural" where we personally draw the line and say "Its doctrine". We like the words Brother Jason use for this : "The sufficiency of Scripture" The question is do we really trust Scripture for all it is worth? So you can pray for us that we would learn more and more each day. We know that thing like this are the same at home but being away from our comforts seem to point these things out. I think we will learn more by being away from what is familiar. 


Please pray for us and the Holiday Club!
We love and miss y'all!
We will write again soon!

Convicted!

Hello everybody!!
We hope that all is well back home! We miss you all very much, but we definitely aren't ready to come home yet! haha We are still loving it here! Sunday night we had our first Convicted service. That is what we are calling the young adult service that will now occur on the first Sunday night of each month. It was really good! We ate pizza, and played a game, and Ruth played the piano and sang, and Joey spoke!! He did a really good job! There was only 8 of us there but we still had a great time! We know that there is at least one person in the group that is not a Christian. He will even tell you so. He has gone to church his whole life but still hasn't made a decision. We would has that you pray for him!! His name is Ian and he is the pastors son. This really saddens us so please pray as we try our best to reach out to him!!! Also pray for the rest of the group. Ruth, Becky S., Callum, Philip, and Kaelee. Also Becky H. and Laura will hopefully be joining us next time! So please pray for all of us!!!! Pray that we will be able to build close relationships with all of them!!


Saturday we did get to go to London! It was sooooo much fun! We got to shop in the markets and it reminded me a lot of the markets in Africa because you get to barter with the shop keepers. I am no good at that but John who took us was so funny! I think John and my dad would get along great because they both ask for a discount everywhere they go! It was brilliant! I did miss my daddy a bunch that day because John reminded me so much of him! At the markets we bought Leighton and Logan some really cute hoodies that say LONDON! I hope they like them! 


So I know that we have mentioned a ton of prayer request already but I do have a few more! Please continue to pray for the holiday club! So far we only have about 4 volunteers then there is me, Joey, and Kaelee! We would like a few more! Also pray that many children would come and that we will be able to have everything planned in time! The dates are 10/25-10/29! Thank you all so much I know you all are praying for us!
We love you all!!

Dinner Conversation

Joey, Kaelee, and I ate supper with a couple (John and Liz) from our church on Saturday. We had a great time and John is even going take us to London next Saturday!! Kaelee and I can't wait for the shopping!!! haha Anyways...I want to talk about some of the conversation we had. While we were eating John ask us some questions about what we believe. One of the first questions he asked was about a woman's role in the church. We told him that we believe that women should not be in the role of a pastor. He thought that that was really bizarre. I think he thought that we think that women are lower than men and they have no right to speak but that's not it. We think that men and women are equal but we believe that God designed them to have different roles. It is hard because we don't want to offend them, but isn't the truth sometimes offensive? I just didn't really know what to say and I was a little thrown off. I wish I would have been more prepared for something like that. After we discussed many things like this, John preceded to ask ME why I was a Christian. My heart dropped. I then just shared my testimony with him, but it just didn't seem like enough. I am beginning to see why I must search and know what I believe and why i believe it! I can't quit thinking about the conversation we had with them. I also want to make sure that the issue of a woman's role is important enough to actually talk about or not. It's hard to know what battle I should be fighting. I need the wisdom to know I should be doing! So I tell you all this because I need prayer! I am really struggling with this. There are more things that John didn't agree with about what we believe and he also thought that us being married so young was bizarre. He used that word "bizarre" a lot! So please pray that Joey and I would have the wisdom to know which battles to fight!


We love you all!!
Brooke

First Church Meeting!

I know it has been a week since I have updated, but we have been pretty busy! I am not sure that I can even remember everything that has gone on, but I will tell you all of the interesting things at least. 

