Well, the weeks keep slipping by and we are slowly making progress toward Belize. We have raised $8,600 of $28,000 thus far. Our next fundraiser will be another Garage Sale at the church on Saturday, May 12. In the meantime, the team is raising funds individually in various ways.

In another 2 weeks we'll be able to start planning our VBS. Every team meeting we will have a presentation about the history and culture of Belize to help us get aquainted with the country. As the school year comes to a close, our work is just beginning, and that makes me excited!

Stay tuned for more reports on our financial progress and upcoming fundraisers around Southlake (coming to a Chick-Fil-A and Sonic near you?)

I sure did not expect to write so frequently, but this has been a busy 2 weeks! First we had 2 fundraisers, and then Sunday evening, just as I was getting to relax, stress came back in the form of plane tickets.

I wish I could share the whole story, but it is so confusing I'm still not real sure what happened. So the short version is this: Pastor and I had put our group's plane tickets on reserve Saturday because the prices were rising. Then we noticed Sunday that the price had actually jumped up $100! But our reserved tickets were the cheaper price, $780 (that was blessing #1). So obviously it was time to buy. We had reserved the tickets in separate groups. I bought the 9 tickets I reserved no problem. When Pastor went to buy the 6 tickets he reserved, it had been canceled. Enter confusion, chaos, long hours on the phone with customer service, and anger. And then blessing #2 in the form of a customer service advocate who saw our case through and Tuesday morning we were able to buy the last 6 plane tickets at our originally reserved price ($780 and not $875, thank God!)

In other news, we officially have 18 people on the Belize team! This is beyond my wildest dreams (which was 15) and way beyond Pastor's realistic dreams (9). I remember being so nervous and torn up about how expensive this trip is, thinking it would severly limit the size of the team. Instead we have a team literally twice the size of last year's (at more than double the cost). God's provision is seeing us through each and every step of this trip.