Dear Friends and Family,
We have had quite an eventful summer and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon! It’s so exciting to see the momentum of things coming together—support, meetings, moving, decisions, etc. Let me expound, but first we want to express how grateful we are for your prayers. Please believe us when we say that we have sensed your prayers and have been very encouraged by the responses to our emails. The Lord is answering our prayers and the responses have been “yes” with everything we’ve been bringing before Him. It’s not always like that, we know sometimes God’s best is a resounding “no” or a silent “wait”, and we are just grateful to know what His direction is now.
Housing
After talking at length with the owners of the campground where we were considering living, we have both decided that it is going to work very well! We will be moving the beginning to middle of September, whenever they are able to move into their new house. They have only asked us to pay for utilities and Todd will be helping them a few hours a week with advertisement of the work camp that they are just starting to house work teams who come into the St. Charles area to do service projects. That is their main goal, to provide inexpensive housing for youth who are doing service project trips during the summer or through out the year. Then, the rest of the year, they want to provide a location for small church retreats: couples, women’s, men’s and leadership. Since they haven’t started it yet, we will be able to stay there until they get things up and running probably next spring. It is a very nice 3 bedroom home on a pretty property and we are excited to be able to give our family some space to breath and the children lots of room to run around! Thank you, Lord!
Job and School
Because the Lord has provided through so many of you supporting us, and because we are moving toward not having to pay rent, Todd will be able to quit his job at the end of this month. This will give us time to be able to get together with our supporters and friends we haven’t been able to spend time with yet, and to travel and stay awhile in Kansas City and other places. This really does give us more freedom and we are grateful that Todd will be home in the evenings!
Michaela and I have started home school early this year to allow for some time off in September when the move and surgery happen. She is doing very well in school and we are enjoying “doing school.” Please pray for Samuel while I am homeschooling. He is at an age where he doesn’t know how to do many preschool things and his attention span is very short. He doesn’t like that mommy and Mickey are doing school and feels left out. Please pray for wisdom for me to keep him involved and engaged at his level and still give Mickey the attention she needs as she learns to read. I’m open to suggestions!
Kidney Donation
We did find out that Todd is a good match to donate a kidney to Molly Goossen. We are now in the process of setting up a time for the surgery, which we are considering the middle to end of September, after the move. We have a call out to the Goossen’s and we’re hoping to be able to arrange housing in Northern Iowa or Rochester, MN area for the two weeks we need to stay near Mayo after the surgery. Please let us know if you have any ideas for us or contacts. Please pray for Todd’s recovery and the timing of planning it so that he will be well enough to participate in the meetings and missions conferences we have scheduled for October! And please pray for Molly as she prepares for the surgery and all that entails for her! This is a really big deal! Thank you!
Communicating with You
One thing that has happened to us recently is a sudden change in our phone service. When we returned from Iowa, we found out we had lost our telephone service (Sunrocket who went bankrupt) and we quickly signed up with another company who is supposed to give us our old phone number. We have found out we are currently under a temporary phone number (636) 614-4359. Sorry if you have tried to call and couldn’t reach us. We hope to be back to our old number 636-634-2089 soon and we will let you know when that happens. Please pray for our telephone situation to be resolved. It gets complicated when we think about what to do since we are moving soon.
Along the same lines of communication, we have had many e-mails we have sent out returned lately. Some of them were “juno” participating providers and we have been informed that the issue has been resolved. So if you haven’t received emails from us in a while, please forgive us and we hope that everything is resolved so we don’t have problems in the future. Also, we will be sending our quarterly paper newsletter this month and would like to give you the opportunity to sign up to receive it if you haven’t in the past, or to give us updated addresses if you have moved in the last 4 -6 months. This paper letter is sent for all the people who have chosen not to receive our e-mails, or don’t have the capabilities to receive our monthly (or a little more often) e-mail updates.
Support Update
It has been so amazing to see how many people have been giving to us for the work of training church leaders in Northeast Brazil! Thank you! We have 5 churches, with a possibility of 3 more on the horizon. One church we met with in February is supposed to be deciding on their missions’ budget this month. We’ve done our best to remind them who we are (without annoying them) and please pray they will follow the Lord’s will in their decision. We also have a meeting with a possible church on Monday, August 13th and another one scheduled for October.
We are trying to get a very clear picture of our support amounts that we receive monthly. We do ask that if have been giving or are planning to give but haven’t told us your intention to give on a monthly basis as long as the Lord gives you the ability to do it, that you would let us know very soon so we have a concrete pledge from you. A simple e-mail reply would be sufficient telling us your intention, how much, how often and the starting date. Or you can fill out the pledge cards that you will receive in the paper newsletter this month. All gifts are to be sent to Avant Ministries, 10000 North Oak Trafficway, Kansas City, MO 64155 and are tax deductible. We have been told that the trend in this modern age is that most missionaries are supported by individual supporters and not as much by churches. We have been blessed with five amazing churches giving us a rather large percentage and we are thankful. But we are also blessed at this point with 37 individuals and/or families that are giving of themselves. We know this means personal involvement and prayer time. We want to thank you tremendously. Including all gifts we have received consistently, whether they have officially pledged or not, we are at 58% of our monthly support and 79% of our outgoing expenses! Praise the Lord with us! Please pray for the Lord’s timing! We would love to be in Brazil by the end of 2007 or beginning of 2008. Thank you!
Serving Together with You,
Todd and Julie Hendry
