Ready...Set..GO! Part 2

I have to share what I think is a ‘God bonus’…Katie was in Florida last week because Maranatha’s women’s soccer team competed in the national NAACC tournament!(placed 5th)  We got to see her play in Kissimmee, just an hour away from us.  She also came and stayed with us on Saturday night.  It was very nice of her team to accommodate and win their regional so we could see her play. J These will be her last soccer games since it’s her senior year.  Isn’t God amazing? 

I don’t want to leave Shane out of this letter, so will mention that he is doing well!  He’s stationed at Whiteman AFB near Kansas City, MO, and will be spending Thanksgiving with Katie and my sister’s family in MO.  He’ll be coming to visit us the beginning of January so we’ll all have about a 36 hour window of time we will all be together. 

We've had questions as to our finances and support.  We are not at 100% monthly but God has showed Himself faithful and we lack for nothing!  We need about $800 a month to be at full support. Will you continue to pray with us about that?  We also would appreciate your prayers regarding:

1.       Our continued transition in our new jobs at Teen Missions

2.       That we would find a local church that we can minister and worship in

3.       That our family would continue to grow in God and be on mission for Him with our lives

Thank you in advance for your prayers!  We love you all and would love to hear from you J  

Shonn can be contacted at shonnfoy@teenmissions.net or you can contact us at getdirtyforgod@hotmail.com

*Did I mention that we'll be leading a team to Malawi..AFRICA...summer 2013?  You can read about it here! http://www.teenmissions.org/2012/06/04/malawi-mission-trip-13007/

 

Ready...Set..GO! Part 1 0f 2

 Ok… I’ve been putting off writing this for a little while longer than I intended!  I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to communicate with everyone but there have been a lot of things happening here. J And there’ve been a ‘few’ ‘overwhelmed moments’ so, please forgive the length of time it’s taken me to get this out.  We’ve been in Florida 2 1/2 weeks already!

 ALONG THE WAY

We packed the truck up on Saturday, October 20^th, with help from friends.  The next morning, we left our (very special) Nierman family and Indiana and began the journey to Florida. We spent a total of 3 ½ months living in their home and we miss them. (Duane, we haven’t seen Duck Dynasty for weeks now!)

We arrived in Merritt Island, Florida, after 2 long days of driving, multiple bathroom and rest stops, hours and hours of changing scenery, and (getting within about 60 minutes) we hit a bear…actually, we hit it 2 times!  Shonn hit it with the moving van/car and we hit it in the van/cargo trailer behind him.  And we weren’t the first to hit him!  Everyone was shocked to hear there are even bears in Florida…we found one.  But, we arrived safe and sound with only the need to change a tire on the trailer and a missing fender.  (Inserting a shout out to a special friend, Kate Method, who drove with us to make the trip easier and stayed a few days and rebuilt a shed in our backyard!  What a blessing she is! J Also thanks to Susie Adams, a friend who put us up for a night in Chattanooga and blessed us greatly with her gift of hospitality!)

AT OUR DESTINATION

We got in pretty late but noticed that someone
had been in the trailer and cleaned it for us. There were essentials in the way of food and drink, too.  The staff and students had blessed us! J  We were able to get a few mattresses and some bedding in and we all crashed pretty quickly.  When we woke up the next morning, we were blessed again when 5 staff guys showed up to help us unload the truck!  We’re settling in…it’s still an ongoing process. Boxes are still piled up in corners and awaiting unpacking!

We started work on Monday, October 28th. Shonn is in the Motorcycle Sunday School Missions department. He loves what he is doing. Right now he is working on a project for a group that will be heading out next September for a 9 month tour to raise support for the Motorcycle Sunday Schools being established all over Africa and Malaysia.  I’ll be cooking for the students on Tuesdays and have cooked several times already. (One week a month I will be cooking Tuesday, Thursday and a weekend with no days in the office.  I’m part time since I’m a home schooling mom).  I also started in the Aids Orphans Street Children department this week and will be doing projects for the director.

