Latest Update-

The last few months have been challenging yet very rewarding. It's in the harder times that God can really develop character in us if we allow Him to. It also allows us to draw closer to Him. I have to admit, sometimes I want to and sometimes I'd rather look at my circumstances... but that road doesn't lead to anything good.

We felt like God was closing the door for full time missions overseas at this moment in our lives, and that He was closing the door for us to be at YWAM Nashville. Both of those things we went ahead and obeyed, but it left so many unknowns in our path... and the transition was harder than I thought. Newly married, it was our time to start from scratch... but we needed (and need) a place to allow us to do that. Family has generously taken us in while we search for jobs... again and again. I got a job at Babies R' Us in Tennessee at the same time I found out I was pregnant. Lots of emotions flooded my mind!

We were absolutely thrilled! This is an area that we wanted God to lead in. We didn't want to control/prevent a baby- we really wanted to see God's timing. He is capable to bring a baby in His timing! And He did. We prayed and prayed about whether to stay in Tennessee, I really wanted to be around my family during the pregnancy/birth. So, we packed up ... I didn't take the job after all, and we headed North.

Not sure if it's been the economy or what- but it has been very difficult finding jobs. DeWayne has applied for about 50... but we continue to trust God because He can open and close the doors. It's only Him that knows His plans for our lives and what He wants to accomplish. Although we don't know why we've been unemployed for so long, we continue to lean on Him- God is good, all the time! I've always had a sense of it being easy to get a job, but even for me it's been difficult. Praise God that DeWayne has a job now, and I still search. God is providing! We are learning so much in this time and we won't ever be in the same situation ever again, so we try to make the most out of it, learn the lessons, and enjoy the process. We laugh about the day we can look back and say, "Remember when?..."

Even if we have to start off with little, we want to be thankful for what we have and generous to others. Life overseas has taught us such valuable lessons of how to live a simple life and still be happy- something our culture doesn't always teach. We are excited to walk out the life God has set before us and use the experiences He has given us and the revelations He has shown us to shine His love to others, and especially our baby boy.

Although sometimes I question God's timing and His purpose and wonder why things seem to be taking so long? "Hello God! We are having a baby in a few months and DeWayne and I haven't really lived alone yet!! Can't you hurry the process so we can enjoy married life, at least for a few months?" He simply speaks, "Now. Enjoy it now. Don't wait." (p.s. I could write a lot more of those kinda prayers on here but i'll save you the energy of reading them all!)

The biggest joy of all is knowing that God has given us the gift of life, not only eternal life with Him, but also a baby boy living inside of me. God has protected that area in our lives- shining His grace and peace on that situation. Although fear can sometimes creep in, "What will people think? We don't even have jobs?!" He reminds me of WHO I am living for. HIM.

I want to encourage you, whoever you are that is reading this- with this scripture that God JUST brought to my mind. (doesn't always happen)
"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." -Matthew 16:25

I know that as we press in to our relationship with God (spend time with Him-talking,reading the Bible, etc) He will ask us to give up some things in our life, and my encouragement to you is to not fear, He promises LIFE. When He asks us to give something up, He'll only give back so much more. We might not know WHY and feel out of control, but I'm learning that that's okay, more of Him and less of me!

10 Lessons We Can Learn From Honeybees

We can learn many things by observing the behaviour of honeybees. Here are ten examples of lessons we could usefully apply to our own lives.

1) Honeybees live within their means. There are no banks, loans or credit cards in the bees' world; only the resources they themselves gather and store. Like us, bees need to eat every day, and they do everything in their power to ensure a constant food supply by storing it – not so much for themselves, but for bees yet to be born.

2) Honeybees achieve extraordinary things by working together. Fifty thousand workers can shift a lot of stuff. Co-operation is the key to their success: tens of thousands of individuals behaving as a single organism.

3) Honeybees demonstrate that division of labour can be highly efficient. And everyone knowing how to do the full range of essential jobs makes for flexibility and adaptability. Bees move through a series of jobs in the hive before finally emerging as food-gatherers. In an emergency, they can revert to their former occupations to make up for losses.

4) Honeybees make honey while the sun shines. Bees are opportunists, taking advantage of available food as soon as conditions are right. Even when their stores seem full, they will find odd corners to pack with food,

5) Honeybees behave as though individuals matter, while the common good is always their first priority. Ego is not a feature of honeybees: their first duty is to the colony and bees will sacrifice themselves without hesitation if they perceive a threat to the colony.

6) Honeybees understand that hard times happen, and they are always prepared for shortages as well as disasters.

7) Honeybees share: they know there is plenty for everyone, including other species. Honeybees do not compete head-on with other species: there is overlap in their food sources, but they do not need to drive others from their territory.

8) Honeybees adapt to their surroundings. They know that this is the only effective survival strategy. This extends even to their use of propolis, which varies according to local conditions, and can protect them against localized pathogens.

9) Honeybees understand that honest communication is at the heart of community. Bees are great communicators, using vibrations and pheromones to pass complex messages around their colony. As far as we know, they are incapable of telling anything but the truth as they understand it.

