LIGHTING the WAY

Check out our adoption video!!

Another version HERE

If you would like to support us financially, we are in need of monthly pledges for living expenses once we are on the field, as well as one-time donations towards our outgoing expenses. The following are ways to give:

– Checks made payable to “Africa Inland Mission” can be mailed to our home address.
– One-time or monthly payments can be set up through AIM’s online giving site. (Please let us know if you set up a payment to start at a later date).
– You will receive a receipt for your tax-deductable gift through either payment method.

We would love to talk with you more if you have any questions. We would also love to present our ministry in your church, Sunday school class, small group, or any other forum. Please let us know if this would be a possibility

Our newest prayer letter is headed to your inbox! If you would like to be added to our mailing list, you can message me your email address or sign up here: http://eepurl.com/oMexj

You can also view our most recent letter here: http://eepurl.com/B88_D

Jesus said in John 14:3, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”. Jesus is the only way to the Father and to forgiveness for the sins that condemn us all to an eternity in hell. Jesus also said that wide is the way to destruction, but narrow is the way to life. We have both dedicated our lives to showing those who don’t know, or can’t see, the Way. We want to “Light the Way” for all to come to know the One who died for them.

We are privileged to live in a nation where we have every opportunity to learn of this Way. But the Lord has opened our eyes to a dying and hurting world, full of people who have never once had the opportunity to hear that. Through the years, God has continued to burden our hearts for the lost. It is our passion and life’s goal to share God’s light with these people, showing them hope, and lighting the way for for salvation. We believe that God is leading us to make disciples among unreached people groups in Africa. Although we are currently unsure of the specific people group, or even the country we will eventually be serving in, we are open to the Lord’s leading, and continue to pray for His direction in this matter as we prepare to shine a Light on the Way.

How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? –Romans 10:14–

Our lives will never be the same…and we couldn’t be happier! We are beyond excited to announce the birth of Josiah Paul Waggoner. Born on June 18^th (7lbs. 5 oz. 20.5 inches for those wanting the specs J). Both he and Heather are doing well and each day is a new adventure with him! Many of you know our journey to parenthood, and after 2 years God has amazingly blessed us with this gift! Through our journey we have come to know and realize that Josiah is not our son, God has given him to us for a time. We hope and pray that the time we do have him will be used to point him to his Savior. Our prayer for him comes from his namesake, King Josiah:

(He) made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. – 2 Kings 23:3

We thank many of your for the prayers and support you have given us and we will be relying on many of you in the future.

             

First of all, THANK YOU for your interest in our journey! Your encouragement, blessings, and prayers touch our hearts and are appreciated more than you know.

Now that our adoption plan has been “officially” announced, we have been flooded with congratulations, well-wishes, and of course, questions. So, I wanted to take some time to address some of the most common questions we’ve received:

• You’re adopting? Cool! Is that because you can’t have biological children?

The short answer is no. Adoption is not a back-up plan for us. We don’t view it as a secondary way to build our family. It is our firm belief that the purpose of adoption should never be to provide children to a family, but to provide a family for a child who needs one.  It is something that we both have desired since before we were even married, and we have always known that we would adopt “some day.” We have a biblical mandate to care for orphans, and adoption is just one small way that we can be involved in that. It is a blessing beyond measure to be able to provide a stable, loving home for a child in need. Through a great deal of prayer and discussion, we have come to the conclusion that now is the time the Lord is leading us to begin the adoption journey. We also know that biological children are a possibility for us, and if God chooses to grow our family through that route as well, we trust Him to bring that about in His timing. The more the merrier!

• ­Where?

We are actually pursuing two adoptions simultaneously: one domestic and one international. For the international one, we are adopting from Uganda. Surprisingly, the international adoption is expected to be a much quicker process than the domestic one, so for now we are focusing primarily on that.

• How old is the child?

For the Ugandan adoption, he or she will probably be somewhere between 5 and 7 years old.   Technically, according to Ugandan law, one of the adoptive parents needs to be at least 21 years older than the child to be adopted. Although the courts can choose to waive this requirement, we prefer to stay within that age range so we have one less unknown variable when we get to our court hearing in Uganda.

For the domestic adoption, the child will most likely be an infant, although there is a possibility of adopting a somewhat older child. The agency we are going through works with birth mothers facing an unplanned pregnancy who want to choose adoption for their child, but they also partner with the local department of human services, finding families for children within the foster care system.

• What agency are you using?

We are not using an agency for the Ugandan adoption. Our dear friend Kevin runs The Greenhouse Orphanage in Kampala, Uganda, so we are able to adopt from that orphanage independently. For those of you who have kept up with our travels, this is the same orphanage that Brandon visited in 2008, and we also led a team through Xtreme Impact to this orphanage in 2011. Most of the pictures in our announcement video were from this orphanage. We are hoping to adopt one of the children we met while there in 2011. Doing it “on our own” means more work for us, but it also means lower cost, and potentially a quicker process.

