thanks for all the comments and email reflections on my past post about “rethinking the word pastor.” i am so glad it stirred up some great conversation!
i realize i haven’t written anything yet about our africa trip coming up on the 18th of this month so i thought i’d share here an email update we sent out this past week to our friends and family so you could get the gist of what we were doing. thanks for your prayers & support & love from afar. we are really excited for our adventure, and i’ll definitely be writing and sharing pictures when we get back. here’s what we sent:
familia escobar is going to africa!
all 7 of us are going to kenya & uganda for a fun mix of mission & adventure…
we leave january 18th 2010, back january 30th & wanted to fill you in on what we are doing and give everyone a chance to be part from afar & send some love to africa with us to help the orphanage & school we’re going to.
we are so thankful for this opportunity & are excited (and a little nervous, too) for what’s ahead. kathy met our kenyan friend luke at the new conspirators conference in seattle in 2008, and we forged a fun and sweet friendship with him. in addition to a lot of other things, he runs a mission center in luanda, which is outside of kisumu, kenya. there is an orphanage, school, and pastor’s college on the property. 250 kids live there and another 250 come there every day for school.
our trip will include a combination of teaching at several mini-conferences & churches on both the kenya and uganda sides & helping at the orphanage and school (we’re going on a 1 day safari at the end & have plans for some other adventures in between). we are just planning on winging it and trusting it will all be clear once we get there, ha! and honestly, really we just hope to listen and learn and have a chance to connect with as many people as possible. the kids are really excited to play with the kids and are already planning what balls and games they are going to bring.
we do not need to raise any money for our expenses. we are grateful for united airlines and the discounts we get to fly with and we are viewing this as our last big crazy family trip before josh leaves for college in july. we are staying at the orphanage for free.
however, we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to be part of helping meet some current needs the orphanage and school are facing. they are actually in the middle of a huge financial crisis and some of the kids have been placed with families on an emergency-short-term basis because there wasn’t enough money to feed everyone. they are in the process of trying to fund 2010 properly & need a lot of help to pull it together. 100% of any money we bring will go directly to provide food and supplies for the children and the school.
if you want to make a tax-deductible contribution, you can use our paypal, which is available on the refuge home page at www.therefugeonline.org or on my blog at www.kathyescobar.com. it is the same paypal account for the refuge. make sure and put in the “details” line that it is for africa.
we’ll bring 100% of anything that comes in directly to deliver to them. we’d love to really bless them with an extra infusion of love. in the work that we do at the refuge, i know how great it feels to get unexpected help. it always feels like a direct gift from above, no matter how big or small, and a reminder to not give up. these dear people are in the trenches loving the least of these.
please do not feel any obligation in any way! but if you want to be part from afar, knowing that it won’t go to some random thing but directly into the hands of some people that need it, we’d love to take it there for you.
we leave on january 18th so we need to have everything in place by friday the 15th. sorry for the short notice, we are just behind from the holidays!
we so appreciate your prayers & love and will share pix & more on facebook when we get back!
lots of love, kathy, jose, josh, julia, jamison, jonas & jared
