Angling Towards Angola

(Thanks to Rusty's Uncle Lyle for this catchy -- and admittedly cheesy -- play on words!)

Time for an update on our plans to do mission work in Angola!

Since returning from our Survey Trip three and a half months ago, we have continued to plan and prepare with our team. We have now decided on a location in Angola to base ourselves and our ministry. We will be living and working in the city of Huambo in central Angola. There are many reasons that we as a team arrived at this (unanimous) decision. I will not go into them all here. Suffice it to say that Huambo was one of the cities hit hardest by the war, so there is a great need; and as far as we know, there are currently no missionaries (from any denomination) working in Huambo. Click here to review the pictures of our time in Huambo.

We have continued to meet monthly with our team. Part of our preparation involves completing several workshops put on by Missions Resource Network. This month, we will do a Theology Workshop, and in November, an Interpersonal Relationships Workshop. Next year, there will be several more workshops to complete. We hope that these will be beneficial, not only as we plan and prepare for the mission field, but also as we weather the "storms" that will inevitably come during our time there.

On a personal note, Rusty is winding down his time at Harding Graduate School. He will complete his degree requirements in December and graduate next May. To say that he is looking forward to being finished with school would be a huge understatement! But the fact that he will not be taking classes next semester has forced us to make a decision about where to go from here. We do not have a sponsoring congregation yet -- if we did, this decision would be easy! But as we are still waiting on God's perfect timing, we needed to figure out what to do in the meantime.

So, we are moving out of our campus apartment next month, putting most of our stuff in storage, and going up to Michigan to live with my parents for a few weeks (or months) -- until we find a sponsoring church or until they kick us out, I suppose! We are looking forward to some extended time with them, especially around what will probably be our last holiday season in the U.S. for quite awhile. Rusty is looking into a job transfer to a Starbucks store in the Livonia area, and I will go back to being a stay-at-home mommy.

So, those are our plans for the immediate future!