On Sunday we were supposed to help with Junior Church (children's church) but unfortunately there were only kids that were under the age of 5 and they do something separate from the other kids. So that is something you can be praying for. We would like to see all aged children come regularly. Some weeks there will be none and others there will be 10 so it is always hard to plan because you don't know what you will be working with! But instead of going to Junior Church we got to hear David's message! He preach on legalism. It was a very good message for me to hear! After the service we had a meal! Just like at the home the Baptist here love to eat! haha After the meal we got to experience our first church meeting (business meeting). They are similar to the one's at home except the whole church doesn't vote on everything. The teams (committees) are the ones that decide how they want things done. Like...someone in the church can say they would like something done and whatever committee that concerns are the ones who get to decide how it is going to be done. So that is interesting..the meetings don't seem to last as long as the ones at home. Well anyways, during this meeting Joey and I got to tell the church what are plans are for the first few months. So you all may know some of the things going on but there is more! Of course you know about the Holiday Club coming up! We are also starting a new bible study on Thursday nights for ages 16-25. Jo will be like the teacher. Also once a month on Sunday nights there will be a service for young adults that will be run by the young adults here at the church. Our first meeting is the 2nd Sunday night of October. This meeting will just be for those of us at the church so that we can get to know each other and kind of plan how we would like to go about planning the services! Joey will also be the speaker for that. Also we will be kind of organizing Junior Church starting 2 Sundays from now. So as you can see there is a lot going on and I am sure there will be more to come! So our first church meeting went very well!! 


So we would ask that you pray for all these things going on! We are so excited and can't wait to see where God is going with all this! Please pray for us to stay focused on what God would have us do!Tonight will be the first time that the young adults meet as a class, so please pray for us and pray for Joey that he would say what the Lord wants him to! You can also be praying for Kaelee who is working with us until December! We have already become good friends! 


We love and miss you all!

The Cinema!

Hello everyone!

We are still having such a good time!! I think the last thing I told was about the Phase 10 game with Ian and Phil and that was on Monday night! So now I will tell you about our adventures on Tuesday and Wednesday and what has gone on so far today. So Tuesday we spent all day at the church working on Holiday Club stuff and spending time with the Coffee shop girls. Tatiana is one of the girls who work in the coffee shop. She usually spends her lunch with me and Joey. We enjoy her company! Then Tuesday night we finished our Phase 10 game with our new brothers and we had a great chat with Phil (who won the game) afterwards. Ian went to bed because he lost. It was funny! That was the end of our Tuesday pretty much!

On Wednesday, we got up early and went to the church. We got to eat breakfast with the coffee shop workers. Bruce, the morning manager, cook the breakfast and it was really good! He asked me what was my favorite breakfast and I told him French Toast and so he told me that I could cook breakfast for us all the next day. So I was so excited the rest of the day to be able to cook for them. While sitting in the coffee shop Joey and I talked to some of the older people that are part of a group called the Together Group from the church. We engaged in some  very lovely conversations with people. Kaelee and I left Jo to look at some Sunday School stuff and while we were sitting down a couple came over to sit with us. They were very interesting. We learned later that they had actually gotten told that they couldn't come back again until they could settle down. They seem like they have had a hard life and they also told us that they had learning disabilities. It was quite sad and they were like the first people that I had met like that here. But anyways...In the afternoon Kaelee, Joey, and I got on the bus and met Phil at the cinema. We went on "Orange Wednesday" so that we could get BOGO tickets. Orange is like their AT&T and Verizon and if you send a text message to them of some sort then they will give you a code and you just tell that to the cinema clerk. It was really neat. The movie we saw was really stupid but it was fun going to the cinema...They don't call it the movies like we do obviously haha. After the three of us rode the bus back to the church and went to Guides (like our girl scouts) and met all the girls there. Then we waited on David until after 9:00 to get out of a meeting. It was one of those meetings that make you wonder why you ever became a pastor. So you all could pray for him! There is a few things going on that are hard for any pastor to deal with. One being that there is a couple here that is getting a divorce and their children aren't doing well with everything and another being that there is a mom who can't cope with her daughter who is pregnant out of wedlock. So now you have a little idea of what he might might be going through. I know he would appreciate your prayers. So after going home David fixed us something to eat! We had toast with beans on top and fried egg on top of that! AHH it was awesome!!! It sounds kind of gross but it was actually quite nice!!!!! Then it was off to bed for us!

