Travels Begin

So as I sit and write this evening, I am sitting on a rather comfortable couch in a house in Virginia. Elizabeth and I have just finished our first week of our support trip across the States! I've mentioned in the last few posts that we would be traveling together to try to find those churches and individuals who would be willing to help us on our way to Papua New Guinea, whether that be through one time gifts geared specifically at our 2 month trip this spring, or through monthly gifts to help us in the long term. I've already been astonished at how eager many have been to help us get started up. Our upcoming exploratory trip will cost us 5000 each for Elizabeth and I, which includes all of our travel and living expenses for the 60 days we're spending in Papua New Guinea, as well as the plane tickets to get us there. In the last week, we have visited with two larger Churches, a house Church, and a mid-week Bible study, as well as passing time with friends along the route. And after just this first week the Church has already given us nearly a quarter of what we need!

I feel exceedingly blessed to be in a place where the Church is placing its trust in Elizabeth and I and I eagerly look forward to the day when we can hit the field and start providing Scripture for the people of PNG. I have known for 6 years now that I would become a missionary, and this is an amazingly exciting time for me because I am finally seeing that getting to the field in a more permanent manner is truly possible.

Thank you so much to each and every one of you who are praying for us in our travels. Thanks to each of you who have taken us into your home, and to each of you who have been so willing to help spread the word of what we are doing. It means a lot.

Blessings, and good night.

Jacob

P.S. - It has been requested that I give contact information for anyone who might want to help contribute to our upcoming trip. All checks should be made out to Pioneer Bible Translators, and sent to my forwarding agent at:

1718 Fontainebleu Cres.
Norfolk, VA 23509

Thanks again, and blessings!

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I'm Engaged!

The title says it all folks! I haven't written about this yet mostly because I've been trying to get in contact with some people before they could find out from the internet, but also because the usual pressures of school and work have been interfering with time that be used for blogging. I have, however, had a couple of requests for details on how I proposed, and so I find myself making time in my day to inform the wider world of these recent events.

Our date night was on a Tuesday. Tuesday was the only night that week that I had off from work in which we did not have previous plans already made, and as such I knew that Tuesday was my day to take her out on a memorable date and propose. I had it all planned! We were going to head into Dallas proper and have a lovely Italian dinner, enjoying the fancy food. After that we were going to enter the whimsical Cinderella pumpkin-scape of the Dallas arboretum. There, among the fairy tale land of gourds, I was going to pull out a book. Now this particular book I had painstakingly spent hours of time carving and gluing into a box. And into this box I had wired in place an engagement ring. The cover said "Our Story Begins", and let's face it, doesn't that just fit perfectly with the Cinderella decor?

Well, it seems that I had not thought as much ahead as I had previously thought. The arboretum closes at 5 each weekday. No problem! Quick plan change, and dinner was now after the engagement. She might not want to eat right then when she could be showing off a ring, but we'll deal with that then. So I picked up Elizabeth at her house and began to drive. What's that? Traffic? It seems Dallas had other plans for my evening. Such is life. In truth we ended up at the quaint Italian restaurant, early for dinner yet, and found out it wasn't so much quaint as it was dingy. We then followed that up with playing cards. (A wonderful game called Dimes. Fun times) Afterwards, we headed back to her house, and hung out for awhile. By this point I was almost depressed because nothing of the evening had looked as I had hoped that it would. But nevertheless, I was determined, and so I brought Elizabeth out to the front porch to chat. I explained how much I had wanted to make the day beautiful for her, so that she would always have the memory, and pulling the book/box from my bag, I dropped to one knee. And there and then I asked her to marry me.

The day may not have looked as I had wished it to, but I was not willing to wait another day more to give her that ring. She said yes, and that sounds like the best possible beginning to a story.

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