Post Mandeville

Hey Loved Ones!


        John and I are back from our long outreach week in Mandeville. Have you ever had that feeling where you run hard and fast and you feel great, but when you stop moving for a moment it all catches up to you and overwhelms you? That's how Mandeville for us. Set in the rural parts of Jamaica, the Stone's Hope base is beautiful and rustic, and the pace there was a lot different than bustling Montego Bay with the beach down the street and the sound of night parties or traffic filtering in while you sleep. Mandeville was a time of making up for a lot of lost rest from the weeks of DTS before...


 It was also a good time of outreach/evangelism, and the students were forced out of their comfort zone. Without our help, they organized a program in which they sang, did dramas, gave testimonies and did a teaching during their first Jamaican Youth Group meeting. One of our shyest students was up front doing a teaching! We also went out to do street evangelism, and visit an infirmary where the elderly people were thrilled to have these enthusiastic young adults singing to them and making conversation.

      Being back in Montego Bay is great. We are buckling down for another week of teaching coming up, as well as planning for our local outreach which begins in about a month- Dec. 28th- Jan. 15th. The bulk of planning that outreach will rest on John and I as we are the only team leaders familiar with Kingston. The Lapps- (awesome Josh and Renita who will pioneer the upcoming YWAM Mayreau base) will take over with planning most of the overseas outreach to St. Vincent as they are more familiar with the people and landscape in that area.  We have a lot of planning coming up- kid's festival, worship and on the street evangelism, helping out in local schools. Also practical concerns like, Where will we stay? What will our food situation be? How will we plan, prepare and provide for all the meals we'll have? How will we get from place to place once in Kingston? It's alot to be working on and its going to be a fun challenge. We welcome suggestions from any of you who have good ideas about getting the gospel to kids.

IMMIGRATION REPORT
John went back to Kingston again, and found out that his application had been denied! Terrible news. But because we had prayed, he was confident that it wasnt the final report. He asked to speak to the supervisor and amazingly, she was there! She heard him out and felt very sympathetic to him. She told him she would do what she could for him and in 15mins, he had all the right paperwork and was legally granted his marriage exemption to live and work in Jamaica with no extra cost!!!!!!!!!!!! God is good to us. He took a broken government system and made it work in our favour!! Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us.

NEEDS and PRAYER REQUESTS
For those of you who have been awesomely partnering with us in this season, we just want to publicly thank you! Thank you for believing in us and what we are doing here in MoBay and for sending the finances that make it possible for us to stay here!

-As we prepare for local and overseas outreach, we are definitely relying on your continued support. For each of our plane tickets to St. Vincent, it will cost $800 US. Then there is the additional cost of living there for five weeks, at say, $250 a week for us both. If you mix that all together you get a total of about $2,850 US. We need to have this money as soon as possible since we are purchasing the tickets within the week, and  we would love to have it in hand before leaving for St. Vincent on the 17th of January.

-Local outreach to kingston will be a much lower cost, but we would love to contribute to blessing the family that hosts our team of nine people for 3weeks, purchase our own groceries, as well as rent a vehicle to take us around to our various outreach locations for the duration of our stay. 

Please pray about what the Lord would ask you to  commit to. I'm not worried about our needs being met, as I have never experienced the Lord leaving me hanging. Still, we would love to know who donates to us so we can thank you personally, and we wanted you to be aware of our time frame for expecting your support.

There is so much more I could talk to you about in this update- students who were in serious bondage and yet found freedom as the staff team prayed and fasted and held deliverance meetings- I could tell you about how we've experienced and worked through relational issues and how our team for St. Vincent is so crazily gifted with music ability that I wonder if we shouldnt just start a traveling band instead...But maybe I'll save all that for another time! We have tons of pictures waiting to be uploaded, so keep an eye out for those in a bit!

Nuff love
Danya