So now today!! We got up early and went to the church! I did get to cook French Toast! I made it with vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar mixed in with the egg. They don't usually put all that in the egg but they all seemed to really like it! I was glad they did! David really like it because Jo picked up some chocolate and hazelnut spread to put on it. David loves anything chocolate! As for the rest of the day we are spending it in the coffee shop and then tonight we will go to church!! 

Prayer request: The divorcing couple; The girl who is having a baby; Bruce, who works in the coffee shop is an alcoholic; alcoholism is BIG here so you can pray for that; The Holiday Club; and Joey and I will always welcome your prayers!

We love and miss you all!!
Joey and Brooke

City Center!

I told you I would tell you what Boys Brigade was when I found it so I will tell you now! It is something that we don't really have at home. It is kind of a mix between boy scouts and acteens. Something like that! They boys that are involved can earn badges and they learn about safety like boy scouts would, but they are affiliated with a church. There are many churches that do this kind of like acteens. There is always a devotion and things like that. It is actually pretty neat!  

If you will remember I mention about the BMS action team on Friday. Well Saturday night we had a "social" with them and it was a blast!! For dinner or tea we had our first experience of British Chinese food! It was very different actually..haha but it was delicious!! They have prawn crackers which I don't think I have ever seen that back home. We played a lot of fun games and really got to know the action team and a few people from the church.


On Sunday we went to church like we normally would back home, but of course the service was quite different! The preaching is way shorter if you can believe that. The do sing the same songs as us though so that was good for us. During the service they have what they call Sunday School, but it is really just for the kids and there is no Sunday School like we would have. After the service this Sunday they had communion and anyone is allowed to take it. It doesn't have to be a church member or anything like that. The deacons of the church do not serve the communion like at home. This Sunday it was all women who served which was kind of different for us. They have communion twice a month. Then after all that and usually after the regular service they have coffee, tea, and cake which we love!!! It is just a time to fellowship with everyone. I don't think this happens at every church, because every church doesn't have a coffee shop in it! 


After church we went home with Mrs. Pat, a lady from the church. She was keeping the action team girls at her house so we all at lunch together along with one of the action team boys. For Sunday lunch. most people have the same thing...a roast (chicken in our case), vegetables, gravy, and pudding for dessert! Pudding is like cobbler! It was sooooo yummy!!!! And we had such sweet conversation with all these people!! Then that night we had dinner with a few people from the church at Harvester, a restaurant near here. We had a really good time.

So today, Kaelee, from Texas that is working with us, took Jo and I to Birmingham city center! Ian and Philip, David's sons, took her there when she got here so she was able to show us what she learned. We would say down town though. It was quite nice! It was our first time to ride the city bus. We ate at a pizza hut! haha We just enjoyed being able to see the city! After coming home we rested a while then had dinner or tea! Then Joey and I played Phase 10 with Ian and Philip and we really had a great time!! These guys are soo much fun! They are like the little brothers Joey and I never had!! (except they are both way taller than us and Ian is almost my age!!) Now we are about to go to bed and wait to see what tomorrow may hold for us!

Well that's it for now! If you can think of any questions that you might have about what we are doing just leave a comment or facebook me and I will answer to the best of my ability!!
Love you all and miss you!!!!
Joey and Brooke!!!

Orange Squash?

Hello from England!!! We are already having a great time! We got here yesterday morning and had breakfast with David and his father-in-law. Then, since we were so tired from our long plane rides we took a nap. Then we got ready and had dinner (Salmon, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and cucumber). Most of you know that I am not a fish or vegetable fan, but it really wasn't that bad. I felt terrible thought because I wasn't really hungry and couldn't eat all my food! Everyone else had a clean plate. But The Barber's (who we are staying with) didn't seem to mind. Joey and I were also able to get unpacked before we headed off to church. They have mid week services on Thursday here. After that we went home and David explained to us what we would be doing today. Then we were able to talk to a few of our family members.

So today we got up early and left at 9:15 to go with Bro. David to a funeral. Funerals here are very different from back home. Here they can only last about 20 minutes because a different service is held every 30 minutes at the same place. So the ministers have to keep it very short! It was quite odd! There are also only a few ministers who will preach funerals. The services are held at the crematorium. They don't bury much here. Most people are cremated.  

