Saturday, June 28, 2008

Fundraising presentation

On Sunday, July 6, we'll be hosting a fundraising event at our church:

2pm
Awana circle room (enter through front doors, then go down the stairs
Vancouver Chinese Alliance Church
3330 Knight Street

What will you see?
- We'll present what we're doing in Africa (geography lesson?)
- outdoors skills demonstration; planning an overnight camping trip
- Windows tips & tricks demo--I guarantee that you'll learn at least one thing you never knew about the Windows operating system. And not just the nerdy command line stuff.

What will you taste?
- traditional African foods

Probably will last to around 4pm.

Intro

Dear friends,

Married life has been pretty smooth sailing since June 2007, with Tim continuing his work at a software company (but still with time to spend with his fish) and Dora working as a teacher-on-call and spending her time helping out with Scouts.

Though we have our fair share of adventure camping in the wilderness of BC, the Lord has planted the desire in our hearts to greater challenges in life. For Dora, it began with a dream that she was sitting in a mud hut with an African child next to her. She has always known that God has a greater purpose for her life, and Africa, she believes, is just part of the process of discovering what His will is. Tim always has had a desire to serve people in practical ways. He has been inspired by family that not only nurtured compassion, but a responsibility to take action for the broken. He also wanted to work in an incredibly diverse continent which has been mostly neglected by the western world. After much prayer and many months of research and waiting, God has presented us with not one, but two different organizations that serve in Africa: CIM (Chinese International Missions) and SIM (Serving in Missions).
Our organizations

CIM’s role in Ghana on the west coast of Africa focuses on outreaching to the Muslim young people through their Computer and Business College in the town of Tamale and to the young children and their families through a pre-school ministry, which will be expanding to include kindergarten and grade 1 as well. We saw God’s hand in matching this organization’s needs with our specializations exactly.
SIM is a global organization with positions throughout the world. They will be sending us to South Africa to work with disadvantaged children in a semi-rural school (Aurora Primary School) where Tim will be reconfiguring the computer system to make it more user friendly and teaching computer literacy while Dora can put her experience and training with kids to good use.

We’ve decided to volunteer with both organizations in order to gain a wider perspective of global missions. Like the North American school year, West African schools commence in September. As teachers, we will start the school year with CIM in Ghana and remain there for three months, then from January until March, we will start another new school year with the school that SIM and another organization jointly runs in South Africa.

One can never anticipate all problems, so we invite you to be a part of our service mission to Africa with your prayer and/or financial support.

Prayer support

  • safety: plane, overland transportation, and meeting the right people in the right places
  • teaching: that we can be prepared to teach not only the lessons, but to be able to connect and form a trusting relationship with the students
  • logistics – working with two separate organizations to coordinate scheduling and budget
  • spiritual: to be sensitive to God’s leading, and how we can accurately represent our Christian values (in word and deed) with the Muslim community (in Ghana)
  • emotional: to transition healthily through the stages of culture shock
  • financial: relying on God to provide for us

Our goal is to raise prayer support for every day that we are on the field. Please contact us if you would like to be a prayer partner!

Financial Support

For the missions specific portion of the trip these are our expenses:

Trip expenses $5400
Preparation expenses $2985

Daily expenses
SIM $3800
CIM $2700

Approx. TOTAL Requirements $14,885

Our financial goal is to raise $10,000 (to cover a portion of the expenses) by July 25, 2008.

If you desire a tax receipt, please indicate this on our donor form, ensuring your name and address are correct. Donations can be made to either SIM or CIM. If you do not have a preference, please check with us first.
You may also make donations to SIM through credit card online, at SIM.CA .
If you’d like to donate in installments, you may write postdated cheques to either organization. We welcome you to contact us at bubblenest@gmail.com or call us directly if you would like to know more about our trip or just want to get to know us.

In Christ,
Tim (604) 724-1376
and
Dora (604) 837-1654

In a desert land he found him,
in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
Deuteronomy 32:10