Moving Forward!

This post is very exciting for me to write.  First off, let me apologize for the long gap since my last post.  We just had many things that needed to be sorted out as a family before we were ready to share them with the world.  But we are ready and so excited!

WE ARE MOVING TO AFRICA!

Officially!  Jason and I feel so strongly that this is the direction that God is taking our family and we are excited to share that news with you all.  Our plan is in January 2012 to pack up the family and head to New Hope Uganda http://newhopeuganda.org/ in Luwero, Uganda for five months of extensive training and preparation for our life in the mission field.  In May of that year, we hope to move to Jinja, Uganda and start our lives as missionaries there.  We have many hopes and plans of what we would like to do, but most of all we want to be open to serving God however He is leading us at that time.  As for now, our hopes are to open a small clinic with the main goal of helping children and pregnant women.  There are many other details involved that I won't go into at this point since we are still figuring many of them out, but we wanted to share the general plan with you all.

Obviously these next eight months are going to be busy for us all.  Aside from figuring out our support and how we will begin this life that we have been called to, we also need to dwindle down all of our belongings to what can be taken on an airplane with us, sell our house, figure out a home schooling program that will work for us, start said program in Sept so we can all adjust to it before the move, and a million other things that seem to find their way onto my To Do list daily.  Please pray for us during this time.  The enemy has not wasted a single moment in attacking us.  Whether it just be in the form of sickness in the family or just trying to constantly discourage us or fill us with fears that we cannot possibly do this, Satan is working overtime in the Segner household for sure!

Some specific prayer requests for right now:
1. Support for our ministry - not only has God clearly called us to Uganda, but we felt strongly that He was calling us in a way that was not with a large mission organization.  We are not against large organizations, we just felt that God had a different way for us.  However, that has left us on our own (well not technically on our own, but I will get to that soon!) to raise the support that we will need to make this possible.  I STRONGLY believe in the power of prayer.  I feel that God is already working now on the hearts of those that are meant to help us in this mission.  That He has already placed the right people in our lives to make this possible.  To burden others with the work and help that is needed with the children of Uganda.  I have such a peace that the funds that are needed will come so please join us in prayer for that need.
2. Home Schooling for the kids - As I mentioned we want to begin this in the fall instead of sending the kids to school for just one semester.  Since this will be an adjustment both for them and for myself, we feel this routine will be easier to figure out when it isn't coupled with trying to figure out life in Africa as well.  Please pray for wisdom in choosing the right program for our family.
3. An intern to travel with us for the 5 months that we are at New Hope - I know that God already has the perfect person in place for us for this important position.  Please pray that person will be revealed to us.  We will be in need of someone that can stay with the kids and help them with school, during the day, while Jason and I are in training.  Someone that has a huge love for the Lord and His children.  If you know of someone that could fill this position for us, please let us know.

HUGE Praise Report!
As proof of the amazing power of prayer, God has already answered one of ours in a big way.  Being that we weren't going with a large mission organization, or even a small one for that matter, I had specifically been praying that God would lay it on the heart of someone to partner with us, in a way.  To be the person stateside that could take care of all the details that we would not have time to deal with considering the work we will be doing once in Africa.  And knowing, even if we had the time, neither Jason nor myself are really gifted in that area to handle it all.  That prayer was answered in the form of Imani Tumaini Upendo Ministries. A non profit that has been formed by friends of ours with the goal of "supporting ministiries who are living with, loving on, and caring for the children of Africa". This ministry will be helping us raise the funds that we need to move to Uganda.  They will also, starting next summer, be organizing short term mission teams to come and visit us, help serve alongside with us, and bring us much needed supplies.  We are SO very excited to see where this partnership with Imani will lead.  To find out more visit http://imani-africa.com/.  Also, you can now donate to our ministry and that donation is completely tax deductible.  For right now, we can only accept checks made out to Imani Tumaini Upendo with the Segners in the memo line.  Soon we will be able to accept donations online too.