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Dear Family and Friends,
Spring has sprung here in the Dakotas. The piles of snow have finally melted, and the flowers are beginning to bloom. The farmers are out working in the fields and baby calves are running through the grasslands. The kids in our little town have come out to play, trading their coats and snowpants for flip flops and short sleeves. As we enjoy the sunshine we say goodbye to another long winter and start a new season.
Brandon and Marci on Easter Sunday
The Joneses have also begun a new season. We have started visiting churches to raise support. One missionary told us that this was her favorite part of being a missionary: the ability to go and meet people and to build relationships with them. After being in several churches over the past couple of months, we have to agree. It doesn’t matter if you are in a tiny town of 200 in rural North Dakota, or a big city with thousands, God’s people are there. They are worshipping, they are praying, and they are looking for ways to support God’s mission. It amazes me that we can walk into a room of strangers on a Sunday and yet they don’t feel like strangers because they are family. We have been united together through Christ. It has brought us great joy to travel and meet more of our family.
Starting next month our family will head south to visit family and meet with more possible supporters. Our trip will take us through southwest Missouri, down to east Texas, over to Florida, and then back up through Brandon’s hometown of Kansas City.
We are excited to see what God will do during the summer months when it comes to support raising. As we look to the future, we plan on moving from Herreid to the Dallas area once we reach 50% of our support to make our US home base there. Our prayer has been that God would provide us a church family there that we can worship with and that would be willing to partner with us as we go to Brazil and later return for home assignments. We are meeting with several pastors from the area during the trip and are excited to see where God will lead us.
Earlier this month Marci had an unexpected surgery, which has caused her to be down for a couple of weeks. We are thankful for God’s faithfulness and that she has come through it alright. There are no lingering health concerns with her. We are praying for complete healing for her before our big trip this summer.
Our kids with their foster siblings on Easter. (Due to regulations we are unable to show the faces of our foster children.)
As we prepare for the field, we are slowly closing doors here at home, which is bittersweet. This month was one of those times. For the past 5 years while living in Herreid we have been foster parents. We have had the privilege to host a dozen children in our home during that time. Some for a few days, some for months. Each child has a unique story and a unique set of challenges. We started this journey as a way to teach our children, and ourselves, what it means to be hospitable. The Bible tells us that we are to be hospitable people, literally the command in the New Testament is for us to “love the stranger” as well as caring for the widows and orphans around us. Being a foster family has brought us great joy as a family, and God has used these kids to transform us in ways we would have never imagined. Earlier this month we said goodbye to two little ones that we have kept since January. With their goodbye was also the decision to no longer be a foster family, given our upcoming summer trip and planned relocation to Texas and then Brazil. This decision marked the first step of closing doors for us, and even though it was hard to say goodbye, we are thankful for being used by God to show His love to some sweet children and their birth families. Brandon recently shared more about this and Marci’s surgery on his blog, which is at: blog.herreidbaptist.com.
Thank you so much for coming alongside us in our journey. We are so blessed to have so many of you respond and become supporters of the mission in Brazil. We are excited to see what God has in store for us next.
God Bless,
The Joneses