FUNdraiser

Today was our Texas Roadhouse Barbeque fundraiser. We got to church early to set up out on the patio. Tables weren't bad, but similar to the Bostons hauling sand up four stories by block and tackle, we had to bring over 100 chairs down from the upstairs classrooms by hand. We did set up a chain to hand the chairs down the stairs, and back up again after the event, but it was real work.

The final setup looked pretty nice, and God gave us a nice, sunny and warm day for the event.






Everyone waited patiently for the food to be served. The catering team arrived a little later than we had expected to set up for the event, and a car shuttled in some chicken right before they started serving, so we had folks queued up for a little bit before they were ready to serve. I think the catering team was busy sending off their own team to Paraguay - Joseph, the supervisor that came over said his church has a team heading down today to help with a school in Paraguay for two weeks. Small world.


The wait was well worth it. Cole slaw and beans, barbeque chicken and ribs so tender they fall off the bone, along with some rolls and honey butter. The kids had hot dogs and chips.



It was a good time of fellowship for everyone over the meal. We had a number of baptisms today, so several members had extended families in attendance due to the baptisms.



The food went pretty quick. Joseph and his team didn't have much leftover food to deal with. We served over 170 people today.




Our lovely hospitality team served up three sheet cakes for us today. The carrot cake and chocolate cake went pretty fast, and the white cake only had about a half dozen pieces left at the end of the event.



Not sure who saw the cakes before our lovely hospitality team served them up. The cakes don't begin to state the gratitude for the work God has done in preparing us for this missions trip, nor the support we've seen from the church body. A hearty thanks to all who have supported us financially for the trip, supported the fundraiser, and covered us in prayer. We just ask for continued prayer to cover us for the last few weeks before the trip, our travels down to Paraguay, while we're in Paraguay, the return back and our period of re-entry and closure when we return.

Preparation

For the past year we've been working as a team preparing for a two week trip to help Bob and Brenda Boston in their church planting efforts in Asuncion, Paraguay. We're now in our final countdown - just thirty three days until we leave - Passports, Visas for Paraguay and tickets have all been obtained, and final payments made to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Short Term Missions office to get the funds down to the Bostons. Brenda's active blog has inspired me to blog from our perspective on the trip.

God has done a lot of work in preparing us for this trip, and pulled down some big barriers - whether he provided an easy path to get to the Consulate General of Paraguay office in Los Angeles to obtain visas, raising the funds for the six of us to make the trip, and even sending me to Sao Paulo Brazil on business a week ago, allowing me to check out the airport and assure the team that the international connection there would not be particularly challenging.

Tomorrow is our final fundraiser, a barbeque catered by Texas Roadhouse Barbeque.