Author: Mike

You know when you have all those really good intentions to start a blog and keep everyone updated. Yeah, that was me nearly 2 years ago and oh look we have been in Mexico over a year now and not a single blog post. Whoops, sorry!

The last year has been one of the scariest, most challenging but joyful years of our lives.

We arrived in Mexico with somewhere to live but no furniture, almost no ability to speak spanish and almost no help. Because the plans for the work we were going to do fell through almost immediately we were also left with no work here either.

Those first two weeks I cried a lot! I was so scared and just had this overwhelming feeling of ” What on earth have we done!”

I was scared of spiders, scorpions, snakes, being mugged, being kidnapped, and just not being able to function normally when you can’t speak the language.

I didn’t hardly sleep and I was so nauseous from stress that I couldn’t eat.

Funnily enough, none of the things I was scared of were realistic. I have seen zero snakes, 1 scorpion (way far out of town), no harmful spiders and I haven’t even been mugged or kidnapped!

We have fallen in love with Mexico, with its craziness, it’s no rules but at the same time way too many rules and most of all its people!

Tijuana gets a seriously bad rap in the media, and I’ve definitely seen things I wish I hadn’t, things I never would have seen in New Zealand. They definitely have problems with infrastructure, schooling, rubbish control and corruption but most people are just trying to survive, living their lives and providing for their families and almost all of them are super friendly.

We love the varied work we do with LifeChange, from working in the office on admin and finances, to sending newsletters, playing with kids, teaching kids and families about a God who loves them and cares for them, and helping provide for their practical needs, and hopefully one day soon facilitating missions trips so others can experience similar.

One year down the road we are so happy we made that big giant leap into the unknown, there have been many times in the last year when we did not know what the future held but we hold the hand of the one who does know, and we trust Him with our everything.

We’ve got a little over 4 months to go until we aim to leave, time is going so ridiculously fast!

We are looking on track at the moment, we have all our paperwork in at the Mexican embassies for visas and are just waiting to hear back.

We almost have enough money to pay for flights.

We need a couple of things to fall into place but have plans to move out of our house and into a friends furnished house in approx 2 months so we can get it ready for renting and get people into it and sell all of the furniture we are using.

Mike and I currently feeling quite overwhelmed by the fact we just never get a break from our brains thinking through plans, even while resting its so hard to still our minds, but God is faithful ,and we are both finding ways to incorporate stress relief into our lives which we know will come in handy in the future.

We are also making a concerted effort to soak up as much New Zealand as we can and are ticking a few things off our “Before we leave NZ bucket list”, as we look to move to a rather dry country we find we are appreciating the green of New Zealand more and more. (Pic above taken at the Rotorua Redwoods)

We’ve been in touch with a travel doctor and talked vaccines for the area we’ll be in.

So a few areas of prayer or request from us.

Please pray for us as we learn to handle higher and higher levels of stress and that our visas will come through quickly and smoothly.

We’d also love you to consider supporting us: we are looking on track for flights but still really need our level of pledged monthly support to go up we currently have a shortfall of approx $1500 a month. Even if you can only commit $5 a week it all helps and means we can concentrate on the work of helping the poor and needy and not worrying about our budget all the time.

specific costs also still needed for:

-$1000 for vaccines

-$2000 for moving costs

-$5000 House set up costs.

We have raised just on $6000 currently and you guys are incredible and have blown us away with your generosity

Some days it feels really weird to have left our hearts in Mexico.

We visited Mexico in October last year, only for a day, but it was enough for us to fall in love!

We live here in New Zealand, going through the motions of wrapping up our life here for the foreseeable future, and all we want ( barring the 13 yr old who doesn’t know what she wants:) is to be back in Mexico and California. All of us came home from our day in Mexico ( including the 13 yr old) with an emphatic ” we loved it!” on our hearts. That was also a weird feeling, none of us could identify what we loved about it except the gorgeous people we met. It felt God has shown us a peek of our future and our hearts had leapt at it no matter how irrational it was.

So here we are in New Zealand, going through the motions, biding our time until we get our hearts back.

Don’t get me wrong, we love and will miss incredibly our friends and family and support system here, and are lapping up every experience of unique kiwiness and we certainly haven’t checked out. We are still involved and invested in seeing this nation saved as well. And still even knowing we are leaving continue to say yes to getting involved in our own church and community in new ways but its just an odd feeling thats all,

This place of limbo.

Our Father in heaven loves us more than we can fathom, and nothing we do could make him love us more or less!

When you seriously sit down and think about that its mind blowing.

No matter how much I mess up He will not love me less but also no matter how much I do right/well/good, He can’t love me more. I can’t buy his affection with discipline. He will not love me more based on how many quiet times I’ve had this week ( or whatever other standard I hold myself to in order to feel like a good christian).

