Leaving on a Jet Plane

 This morning, Andy, Filipe, and Mark Lewis boarded a plane with the destination of Ethiopia and I could not be more excited for them!

South Bay is beginning a partnership with Compassion International called "Church-to-Church" or C2C. Andy and I have been supporters of Compassion through the child sponsorship program since we were in college. For a relatively small amount of money each month, you can provide education, food, spiritual development, and basic needs for a child in a poverty stricken country. It is such an amazing program and a shockingly small percentage of the monthly contribution goes toward administrative fees. Almost all of it goes toward meeting the needs of the child.

Compassion is now piloting this new program, C2C. Instead of only partnering an individual families with an individual child, Compassion is partnering churches in the US with churches in these impoverished countries.

So South Bay was fortunate enough to get to be one of the first churches to pilot this program. We are partnering with a church in Nazaret, Ethiopia and will be able to develop a long-term relationship with them. We'll get to serve them in any way we can and benefit from the opportunity to mutually learn from each other.

One of the coolest parts is that people from our church will be able to sponsor children from that church and then go to see them on the mission trips we take in the future! We will actually get to have a personal relationship with them and watch them grow up!

Saying goodbye this morning was tough because I so wish that I could also be going on this trip. International missions is one of those things that makes my heart beat fast and I can hardly wait for the opportunity to take the boys on a trip with me. But this week I am celebrating getting to be on the team through prayer and I'm considering my time at home a "mission trip" of sorts as well. I have the awesome opportunity to invest in two little children...to show them the love of Jesus, to play with them and laugh at them and marvel at them just like I would if I was loving on the kids in Ethiopia. This is my way to serve the Lord this week, and I'm going to embrace it with both arms.