Erinn’s adjusting pretty well!  The first Friday we were here we heard a racket on our porch and it was the neighbor kids (many of them staff kids) asking if she wanted to come play ‘man hunt’.   The kids have been great to include her and she’s enjoying that.  She also spent a few evenings at the ‘Fright Night’ a local church was hosting for the community.  We’re getting caught up with school and she’s actually picking 2 weekend days a month to do school so she can be done when the local kids are done.  We took our first week here off due to the transition! When I work, she has the option to stay at the house or come along.  TMI is very kid friendly for moms who homeschool.

It’s nice to be able to see Jesse on a daily basis! He’s doing well at the Bible, Missionary, and Work Training Center at TMI.  There are 23 students here right now training for full time missions.  They’re really a great group of young people.  Jesse has classes in the mornings and then works in the videography department in the afternoon.  He’s been creating a video for the preteens who did ministry this summer.  It’ll be going out pretty soon.

See Part 2

 

Interrupted

I’ve been reading a book called “Interrupted: An Adventure in Relearning the Essentials of Faith”.  To sum it up, it’s about a pastor’s wife (and, of course, her husband!) and how their (typical) life was interrupted by God to do a ministry they never imagined or conceived for themselves!  She talks about moving out of their comfort zone, about leaving a ministry when they had to tell people they were leaving (but not being able to say where they were going initially), and about ‘jumping off’ a platform into the unknown. It’s about exercising faith when you’d rather stay comfortable, rather then become a ‘barefoot’ Christian (you should really get this book J!).  It was about living a radical lifestyle because Jesus did and wants us to.  My favorite part was when Jen shared how God “captured our minds, seized our hearts, and then called our hands.”  We can relate.

Tomorrow we leave for Florida and our new ministry as full-time missionaries with Teen Missions International.  TOMORROW!  It seems a little surreal.  Shonn is on his way to pick up the moving truck that we’ll be loading this afternoon.  There’s a storage unit waiting to be loaded into the truck. There are boxes…lots of boxes.  It’s actually happening.  We’re moving to Florida.  God interrupted our pretty typical American life and called us to do something different for Him.   We said ‘yes’.  It’s all God requires when He calls and interrupts ‘our’ lives.  At times we (well, really me) haven’t been too happy about it.  I mean, we had a great life here in Indiana!  Really, God, can’t I do something special from here?  But we’re (I am) content with the interruption now.  We have complete peace that God has called us to Teen Missions.  It’s exciting (and scary) to begin this ministry…tomorrow!

But like Jen said in the book

“Leaving is hard, even when a great adventure awaits you!” 

Around the Bend

So, we’ve been back in Indiana awhile and I’ve not been very good about updating the blog.  For that I apologize.  (It’s not like I have a huge audience!J)

We’ve been traveling this Fall and we’ve visited family, friends, and supporters in Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin.  We’ve also had the opportunity to be in 3 churches since we’ve been back. We praise God for the opportunity to share our call to Teen Missions International and the faithfulness He’s shown us since He started us on this journey!

It’s hard when we can’t see ‘around the bend’… 

We’ve talked about this a lot in the past 6 weeks since coming home from our summer adventure in France.  We’re so grateful that the waiting and the trusting (from the timing of going, to the housing, to the finances, and all the many details) has grown us closer to Him and to each other.  That’s what the waiting has been about.  It’s been the prepping time, the growing time, the stretching time, a LONG time. J  Some very familiar verses have taken on a whole new and deeper meaning: 

Proverbs 3:5, 6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.” (NLT)

And WHEN to take it, and WHERE to take it, and HOW to get there…so comforting!

Moving On…It’s finally (almost) here! 

We’ve (re)set our move date to head to Teen Missions for the weekend of October 20^th.  We have one more hurdle to jump before we finally get to Florida/TMI.  Remember I mentioned that Shonn had kidney stone surgery during Boot Camp in July?  Well, they’re not gone… so on October 10^th he has to endure another ‘blasting’ of some more stones. Please pray for him as this is NOT a comfortable process! 

Would you PRAY with us about these things?