After the funeral service we came to the church! We have loved every minute of it here! We have met a lot of people here. Oh last night we met the girl that is here from Texas. She has been here for a week and a day! So we have been here at the church with her! We have been meeting people in the coffee shop and just talking to people! There is also a group of 4 teenagers that are here from the BMS (Baptist Missionary Society) They are from all over England and they will be going to South Africa together for 6 months! They are here for the weekend I think and they are doing team building activities. We will get to be involved in that and are excited!! We have also found ourselves already picking up on the accent here. We sound kind of silly!!haha

We absolutely love it here!! We were kind of scared about coming into this culture because of all the "advice" we were giving. We were told back home not to try to be funny or tell jokes but that is all these people do!! lol they are hilarious!!! Also we were warned about the food, but it is not all bad. They don't have flavored coffee! It's kinda sad! lol But we love it so far. We haven't done too much yet! Tonight Jo will do 2 10 minute devotions tonight at the Boys Brigade...not sure what that really is but we will find out later!

I will try to do by best to keep you all updated! Please pray that we would continue to love it here!! Also pray that we would know the Lord's guidance for what we should do while we are here!! We love and miss you all!!

The time is here!

Okay everybody, IT'S HERE!!! We are just hours from going to the airport to get on the plane!! Our flight goes a little like this: Birmingham, AL to Charlotte; Charlotte to New York JFK; JFK to Dublin; Dublin to.....BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND!! We are so ready just get there! All these airports make me nervous!! We got our insurance figured out! Praise God!!!! Today we were able to finish packing and see some of our family and tonight we are spending the night with daddy since he is taking us to the airport in the morning! 

Pray that we sleep good tonight and be well rested for the long trip ahead of us! Pray for my nerves to be calmed because we all know Joey is laying back and saying "Eh it's all good!" even though it may not be! HAHA Well we are going to bed! We will write as soon as we can!!

We are almost ready!!!

We are so close to leaving! We are excited! We have bought our tickets and just want to hop on that plane! I (Brooke) am so nervous! I am trying to remember to just trust God and know that He is going to take care of us! That has been really hard though. It seems like all the little things that could go wrong have. We are still in the process of trying to purchase insurance. As I am writing this Joey is working on filling our everything on line and as soon as he hit submit there was an error with it and we don't know what it is! It is just things like that that keep happening. We know that everything will work out! There is only one person that doesn't want us to go and I know that he will not get what he wants!! We believe that something (we don't know what) awesome will happen while we are in England and the Devil will try all he can to stop us, but we trust that the Lord is faithful to us and we will make! We are just so ready to get there and begin our adventure!!

So please, please, please pray that things will begin going smoother!! Please pray for my nerves to be calmed!! Also pray that we will be able to get everything packed and ready by tomorrow afternoon so that we can sleep before we have our 23 hour trip to Birmingham!

The Visas are here!!

Our visas came yesterday!! Now all we have to do is finalize our medical insurance and buy tickets! We are hoping and praying that we can get them both today!! We are so excited and can't wait to leave. I imagine leaving our family will be very difficult as we are both very close to them all! We are so glad for technology though! We will be able to talk to everyone via skype and email and for that we are thankful! We recieved a HUGE blessing last night from our church family! They provided for us a "send off supper" and the had a money tree set up for us! We just feel so blessed to have the support of our church family and we will miss them all greatly!!

So please pray that we will be able to get our tickets and insurance today!!

Awaiting the day!

We should be leaving for England in just 20 days!! We are still waiting for our visa's to come. We are praying that they will come in very soon. After the visa's come then we can purchase our plane tickets. We still have to pack for the trip and pack up our house. I (Brooke) am not stressing out yet, but I am afraid the day is soon coming! AHH!! Joey will be there to calm me down! (He always does!)

As our 4 month anniversary is drawing near we would ask that you would pray for our marriage, that it grow stronger every day that we are there! Also be praying for the events that we know are coming in October. One is a holiday club (VBS in America), and the other is going in to the schools. We are not exactly sure what we will be doing in the school yet, but this is the first time Brother David (pastor of New Life Baptist Church) has been able to go into the schools.

Thanks!
Joey and Brooke Wood