My passport came in the
mail last Saturday! Carissa pulled the mail out of the mailbox, and sat down next to me. I opened the envelope and it really hit me when I looked at that passport that I'm going on this trip. She looked at me and said, "Are you ready to go to South Africa?" :-) I'm so excited and very humbled at the whole thing. The church has my passport info now and they are in the process of purchasing my airline ticket! So the trip
is a definite "GO" now for me! My personal fund raising is basically at roughly $3000. The church needs
for us to be fully funded by next week, and that total is $3800. Please continue with your prayers and
for anyone who is led to donate financially, please do so soon.
We have a few on the team who are doing great at fund raising, and we
have a few who are struggling. I can afford to contribute personally for myself, but my personal heart's desire is to be able
to raise enough money to finance myself and at least half of one other
person on the team, and commit as much of my own personal money toward helping the others on the team that have had less success raising the funds. So every dollar that is contributed for me is another dollar that I can contribute towards the entire team! :-) I've learned a lot so far about how God uses us in different ways thru-out this process, and how He has something to teach each of us thru-out the preparation of a trip like this. It's been a very fun experience for me, to continually be in prayer with Him and watchful for how He would have me use my funds versus how He would have me rely on Him for fund raising. I know that He has had different lessons/perspectives for each of us on the team to come to understand.
Please also be in prayer for a program we have at
Intel called the Matching Gifts Foundation. I applied for
Matching funds
for my volunteer hours in Nation2Nine for last year, and I am supposed
to hear back from the program in May as to whether they accept the hours
and cut a check to Sun Valley for that program. I spoke with the church office
and we can put the money toward the team's trip, too. If this money
comes thru, this would be around an additional $1000 for the trip. That
would be awesome! So please do lift this up in prayer.
Here is my original Mission Trip letter:
If you are led to donate, see this link for steps to donate online:
I have also attached a
copy of my letter to this email, which includes steps to follow if you are led to
donate. If you do not feel comfortable donating online, you are also
welcome to send checks directly to my address or to the church. Make
them out to Sun Valley Community Church, and in the "For" field, just
put "South Africa Mission - Charles Teague".
I appreciate all of
your prayers and support, it truly touches my heart. I will work very
hard to keep all of you in the loop as to how things go, pictures from
the trip,
etc.
I am so thankful that God has put you all in my life for specific purposes.
In Christ,
-Chip