·         For Shonn’s quick recovery after his procedure

·         For continued monthly support to come in- we need $1000 to be at 100% monthly support

·         For prayer warriors to remember us daily

·         For the details of the move to come together

·         For continued safety in our travels

And PRAISE GOD with us that:

·         Monthly supporters have been joining with us in our ministry   

·         We received a gift of $1000 for moving!  WOW!

·         We had an anonymous donor send a large one-time gift to us

·         We’ve been blessed to see friends and family these past few months  

·         Katie received some Pell grant money to help with college

·         A friend volunteered to help us drive our ‘stuff’ to Florida

·         My request for fall colors to ‘come out’ happened…Yay, God! J

I’m actually glad I couldn’t see around the bend when we began our journey. (I’m not sure I would’ve moved my feet!)  None of us knows what’s around the bend, but we can be sure that God will continue to give us grace for each day and enough strength to handle it as it comes. 

And Blessings!  Did I mention how blessed we feel that God has called us??

A Summer in Review

Boots to the Ground!

Hello from the Foy Family!  Trust you all had a wonderful summer - ours was certainly adventure filled!
 Our boots hit the ground on June 17th, the day we began our 3 weeks of Boot Camp in the swamplands at Teen Missions.  We all would say it was a difficult and challenging time for us!  We faced the flu (Lori), kidney stones and surgery (Shonn), delay in traveling to India with his team (Jesse), and the Slough of Despond (Erinn).  We struggled and learned through it all and we're so grateful for the storms God brought us through.  I was challenged with a song we sang in worship this morning, "Jesus Bring the Rain", and it really made we reflect on the truth in the lyrics that say "What's a little rain?"...after all Jesus suffered for us.

Boot Camp     Merritt Island, FL

We ended up with 11 teens on our team, 9 girls and 2 boys.  They really were an amazing group of kids and everyone told us how blessed we were.  We definitely had an assorted group of personalities but they did a good job working together and being patient with one another.  At Boot Camp we traveled in a line as a team, each team member was assigned a number for role call, they shared tents, ran the obstacle course together, attended puppet, drama, music, phonics, and evangelism classes, and each night weworshipped together in the nightly rallies.  We definitely became a team both physically and spiritually as we endured the heat, rain, mosquitoes, illnesses, and other various trials involved with Boot Camp!
 

Eiffel Tower

The project we all expected to do in Nantes, France, working with children's Bible clubs didn't work out, so when we left Boot Camp on July10th we headed to Paris and began working with a group called 'Cijem Force'. They were a dynamic group of Christians intent on revolutionizing Paris!  Each day we did worship and Bible study with them and then in the afternoons we would go with them into the Metro system and do evangelism. One of the highlights of our time with Cijem Force was the prayer walk we did with them.  We left in the early hours of the morning and walked to the different areas they had chosen to do ministry for the next week and prayed for the people who would cross our paths.  It really left an impact on all of us. 

After about 10 days with Cijem, we began to also work with Youth With a Mission (YWAM), doing evangelism at the Trocadero plaza in the evenings.  The Trocadero is right in front of the Eiffel Tower, so we were there each night for about 2 weeks.  Thousands of people went through there and YWAM uses dramas, dance, mimes, and personal testimonies to draw people.  Our kids helped hand out literature and spoke to people about Jesus.  During our last week in Paris our team had the opportunity to do some of their dramas as well.  It was a great experience!
                                 

Team France in Montauban, France

Our last week in France was spent evangelizing in a city called Montauban, in the South of France.  We took an 8 hr night train and began our time with a group of about 150 whose misison was to "Bouge Ta Ville Montauban" (shake your city).  We spent time in worship, prayer, and Bible study in the mornings, and then in the afternoons groups would split up to do work/service projects, visit in the nursing homes, and street evangelism.  In Montauban our team was able to use their dramas, stomps, puppets, balloons, and one on one skills to share Jesus with the people in the city. A highlight of our time there was a carnival that all of us did in a park in the middle of this beautiful city!  