For the domestic adoption, we are going through Crisis Pregnancy Outreach (CPO). It is a completely volunteer-based agency that began as a crisis pregnancy center in 1983 and grew into an adoption agency as the need arose. You can learn more about this agency at their website:  http://www.crisispregnancyoutreach.org/index.shtml.

• Where are you in the process?

Although we have been working on the adoption (researching, gathering information, making decisions, etc.) for several months, we are still in the early stages.  Right now, we are waiting on our home study to be finalized. We have completed all the necessary visits and have turned in all of the paperwork, but are still waiting on a few background clearances to come through and the actual write-up to be completed. The next step will be applying with U.S. Customs & Immigration to be approved as adoptive parents.

We know that adoption can be a very long, time-consuming, heart-wrenching, and costly process. But in the end it is so worth it. We ask you to please partner with us in this process through your continued prayers and encouragement. We will definitely need it! We are also planning some fundraisers soon, and would love if you could spread the word when the time comes. We will share more details on those as we get them ironed out. And we would love to talk with you more about the process! Please let us know if you have other questions you would like answered and we will do our best to address them.

Good evening! We hope you are enjoying the sunshine and summer weather. This year has really been flying by for us, and we have plenty of news to share!

As we mentioned in our previous letter, we have been praying for wisdom and direction as we search for a full-term placement location with AIM. We were initially looking to join a two-year outreach team among the unreached, semi-nomadic Mbororo people group in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.). As we prayed through the details of that team, we began to develop a burden for the Mbororo people. Unfortunately, due to instability in the region, that team has been postponed for the time being.

However, we have been presented with an exciting new possibility that we are prayerfully considering, and we ask you to join us in prayer as well as we seek the Lord’s direction in this. There is a possibility of forming a new team with another couple who had planned to be on the original C.A.R. team. We would be joining up with a veteran missionary and be based in the D.R. Congo, where the Mbororo people are nearby. While the details are still yet to be worked out, the idea would be to spend our first term primarily focused on language and cultural acquisition, along with discipleship, hoping to eventually move into the C.A.R.

While we are so enthusiastic about the possibility to move forward with this new team, there are still so many details and logistics to be worked out. We ask you to please join us in prayer as we seek wisdom in moving forward. Pray for the leadership within AIM as they work on the logistics, pray for the other couple who is considering the team, and for the veteran missionary who is already there laying the groundwork. Please also pray for us in our preparation, and for the Mbororo people. You can learn more about them here: http://prayafrica.org/mbororo/.

We are also stepping out in faith and moving ahead full steam with our support raising process. We are not certain the exact amount we will need yet, but we trust that when the Lord is ready for us to go, the funds will come in.

If you would like to support us financially, we are in need of monthly pledges for living expenses once we are on the field, as well as one-time donations towards our outgoing expenses. The following are ways to give:

– Checks made payable to “Africa Inland Mission” can be mailed to our home address.
– One-time or monthly payments can be set up through AIM’s online giving site. (Please let us know if you set up a payment to start at a later date).
– You will receive a receipt for your tax-deductable gift through either payment method.

We would love to talk with you more if you have any questions. We would also love to present our ministry in your church, Sunday school class, small group, or any other forum. Please let us know if this would be a possibility.

Thank you again for your continued prayers and support, and we will be sending out more details as they come!

We are back home from Candidate Week in Peachtree City, GA, and we are thrilled to announce that we are officially appointed as missionaries with Africa Inland Mission!

The week was full of training, interviews, small group meetings, and just getting to know the staff members and all the “ins and outs” of AIM. It was such a blessing to be there and meet other new missionaries who are in the same process with us. We felt like we were with family the entire week, and we can’t wait to see where God takes all the other appointees who were there too!

So what’s next? At this point, our hope is to join a 2-year TIMO (Training in Ministry Outreach) team to South Sudan. In case you missed our last newsletter, you can read all about TIMO at http://www.aimint.org/usa/serve/timo.  We will be working in an unreached village among the Lopit people. You can learn more about the Lopit people at http://prayafrica.org/lopit/. Please join us now in praying for them, and for the leaders and other members of the TIMO team.

Now that we are appointed with AIM, we are also beginning the support raising process. In order to go on the South Sudan TIMO team, we will need $19,902 for our outgoing expenses (which covers medical costs, travel expenses, Africa based orientation school, language acquisition courses, and housing setup). We will also need to have $3,696 in monthly pledged support for the 2 years we will be there.

At first the numbers seemed overwhelming to us, but we know that God has brought us this far, and if He desires us to be on this team then He will provide the finances as well. We ask for your prayers as we seek to trust and follow him in this next step. We want to see the support raising process not as a burden or obstacle to overcome, but as an opportunity to minister to others now as we share the passion that God has placed on our hearts.