For me that totally moves the emphasis from ticking the box to say that I’ve done my prescribed reading and prayer today to actually seeking after Him, chasing Him to gain relationship and intimacy rather than that feel good feeling of having done the “right” thing.

Spiritual discipline is for your benefit, not Gods, because through getting to know His character through His word and sitting and listening to His voice, we have the opportunity to get to know the maker of the universe. What could be more exciting than that!

UPDATE: We had a car boot sale last weekend that raised another $80 towards our relocation fund which brings our total to just over $2350. This means we have about 3 months to raise another $7000 to be able to stick to our timeline of leaving in October. Mikes boss has asked for 3 months notice to e able to find a suitable replacement and have time for Mike to train them, this means we need to have flights and visas all booked and paid for 3 months before we are due to leave.

So 3 months, over $7000, we clearly need a miracle! Thankfully we know the maker of the universe and miracles are his business!

We’ve also had some more monthly support pledged towards our living costs and several suitcases donated.

We are so so thankful to everyone who has given, please remember that every amount big or small adds up and makes a difference.

PRAYER: We have a week of a lot of emails to write, please continue to pray that these will find the right people to help us with advice and planning in many different areas.

This week started out a little rough, checking the Givealittle page daily (ok, more like hourly), checking my email multiple times a day, I got to the point of feeling quite frantic and I really felt God speaking to me about relaxing and trusting him more.

I had a great conversation this week with some homeschool friends who are experienced missionaries. They told me in their experience that the budget never balances, and that if we wait until it does we might be waiting forever, but God has always come through with whatever they needed in time, Hes never let them down.

It really boosted my faith and gave me the confidence to just relax and let God take care of it. Whether its visas, or planning or fundraising, He is well able to handle it all.

Yes I know this and I ‘m sure you do to, but in the midst of the struggle its easy to forget.

So a quick update:

We’ve been told by two different visa consultant companies that our requests are too specialized and they are unable to help so we will have to deal with the embassies direct. We’ll get that process started this coming week.

Funnily enough, after a week of watching the fundraising account not move, once I relaxed and stopped checking it, it more than tripled this week. Our total raised so far is $2102 towards relocation costs and $400 a month committed to ongoing support.

Thank you again to everyone that’s given financially this week or said a word of encouragement that’s kept us going (Mike had a particularly lovely conversation with someone at work this week) or has prayed for us.

You are all a part of our journey and we appreciate you all so much.

Photos are from our trip to Mexico, they show the huge divide between the rich and the poor in Tijuana and the surrounding area. Often these properties can be right next door to each other.

Thanks so much to those who have signed up to follow our Facebook page and/or signed up for emails.

Also thank you again to those that have generously donated, we are currently trying to work out a way to give people a visual of the amount we need to raise that we can update regularly as funds come in.

This week we raised $530!! Thank you so much!!

This week we also finished off our budget for relocation and living costs so we know what our targets are and we have had a few rather frustrating conversations with a couple of different visa consultants, none of whom seem to know what kind of visas we actually need. But we’ll keep trucking on and pushing forward.

We’ve been told due to safety concerns that we will be unable to post pictures or very many details of the Coastline childrens home kids online, if you would like to specifically discuss the work we’ll be doing with them and our experience meeting them then please message us through our facebook page Our Mexican Adventure

Please continue to pray for us, we need it so very much now and in the future.

Patience, Faith and Self control are the 3 current themes of my life.

Patience – Nothing happens in our timing. If it was up to us we would have been in Mexico 2 years ago but Gods timing is perfect and we trust that he sees the big picture.

Faith – At times the journey set before us seems so huge that its overwhelming. Then I am reminded, all it requires is for us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To allow God to be God and give him the burden of the impossible.

Self Control – You have no idea how many times a week the thought “Don’t be the crazy person”, goes through my head when I’m waiting for people to contact us back. To have the self control not to ring them again, email again, or ask again. Just be patient (oh theres that patience thing again:) Look cool, calm and collected even though on the inside I might be anything but.

I’m learning that chasing our dream doesn’t require me to have it all together. People have called us brave and courageous, I don’t think so. We are just a man and a woman in love with Jesus enough that we’ll follow wherever He asks.

Whether it looks brave or stupid to others doesn’t come into it.

We are so excited to announce that our good friend Esther Turner has agreed to come with us as our right hand gal.

She’ll be helping in a volunteer capacity with kids, schooling, housework, community work, church work and anything else we can find her to do.

It will be a huge relief for us to know our kids are in capable hands and have an extra pair of eyes on them when we are out and about.

Esther has just finished 4 years at university  studying design and textiles and has experience in running kids church and small groups for teens and preteens.

We have always been impressed with her attitude for life and love for God.

You can help support her fundraising efforts here:

Esther Turner- 12-3217-0042301-52