I have to start out by yelling at the top of my voice, PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!
We had an amazing day yesterday, but to tell you about it, let me go back to the end of last week.
Since our last post, we had scheduled with our pastor to announce to the church congregation this past sunday that we have been called to work in Costa Rica. Well, I wanted to tell the property appraiser that I work for about our plans before the announcement on sunday, because there are several people in my office that attend our church and his sister also attends our church and I wanted to make sure that he heard the news from me instead of anyone else. Well it didn’t work out for me to tell him face to face because he was really busy and out of the office alot, so his secretary told me to go ahead and just leave a brief voice message on his phone on friday and told him that I would fill him in on the details when he got in the office next week. Well, we were presented before the church on sunday morning and that was an awesome experience. The congregation arrupted in applause and gave us a standing ovation. How humbling! Everyone was very encouraging and supportive.
On monday, I headed in to work completely exhausted and barely functioning because we had been up super late the two nights before working on our fundraising presentation since we had our first appeal set up for monday evening. I got into work a little late and got settled at my desk and shortley after that, the property appraiser shows up at my desk and tells me to come into his office. We went in and started talking and he was totally encouraging and supportive and assured me that it would be no problem for me to continuing working there until we raise our full support. What a releif. Shortly after that, I went back to my desk and prayed that God would fill me with his Holy Spirit and prepare my immediate supervisor’s heart (who is an atheist) for the news. I went into his office and shut the door and told him that God had called me and my family to the mission field. He immediately started tearing up and said “Allen, I can’t explain it, but for some reason I am extremely happy and excited for you guys.” My jaw dropped and all I could say was WOW! That was totally not the reaction I expected from him. Why should I have expected anything less when the Holy Spirit is involved. Then he told me that he was really going to miss me and that he wanted to take me out to lunch and hear more about where we are going and what we are going to be doing. I got to tell him all about our vision for Costa Rica and the work that is going on there. What a relief that was for me and now I can openly discuss our plans and the cool things that God is doing for and through us in our journey with him and the rest of the office.
What an awesome God we serve!!!
That’s not all though. After work Carol and I went over to some friends house to do our first financial support appeal presentation. They were former missionaries and had a ton of fundraising experience and wanted to be our guinea pigs for our first presentation. We spent several hours with them as we ate dinner and then as we did our presentation, they gave us some positive citicisim. The end result was that we gained our first financial support team members and we now will be able to really tweak our presentation to be more effective. We thank God for their friendship and willingness to mentor us.
Not a bad moday if you ask me.
We are looking forward to seeing God to continue to work and provide as we really kick our fundraising efforts into high gear.
Blessings to you all!!!

Allen