Leaving tomorrow!

I wish you could meet these young couples heading to Recife, Brazil tomorrow. Many of you know at least one of the couples in the picture up top there, but I wish you could know them all, as well as the ones you can't see there. You would be inspired. God's hand is on this group and Josh and I (Amy) are so fortunate to see it all up close.

This trip really started months ago when we announced the trip in Sunday school. For those of you who aren't familiar with our class, Josh (on the bottom right in the picture) teaches the YCC (Young Couples Class) at CCBC, an awesome group of couples who are "nearly to newly married." After concluding a study on David Platt's book "Radical," we announced this summer's trip to Brazil. Hearts were stirred and God started calling -- some to go, and some to stay behind and support with prayers, finances, fundraising, rides to the airport, dog-sitting, babysitting and on and on. This is truly the CCBC Young Couples mission trip, and these eight "going" couples in the picture represent a much larger group of "sending" couples. God has called each of them to their role, and their enthusiasm in those roles has been humbling and encouraging to watch. (The extra folks in the picture are the leadership team, including those two awesome kids who are Recife-bound for the second summer in a row!)

The team formed a couple of months ago and has been meeting regularly on Sunday afternoons since, preparing to spend a week in Recife partnering with the ongoing ministry of Kids Place. Christ Chapel has been supporting Pastor Lecio and Kids Place for decades, and they've been sending up to four teams per year to work in various capacities for the past 10 years. The legacy of relationships and Kingdom work there are things I hope you will see evidence of in this blog over the next week.

But now to the fun stuff! Tomorrow, we are finally GOING! We've been talking and planning and praying and preparing for months, and finally we are going. Lord willing, we will converge on DFW around 11 a.m. tomorrow, June 9, and unload crazy amounts of luggage filled with your generous donations for Kids Place and Coque. It will be a loooong day of travel. We won't actually arrive in Recife until the following morning. So smooth travels and great sleep on our overnight flight are major prayer requests. We want to be as fresh and energetic as possible when we land at 8 a.m., ready to hit the ground running for the rest of the day!

We hope to keep you updated regularly with pictures and posts, but internet connections and speeds are sometimes spotty, and our schedule is jam-packed, so don't panic if you don't see anything posted for a while! If all goes according to plan, you'll have daily posts from different members of our team, hopefully with pictures and stories that make this beautiful corner of God's world come alive for you back home. We will also keep you updated with ongoing prayer requests. Having been before, I can tell you from experience that your prayers make a HUGE difference to our trip. I am praying God will bring us to your minds over and over, and that you will stop and pray for us every time He does!

Feel free to leave comments and questions for us below! We cannot thank you enough for your support.