Our journey in Washington has been a blast! We always love coming back to my home for the beautiful scenic views with tall mountains and trees. God’s creation is such a beautiful sight to behold. I can only imagine how beautiful heaven will be. A week before heading to Washington, we only had one meeting scheduled. A few days before arriving, and since we have been here, our schedule has very nearly booked up completely! Praise the Lord! We have only been able to continue because of God!
The Lord timed our arrival here perfectly. We only had one meeting scheduled for November 14th. Through a lot of thought and prayer, by faith, we bought our tickets for November 1st one-way! We planned to stay in Washington through February and trust that God would give us the meetings and support we needed up here. It was God’s timing that we got our tickets for when we did because only four days before our flight, we got a meeting scheduled for November 7th, the Sunday after we arrive in Washington! And the following week, we got a missions conference scheduled! Praise the Lord for His incredible timing and guidance. Such simple things are daily reminders that God is with us and leading us even when we are uncertain.
Our first meeting was at Bible Baptist Church in Spokane Valley. We took the four-hour drive over the mountains (praise the Lord it didn’t snow like it was forecasted) and stayed with a wonderful host family for the weekend. We presented for their Sunday morning service, and I preached in their Sunday evening service. Pr. Phil Lydick was an excellent host pastor, and we enjoyed our time there. It was encouraging to hear that he knew my father-in-law John Yelle, and we are once again reminded that we are part of such a fantastic legacy.
We then headed to Olympia for the missions conference at Olympia Bible Baptist Church with Pastor Rick Wilder. We felt so blessed to be a part of that missions conference. The preaching was both challenging and encouraging, and we pray for even more missionaries to go to the field. At the end of the conference, Olympia Bible Baptist Church voted to take us on for support, bringing us another step closer to our goal! From Olympia, we headed to Sammamish, where we spent the morning service at Foundation Baptist Church. Due to Washington States COVID restrictions and vaccine manates, the church has had to go somewhat mobile and is renting out a space at a community center. This was sad to hear, but it was incredibly encouraging to see that nothing would stop this church from gathering. Pastor Matt Farinella pulled up with his truck and trailer, and we unloaded all of the church equipment and set up for the day’s church services. We presented, and I preached, and we felt such joy and welcome from that congregation.
We visited churches for the rest of November that I could not reach over the phone or by email. Upon talking with the pastors, we were able to secure more meetings in December and January! The Lord has been working with us in Washington, and we feel so energized in our time here with friends, family, and new church families. It was such a pleasure to be home for Thanksgiving. We are now at about 15% of our goal for support. If we can keep this rate of 15% support every two months, we should be able to meet our goal and be on the field of Southern Brazil by December 2022! We are optimistic and encouraged. Pray with us that we can meet that goal!
Since our calendar for Washington is filling up, I am now calling and emailing churches in Oklahoma, where we plan to have meetings from March through August. My sister-in-law is getting married in April, but has not quite set a date yet, so we are currently holding out on setting meetings in April until we know exactly which date is set for the wedding. We are excited to go back to Oklahoma where we lived for 6 years, and to see more familiar faces from Heartland Baptist Bible college, and to travel and see how God has been working in the churches in Oklahoma.