All of my support letters have been mailed (or hand-delivered)!  It's been cool to start talking to people about this trip; talking about it makes me more and more excited for this next year.  I can't wait to see how God works over the next few months.  Support-raising is as much a ministry as being "in the field", and I know He'll do amazing things in the lives of the people He has called to support me.

I decided to save on stamps and hand out most of the letters to people at my church.  It turns out God had reason for me to do that.  This past Sunday was the end of the Missions Conference at my church.  Every year they spend 4 days focusing on missions with programs about missions, missionary speakers, etc.  On Sunday, the congregation is called to make a Faith Promise: each person has the opportunity to commit to giving a certain amount of money to the church to be used specifically for missions.  At the end of the service, our Missions Pastor also calls people to make a commitment to God, asking Him to use them in whatever way He sees fit.  So anyway, when I handed my support letter to Mary, a woman who had gone on the Dominican Republic trip with me this fall, and told her a little about the trip, she thanked me for asking her.  As I started walking away, she put her hand on my shoulder, and I turned back to see tears in her eyes.  "You may have perfect timing," she said.  "I went forward today knowing that I probably couldn't commit to going somewhere myself, but I asked God to use me to
send someone else."  That perfect timing was totally His!  How cool that asking someone for money could actually be an encouragement to them!