Prayer again for Visas!

We were just sent an email by the man in charge of sending our visas off.  They are sent off and already being processed which is a praise and means we will probably be getting them back in time but... He also let us know that as of July 1st  the fee for missionary visas went up from $120 to $550.  This was a shock to us.  This means that with the girls visas which went up in price as well, we owe another $970 for our visas alone.  This law was passed in 2009 but the president didn't want to implement it but now that they have a Muslim president he just put it into effect.  He wants to gain money for the government this way.  Please just pray that the funds will be met and also the two other girls that are going to do a DTS from our church have to raise even 430 more as well.  We know the Lord will provide and we were anticipating hoops that we would have to jump through to get there. We are just praying there won't be many more!:)

Yard Sale!

$4,000!!!!! We are soooo tired but soooo grateful. The yard sale was a huge success.  We were hoping to raise all of the money we needed for a car in Tanzania by selling all of our stuff plus donations from others.  About a month ago some furniture started coming to our house and we were able to put some stuff on craigslist.  We then realized we needed to start selling our stuff on craigslist to try and get a better price than at our yard sale.  After about 3 weeks of selling the bigger stuff, we already had made about $1,000.  Then after two days of a yard sale we started totalling up everything and it was amazing how much everything added up to. 
At first we were told that a car that we would want would be about $3800 but after we looked into it we found out with shipping costs and taxes it would be about $8,000.  We just got on last night to see if there were any cars that were on sale and found a perfect car that would cost around $4,000 all together.  It is amazing how that always seems to happen.  We weren't even shopping for a cheaper car, we just found a Toyota that we were told by our base leader was a good car that we should look into and they happen to have one on the site we went to.  We have the car on hold and he is checking with his mechanic to make sure it is a good car and then we will start the purchasing process.  The yard sale may have made the perfect amount to cover the whole car! 
This process is still so draining and overwhelming.  We are working on our house, going through paperwork that we have saved for the last 6 years making sure we don't lose anything, separating boxes to be stored at Nick's dads house (the things we absolutely don't want to get rid of), a couple boxes for my parents house (the pictures and girls memory box we want to keep completely safe), our bags for tanzania, the things we need this summer and the bags for the teams that come from church to bring with them of extra stuff that won't fit!  We need to have all of this done to move out of our house, into my parents house on the 24th of July!  We are on track but have to stay motivated to get through everything on time.  Thank you for your prayers and we were sooo excited to share the amazing results of the yard sale and the car we found. 

Praying for our visas!

We got some exciting news yesterday that Nick was accepted into the DTS (discipleship training school) at YWAM in Arusha, Tanzania. We have been waiting since March to hear so that was exciting but it also came with a little scare. Our visas for getting into the country need about 8 weeks to process. We are about 7 weeks away from our departure.  They are just starting to process our visas and they are not sure they will be done by the time we arrive on August 31st.  We have already purchased our tickets and there is a huge fine for changing our departure date.  Please pray that our visas will come through with no problems and on time.

The process

 The girls after a long day of going through everything in our home wanted some time in the front yard:) We will miss this house!

This process of moving has been a lot harder than we imagined.  We thought it may be hard to move out of our house and get rid of stuff but it would be exciting as well.  I didn't realize how much stuff we have accumulated over the past 4 years!  When we left 4 years ago to go to Tanzania we only had what fit in our car because we had been traveling around so much.  Now we have our stuff, plus our two girls!   It isn't so much getting rid of all of our stuff but the effect it is having on our family is way bigger than I had thought it would be.  Our girls are noticing their toys slowly going away.  Last night we took everything down off the walls in the girls' bedroom.  This morning Hannah walked into her bedroom and said "What happened here! This doesn't look like my bedroom anymore.  I want my bedroom back. Why did you take my bedroom away."  Every day we seem to have this talk about needing to get rid of everything so we can move to Africa.  After we talk through it with her, she seems to be doing better but to be honest it is so hard to see her face and we don't want her to resent Africa because it is the thing that is taking everything away from her. We are thinking of creative things to help her and letting her go through her own little things, like her necklaces and hair things, toys, etc., and finding friends she wants to give these to. 
This Friday and Saturday is our yard sale and we are hoping to make enough money to buy a car in Tanzania! We pray it goes well!