It's not from us

The desire to travel the world

The hunger for something deeper

It's not from us. 

The drive to help others

The idea to give all we have

It's not from us. 

The love we can provide

The words of life we can speak

It's not from us. 

It's all from Him

He deserves all the glory

Moving Forward!

We have been working hard in the last few months planning fundraisers, getting people involved, and having fundraisers! It's been quite the journey and we are so thankful to everyone that has been a part of it in any way! Both our fundraisers that we have had, the pub night and golf tournament, have been so successful! We have fundraised $5000, and just seeing that figure, we know that God is in this trip and is blessing it already. Throughout the whole time planning this trip, we have learnt that God is really teaching us to lean on Him for all things, the biggest and hardest thing he is working on in us would be finances. This trip is such a big trip that seems quite impossible in our humanly thinking when trying to come up with the finances. The next big step that we need to take with this trip is to purchase our flights. We have been able to get a travel agent that has been able to create a whole itinerary for our trip, which was not an easy job as we tried with two other agents prior to him. He has come up with the complete flights and told us we could book as soon as we were ready, as prices are going to change the longer we wait, but one problem... we don't have the funds yet! He has quoted that the entire trip, it will cost each of us $6943 - $13886 for both. This means that we still need to raise $8886. If you would like to donate, any amount, you can donate on gofundme http://www.gofundme.com/scifs (highlight and then copy and paste into search bar) , as well as we are in the process of becoming part of love global that is a website for helping missionaries with funding through providing tax reciepts for donations. We will let you more about that soon!  We thank you so much for all your support and pray that God will bless you a hundred times in return!
We also would ask if you would join us in prayer during this time that God will provide the money and for us not to limit God, and for us to just believe and trust in Him each day and not become anxious or worried. 

Worldly Cultures vs Kingdom of God Culture

I have just started reading the book based on the organization Free the Children which is about a group of kids that started this organization about helping children all over the world that are working at very young ages in very unsafe conditions. As I began to read it I began to get the overwhelming feeling  where you begin to think about all the MANY different issues around our world. In school I became very interested in my global development classes and wanted to continue on in that, but never really knew what direction I exactly wanted to go in, and at the same time felt like it was a overwhelming area as there is just so much. 
It's so hard because not only is the issues concerned about the extreme poverty people live in, the proper education or lack of education, health problems, governmental issues, and so much more, but also the cultural differences that I can even begin to imagine that make it so difficult for a person to try and help or give input on an issue in another country. Different countries have different ways of doing things and often come from practices brought down through the generations. How do you tell a culture that has never placed importance on women, or have placed them below men's importance, that they have a right to education or should be able to voice their own opinions? Why would they choose to believe another cultures way is right rather than theirs? How do you help a community/country with health issues if all their lives, parents lives, and grandparents lives, have never had their living conditions focused on basic health practices or whether they have even had access to such knowledge. How do you tell a country that laws should be created for working conditions if they have never known anything different? 
Thinking about the endless concerns and problems that need to "fixed" becomes so overwhelming if we try and think of solutions we can do on our own with our earthly ideas. Unfortunately as humans, our first instinct is not to think about others and their needs, but rather we think about ourselves and what we can do to help ourselves succeed. Living a life with this mentality is how our world has gotten to the place where thousands of people are dying because they don't have enough food to and eat and at the same time people are dying because of obesity; a world where children have to work in horrible conditions and are never given an opportunity for an education, and at the same time as people buying so much stuff they have to spend money on storage containers to hold it all. God never intended our lives to be so self-focused. He clearly states that we should put others needs above our own, as he knows what the outcome is when we don't do so. When we begin to take our eyes off ourselves, not only will we have enough, but so will those around us. This concept unfortunately is not accepted with our human thinking. This leads to the one and only solution to all the problems that are occurring throughout the world. From heartbroken, lost and lonely individuals, to the extremely poor and starving, and every other hurting person, is that they need to know that there is a God that loves us so much and to then take the step in gaining a growing (daily) relationship with Him knowing there is a God that not only loves you unconditionally, but wants to/ and will, take care of your every need. Every person needs God in their life. With God in our lives we no longer have to worry about what we will eat, where we will sleep, what we will do with our futures, or anything else, because God has it in control and wants the best for you... all we have to do is accept Him and trust him completely. As we stop being completely consumed about ourselves and what we need (as God's got it all) we begin to want to help those around us obtain not only the physical needs, but their spiritual needs as well. Lastly, as in the beginning I mentioned that one of the biggest difficulty with trying to help with global issues is the differing cultures around the world. As people begin to come into a relationship with Jesus and begin to see the world as it is supposed to be, the way it was created, the culture of the kingdom of God will be on earth! Although all people come from different cultures, people will understand and want to follow the culture God intended for His people. This can only be done through people's acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior and their acceptance of the Holy Spirt into their lives to lead them into the life God has planned for them! 
I am not very educated on the many issues around the world, and I do know that their is many efforts being made to help make these issues decrease, but I can just imagine how much change could occur if people just began to understand how much God loves them and how much he can help in all these situations. He is the only one that can make lasting changes! 
I never planned writing this.. I think better when I write things down, and as I was finishing it up in my notebook I felt like I was to share it here on the blog.  
 - Rachael