Hey all, I pray you have had a good winter so far. We are coming to you live from a dusting of snow here and are enjoying it greatly. As for our lack of a newsletter, for those who don't know, we have been enjoying our new addition the family and his first few weeks of life. Side note, babies look sooo cute in snowsuits! He is completely healthy, happy, and enjoying life to the fullest. We are so thankful to God for this blessing in our lives. Who knew that such a tiny little man would be such a huge reminder of God's love for us it is truly mind blowing! Baby Owens has taken up all out time recently, but now we are finding ourselves with more time to get back to what we have been focusing our lives on for the past few years. That being White Horse Missions and our next steps with them.
As a recap, we have had a lot of what we need to go serve with White Horse taken care of by Gods providence. We have access to a visa with a path to residency, we have an excellent language school lined up, we have spent time in country making a budget using multiple different sources, we have looked at living accommodations, and we even have access to health insurance for our family, and much more. ALL of these things were worked out in ways that amaze us. We thank God for his provision, even when it seemed no options for the above things existed. But, there is still on element that we are working on.
Raising our own support is not something that is new to us. For those who don't know, Emma was a missionary abroad before we both met and lived off raising support in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. We have been working on our strategy for fundraising, and after taking a break to spend time as a family to welcome our newborn, we are ready to implement the final stretch. We have come to the conclusion that we need $40,000 a year to live and work in Honduras with White Horse Missions. So far, we have received generous donations for many who wish to support us as we seek to serve the Kingdom in Central America. We are thankful for the financial support we have received so far, but to sustain ourselves we need to reach some goals.
Mainly, we need monthly or yearly recurring support. One time gifts are a blessing and we are very thankful for them, but to reach our goals we need recurring support.
To that end, we are reaching out via this newsletter and other ways to ask you if you would consider meeting with us one on one to discuss what it would look like to get you on board to supporting us in a recurring way. We want to make ourselves available to you so you can get to know our heart, hear the details directly from us, and make a connection. We will make the effort to meet with you, all you would need to do is reach out to us to set up a date and location.
Additionally, if you know someone who is passionate about supporting missionaries financially, we would appreciate if you would implore them to make the connection with us. We would love to come talk to your church, your women's group, your small group, or anyone. Again, we will come to you if we have the opportunity to speak on the passion God has laid on our hearts for what He is doing in Central America.
If you feel like you or someone you know would be interested in this kind of opportunity to connect with us, please reach out to Gideon at (864)-243-6867. Or, use the contact form on our website.
Thank you for reading this longer newsletter, and we hope to hear from you soon. To those who pray for us, thank you and join us in praising God for all that He is doing in our lives.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
-Gideon, Emma, and Baby Owens