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Category: JonandLayne.com

GOOOOOOOOAL!!!!

A Jon Post

It seems like there’s something new to talk about every week recently. It’s funny because I struggle with wanting to keep these posts short enough to be readable (I understand the “DEATH BY HUGE WALL OF TEXT” syndrome that so many internet readers suffer from), wanting to keep everyone up to speed on latest news in our lives and ministry, wanting to give you all the individual stories and a glimpse into the emotions, and wanting to put a bunch of pictures up so you can SEE what we’re doing.

So I’ll put it to our readers. Chose one of these and let us know what you are looking for from jonandlayne.com. If you have thoughts or more suggestions that just a vote in this poll leave a comment and let us know how you’d like us to communicate with you here.

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Anyway… I’ll do a newsy, pictury post for this one until I hear more from you about what you’d like to hear.

This week we’ve been pretty busy every evening. Our Portuguese missionary friends (Jorge and Alice) invited us to be a part of showing the African Cup of Nations soccer games in some townships around Maputo. The African Cup of Nations is a HUGE deal here in Africa as each African nation competes to be the best soccer team in Africa. People love it and it’s a great way to connect with the average African. We partner with a pastor who has a church in an area of town, go to a soccer field very near the church and set up a satellite dish, projector and 8×6 foot screen and draw huge crowds. The pastors get a great opportunity to speak of the love of Jesus to the entire neighborhood in the area of his church, the people get to see a soccer game, and we get to set it all up and cheer and laugh and connect with people on a great personal level. Our new Land Cruiser serves as a wonderful mobile-soccer-game-show.

The showing of the games is a bit of an evening commitment and we have been spending each night from 5:30 until 11:30 out in the townships to do it. It’s thrown us a little off in our schedule but it’s just for this month and we’re happy to be a part of it.

Click on the picture below and hopefully you can get an idea of what we’ve been doing.

We’re still going to the hospital on a near daily basis to visit and love the friends we’ve made in the oncology ward. I’d like to write more about that but I think I’ll wait and tell you more next time I post.

Thanks for reading, voting, praying, giving. We are so proud to tell people here of our incredible support base. You are the envy of many missionaries we’ve met. We love to boast about you.

Is this real?

a layne post

Jon and I keep looking at each other and asking, “Are we really moving to Africa on Friday? And by the way, where are we going?”

Maybe it is because we do not know exactly where we are going, or maybe it is just our current, crazy, unsettled life, but it all feels a little unreal. There is this part of me, that is currently buried in the extreme emotions that accompany “good-byes”, that is excited and filled with anticipation. I have moments, normally fleeting, when I can grasp this feeling and remember, “Layne, you love this. You love Africa. You love serving.”

It is during these moments that I gain the strength, once again from our gracious Lord, that enables me to board that plane on Friday and leave my family… my precious, precious loving family.

Prayer Points

  • We still do not have an invitation or visa to Angola. We still are holding onto a small hope we could get some paperwork together before we leave, yes, in 4 days. Please pray with us! No matter what happens though, we believe the Lord has a plan laid out for us, and as long as He guides us for the day, we’ll be alright.
  • Pray for emotional strength on Friday.
  • Pray for wisdom and direction upon our arrival in South Africa.

Thank you all your support and love while we have been in the States, as well as commitments for the future! We have felt so loved. My spirit has been refreshed.  We look forward to posting reports of our (that is you too!) work from Africa!

Leading worship at Quiettime Ministries

Leading worship at Quiettime Ministries

Some girl time

Some girl time

More pics to come…

Website Updates and Making Memories

A Jon Post

The days keep counting down and it is really hard to imagine some times how committed to this thing we really are. Are we really going? Is the dream this big?

I’ve been able to meet new people here in Corpus Christi and it seems like I’m often telling people where Layne and I are going and what we’re doing. Part of it is because Pete (my father-in-law) always introduces me as “This is Jon my son-in-law, he and my daughter are moving to Africa for good in two weeks!” (thanks Pete haha). The more I tell people about our heart and dreams for Angola the more it is solidified in my head that we really are moving there. It’s not a small deal.

I updated our website to have a couple new pages. You can click on the “About Us” and “Support Us” tabs up on the top left there. I am pretty happy with the “Support Us” tab. You can now support what we are us in Angola with a credit or debit card! You can even set it to a certain amount monthly or quarterly or yearly or daily or however often you’d like and it’s all tax-deductible!  I know it sounds like I’m just asking for money here but I’m mostly just happy that I got all the php code working for the Paypal links and all (and I’m asking for money… we’re still working towards our goal of $2000/month). I have a bit of training in html code but this php stuff that powers our blog is ALL learning and new to me.

Anyway, we’re busy making memories here in Corpus with our family here. It’s so good to be so loved by so many people. We certainly don’t deserve it.

Please pray for us. We are getting closer and closer to our leaving date and we are still hoping and trusting hard that paperwork for Angola will come in soon. Layne and I get up every day and check our email hoping for good news and we will keep doing it.
God please, please, please, bring these plans to fruition. We need you so much. We need Your dramatic, over-the-top, no-other-explanation-but-from-You actions. We trust you. We trust you.

Pray with us. Partner with us. We love you all so much.

Memories

Memories