Africa Mission Trip Jan. 2012

  Hi welcome to my blog! One of the reasons I created this blog, was to be able to share updates on my mission trip to Africa in January 2012! I am very excited to be able to be a part of this wonderful experience and I know that it's through God that I have this opportunity! Let me share with you how God has worked things out for me to go!

   Back in January I felt like the Lord was leading me and giving me the desire to minister to the people of Africa, but I didn't have an opportunity to. So I told my parents that I am going to Africa... eventually and I think my parents thought it was just another one of my crazy ideas that I wouldn't actually follow through with. So I started praying that God would open a door for me to go to Africa. A few weeks later I decided that I would start learning the Swahili language, because I was sure that God would give me an opportunity to put it to use. So I went to my parents and told them I was going to start learning Swahili and they just kind of said "oh that's nice honey..." ha ha. But I knew that it was something that I definitely wanted to do, so I started googling Swahili and using google translate and I got several greetings down! After a while I think my parents really saw how much I wanted to go to Africa, so my dad told me about a group that heads up mission trips and he told me if I do really feel the Lord is leading me to do this that I should look into it. So immediately I googled them and I get to their site and I see all of the trips they have gone on and then I see a tab that says future trips. So I clicked on it and read through some of the upcoming trips and then I see "Africa trip 2012" and I freaked out! I ran in and told my parents that I am definitely going to Africa with them! And so they said ok we'll look into it. So my dad told our pastor about the trip and he asked my dad if he would be going with me and due to health reasons my dad said he wouldn't be able to. So my pastor said he wouldn't want one of his sheep to go by themselves so he said he would go with me. It definitely gave my parents some peace of mind to know I wouldn't be going ALL the way to Africa by myself! So then a few weeks later the founder of Macedonian Trips (the group I am going with) called our pastor without knowing we were planning on going on the trip, and asked him if he could bring a presentation about Mac-trips to our church. And so of course my pastor said yes! So the founder Bro. Gary Weidenbach came and brought his presentation and we got to talk to him and he told me what I needed to do to insure my spot on the team. So I did that and so did my pastor and also my great friend Jesieka that is like an older sister to me! Which also made my parents feel better for me to have another girl on the trip to make me feel more comfortable! As you can see God has definitely worked things out for me to do something I really felt like He was leading me to do! And I can definitely say that if you are reading this and feel like He is leading you to do something for Him pray that He will open that door and when He does step out on faith and do it! So now I ask you that you would support us with your prayers, pray that God would prepare the hearts over there and also pray for us! The group as of right now consist of: Bro. Gary and his wife Pam, Allison and Cole, my pastor Bro. Brian Langley, Myself and Jesieka. Also pray for those considering going on the trip, I know of a few. And lastly pray for those that will be supporting us financially, pray that God will supply the funds necessary! Thank you for reading this and praying for this trip!

God bless,
Katelyn Elliott

Mac-trips site: http://www.macedoniantrips.com/