After going on a Worldwide trip to Honduras with Sandals Church in August and coming so close to getting married right there at the orphanage, Lauren and I decided to bump up the date of our wedding from May 2009 to January 2009. We then started talking about traveling once we get married, and decided to return to the orphanage for a longer period of time to serve the children and staff. We choose the month of January upon returning from our honeymoon to begin our stay at the orphanage. When arriving in the country, you can be given a 3 month tourist visa (at the agents discretion) and then have it extended another month as you get closer to that visa's expiration--if you do your math correctly the stay would total 4 months. Lauren and I are both very excited to begin our marriage serving God with absolutely EVERYTHING we have. We won't be spending pointless hours working to make ends meet to live in the great state of California amidst the decline of the mortgage/banking market and we won't be spending as much time doing leisurely activities to entertain ourselves. There is no local movie theater, miniature golf course, bowling alley, beach, couples to double date with, or restaurants to casually dine at. We're limited to each other (whoop whoop), the volunteers, and the children of the orphanage--not that that's "limited" in a negative way. It'll be good.
A lot of preparation goes into leaving the country for an extended period of time. Lauren and I are excited to return to Orphanage Emmanuel in January and look forward to the way that God will use us once we're there. We have been communicating with the orphanage contacts in the United States over the past month in hopes that we can experience a smooth transition between here and the States. It's good to make sure that someone is there to pick us up from the airport and that we will have a place to live once we get there. So far all of our questions have been answered and they have made us feel confident that everything will be fine once we're there. We've had a family offer to help us while we're there by sending money to the orphanage now so that it is ready for us once we arrive. God has most definitely been supplying for us and we haven't even left yet.
We know that the plane tickets will be around $3000.00 (round trip) for the both of us so we are hoping that we will have support in that area as a wedding gift/participation. That would be a lot of money for the two of us to come up with right now--especially since we are both full time students that are also trying to plan a wedding in less than 4 months. God is always faithful to provide for us so I have put it in His hands.