We've been back in Indiana for about a week now and we're happy to be back in the Midwest for about 7 weeks before we relocate to Florida permanently!  We'll blog about that soon :-)

Because of Jesus,

Shonn and Lori Foy

Here we go!

I had big plans to post pictures of our week-long trip to Florida via Wisconsin.  When the dust settled, really, it just isn't too practial an idea when you're on the road.  (We do have some great pictures I'll share at a later date!)

We have been blessed to be able to see some friends, family, and supporters along the way!!  We've enjoyed wonderful hospitality from the Harrison's (my sister, Cathie and hubby Jim), the Beaugh's (Shonn's sister, Jan and hubby Mike), and the younger Beaughs, (Matthew, Elizabeth, and Curtis). We were also able to see and spend time with my parents, our sweet daughter, Katie, and Shonn's mom all in the span of a week! 

PRAY FOR US!  We would love to have your prayers as we take our first trip with Teen Missions International.

Some information:

You can email us while we're at Boot Camp.  We aren't able to respond, but will be able to get them from the office.

(we can get emails through July 5th)
12028lfoy@lordsbootcamp.org
12028sfoy@lordsbootcamp.org
12028efoy@lordsbootcamp.org

Jesse's (he can get emails through June 25th)
12004jfoy@lordsbootcamp.org

Our land address during Boot Camp is:
(Shonn, Lori, Erinn)
France 12028                                                              India 12004
Name                                                                          Jesse Foy
871 E Hall Rd                                                             871 E Hall Rd
Merritt Island, FL 32953                                            Merritt Island, FL 32953

FOLLOW US!
  Go to www.teenmissions.org

• You'll see an icon for 'Mission Trip Reports', and just find the France or India team posts. Updates will be posted 2x a week. (Our field address will be posted at a later time.  Jesse's is there under 'mission trips...team addresses)'
• You can watch the nightly rallies under the 'Media' icon, at 'streaming webcasts' daily at 7:15, Florida time

And we're off!  Time to load the van (again) and get going!  We love all of you and will get in contact ASAP.

Shonn, Lori, Jesse, and Erinn Foy

Jumping In!

This week we’re in Watertown, Wisconsin.

Thursday, June 7^th, the Regional and Fort Wayne staff threw us an incredible ‘decommissioning’ picnic at a pavilion in Franke Park.  It was a great time!  Close to 100 staff and individuals we’ve worked with through the years came out to remember, congratulate us on our new mission, and to say goodbye. And of course, there was amazing food! (Shonn has worked with some of them for 20 years, so it was an incredible time!) It was our 26^th anniversary that day, so they even made us a cake!  What a generous, incredibly caring, group of people!!

We packed up the van Saturday with what we need for the summer, left Indiana, and headed here to finish up Shonn’s final 3 days with Bethesda. (We’d been staying with our friends, the Nierman’s, for the last 5 weeks, so it was bittersweet. We had an amazing time with them!) Please pray for Shonn as he desires to finish well! We’re staying at my sister’s, so have the added bonus of seeing my parents, Cathie’s family, and Katie. 

We’re getting there… we are actually on our way! Late Wednesday we begin our drive to Florida.  We’ll be at Teen Missions and start our summer with them Sunday, June 17th…wow! The thought both excites, and honestly, scares us! Not in the ‘scary, terrified, turn around, or what have we done sense?’, but let’s be honest, the unknown is always just a little scary. 

But amazingly, there’s also a lot of peace.  There’s been a few times when I’ve thought

·        Shouldn’t we be just a little more scared for the future? 

·        Shouldn’t we be a little more worried about what happens after the summer and we have   to raise the rest of our support? 

·        Shouldn’t we worry that in a few days we’ll be essentially homeless and jobless?

This is our “jumping off” point. We were told by several veteran missionaries that everyone has this point…the point when you have to say, “Ok, God, WE ARE ALL IN” and YOU know what we need, when we need it…before WE know what we need or when we need it.  And we will trust You!  SO, this is our JUMPING IN time. 

And honestly, ‘The water’s fine!’ God’s got this!

Shonn and Lori

"LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us"

Isaiah 26:12