We would love to talk with you more about what God is doing in South Sudan and especially among the Lopit people. Please let us know if you have questions, or would like to learn more about our TIMO team. Also feel free to contact us with any prayer requests of your own. Thank you again for your continued prayers and support.

-Brandon & Heather

The promised Italy debrief is here! All the information you wanted to know, along with a little extra just for funzies 🙂

We were so blessed to have the opportunity to lead our third Xtreme Impact missions trip, and we were super excited to go to Italy this year! It was truly a learning experience as we got to see a completely new side of the mission field in a post-Christian society. God truly had his hand on every aspect of our trip, and we were amazed to see the wonderful group of people He put together.

Our team worked in conjunction with Saints Equipped to Evangelize, a local mission agency and Bible Institute. All of the staff members and local missionaries were amazing! Logistically speaking, this was by far the easiest and smoothest trip we’ve led with XI, although Italy proved to have its own set of challenges.

For those of you wondering what exactly we did in Italy, I’ll give a brief synopsis of a typical day. We were based in a beautiful little township in northeastern Italy (at the base of the Swiss Alps!), but we did most of our ministry in several of the surrounding cities. In the mornings we would usually do tract distribution and hand out invitations to the church plants that the local missionaries have started. Throughout the course of our time there, the missionaries said that they received multiple phone calls from people who received the invitations inquiring about the church services, which was really exciting to hear. Afterwards, we would head back to our base for lunch and riposo.

In the early afternoons we went to parks to do children’s ministry. This included puppets, stories, wordless bracelets, games, face painting, balloons, and of course, conversations with both children and parents. During one of our ministry times, a small group of our students took a walk around the park to pray for the ministry that was going on. Along the way, they met a man sitting on a park bench, started a conversation, and ended up leading the man to Christ! It was so exciting for our team to see this, since salvations are rarely seen on short term trips to such a dark country as Italy. On another day in a different park, a young Albanian girl living in Italy accepted Christ after learning about the wordless bracelet. Please be in prayer for these two people.

After park ministry, we would go back to our base for dinner and then head out to the town squares for drama ministry. Our team learned 2 different “mimes” (dramas performed to music) that portrayed the gospel message. We would begin the evening with an “attention gathering” dance routine, followed by one of the gospel dramas. Afterwards, one of our team members, with the help of a translator, would give a brief gospel message and our team would go out to talk with people in the crowds. After the crowds dissipated and new people began to walk by we would repeat the set several times. Our team members were able to have some really great conversations with the Italian people, and we are praying that God would continue to work in their lives, soften their hearts, and use those dramas to draw people to Him even now that we are gone. One afternoon we did ministry in a tourist town further away from our base, so instead of going back for dinner we ordered pizzas from a restaurant and ate in the town square. While two of our students were in the restroom, they met two 12 year old girls from Albania who were there on vacation. The girls followed them back to the square where we were eating to continue their conversation, and our students were able to lead the two girls to Christ! It was so encouraging to see our team get so excited about seeing God work in peoples’ hearts!

I’m beginning to border on rambling now, so I’ll try to wrap up. Our Italy team was so amazing, and we definitely saw the Lord working in awesome ways!  We are so thankful  for everyone who was praying for our team, and pictures are available on Brandon’s facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/albums/?id=170200009)

The updates aren’t coming as frequently as we would like, but we wanted to give you some update on our travels.

Heather and I just got back from a great trip to Northern Italy with our third Xtreme Impact trip! Out team and the ministry were fantastic. In the next couple of posts we will give a review and pics from this great experience.

Our team!

I see it every day. My facebook newsfeed full of blog posts from witty, creative, inspiring people. Links to other peoples’ witty, creative, inspiring blog posts. And I have to admit, a slight tinge of jealousy starts to creep up. Brandon likes to tell me I’m a writer, because of one chance event that he witnessed 5 years ago. I had a tiny stroke of creativity in our cultural anthropology class when writing a paper about the funeral practices of the Latuko people of southern Sudan. When the professor handed back our papers, he told me I should be a writer and Brandon has never forgotten it….

But really, I’m not a blogger. I usually don’t have profound thoughts to write about. I’m not artsy. I’m not on Pinterest, and I don’t have a shop on Etsy.  I don’t have a hook….that one cool thing that can tie all your blog posts together and make people hang on your every word.  To be honest, I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable sharing deep, diary style ramblings with the entire world wide web.

And yes, this is my first blog post in over 9 months.

Between work and homework and a million other things that seem to be going on in our lives, it’s pretty easy to make excuses as to why I never update our blog. But lately I’ve been seeing the need to be more consistent. After all, once we’re living in Africa people might actually want to know what’s going on in our lives : )

So I’ll consider this my practice post. An agreement with myself to be more consistent, despite my lack of natural blogging abilities. Who knows, maybe I’ll even muster up a blog every month!