10) Honeybees' survival depends on selecting high quality, un-tainted food from a variety of sources. Because we have assumed control of much of the available land for our own purposes, we are responsible for ensuring that they continue to have access to flowers untainted by toxic chemicals to which they have no defence.

Eat. Pray. Save

These three area’s the Lord has been highlighting in our lives. Let us explain…

1. Eat

Our desire is to one day {when we get jobs} eat completely organic and local foods. Did you know that a family went on a 100 day challenge to eat organically and many health related problems went away and their good cholesterol increased by 50%?? We see many benefits and have recently watched a movie called “Food Inc” that has unveiled the secrets of where our food comes from. It’s actually scary, so if you are willing to take a risk to change: watch this movie!

2. Pray

We are in search for an organic church. What’s this you may ask?

“I mean a non-traditional church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grass roots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every member functioning, open-participatory meetings (opposed to pastor-to-pew services), non-hierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gatherings. Put another way, organic church life is the experience of the Body of Christ. In its purest form, it’s the fellowship of the Triune God brought to earth and experienced by human beings.” –Frank Viola

We haven’t got it all figured out, but the more we study the New Testament and read books about church history, we have come to a mark of decision. We are hungry for unique, genuine, authentic fellowship that we read about in the New Testament, and somehow it’s missing today.

3. Save

God has put a high standard of faithfulness and integrity. As we transition into the “real world” we find ourselves trying to figure out how to operate in the American culture. A real question that was on our hearts was simply, “Do we rent?” – “Do we buy?” We came up with two conclusions: 1- Renting seems to be a waste of money. 2- We don’t have money to buy! But we can borrow! So that left us with big question marks… the more we’ve wrestled through it all we came to the realization that in life there are steps. We can’t have it all at once. Sometimes we think we can. Debt is not to be an option. We are going to try to go against playing the game some American’s play… get what you want when you want it and pay it off later. We want to be faithful with what we have and work for what we think we need. If we can’t buy it now, perhaps it’s not a priority?

The Next Chapter

For those of you who haven’t heard, we have left our organization ‘Youth With A Mission’. This is something that God has been stirring in us for about a year. We have been praying since then and around Christmas/New Year we felt like the time was coming. Our plan was to end after our trip to Africa… but even that looked different than what we thought. We both have a heart for long-term missions and wanted to move overseas. God has been transforming our view on things and we believe that God wants to equip us for the future. It is a time to learn new things, meet new people, to grow in our relationship with others, together, and with God. We don’t know what all of this looks like, but we have a peace knowing that the first act of faith was to leave YWAM. We seek God on where to live, where to work, and where to fellowship….

Latest Readings

We have read a book that has enlightened us on the past of the Church. It is very interesting to think about why we do things the way we do in Church meetings. Many of the ideas come from pagan roots and were never practiced in the early Church meetings. Not all of these things are bad but some are not Biblical...
This has lead us to read another book that is written to give the reader a better understanding about what is happening in the New Testament. The letters are in order from longest to shortest not in chronological order, and we only have one side to the letters that Paul wrote to the Churches. Because of this it is not easy to understand what is going on while reading through the New Testament. The book is written to show historical locations and situations and to mirror the letters to show what the other side of the story probably looks like. So, while reading this book the story of the New Testament comes to life and makes more sense.

Greetings from Zambia!

Hi Everyone,
We made it to Zambia last Sunday.

UPDATE FROM A WEEK AGO
We finished a week of the SBS.We learned about Genesis. The students read the book about 4 times in 3 days, and we finished it once. We like it here because we can walk down the street on break and sit at the beach for a bit or grab a bite to eat at a hamburger stand for cheap. We also like that there are about 15 nations represented in the SBS class, and many more on the whole base.
Once as we were walking to the beach to go read Genesis, a homeless woman stopped us and asked us to buy a Bible concordance. She thought we were probably from YWAM and needed help spiritually, emotionally, and financially. She was pregnant and her husband couldn't get a job. She had a very rough family life growing up and I(dewayne) got to share a little about the things I learned in class concerning the fall and how men became sinful and how it's was never Gods heart for this to happen and the only way to fix it is Christ. After hearing more of her sad story Tara prayed with her and we gave her some soup packets and bought the Concordance to help them. Her name is Christin if you would like to pray for her. She is due any day and her husband is looking for a job.
We went to a township nearby with the DTS and talked to the coloreds and blacks. I kinda felt like the rich whitey that was there to comfort them, but later I heard that they would rather listen to us than their family or neighbors that live there with them. We got to talk and pray with people and hear some more sad stories. It's hard to know if you should expect God to heal or if they just need to change things in their life. I don't doubt that God can heal but I also know we cant do whatever we want all the time and expect God to rescue us. Pray for us to know how to speak and pray into their situations.

CURRENT UPDATE

Our time in Zambia has been good. We got to take a mini honeymoon add on from our one in Savannah. We visited Victoria Falls which was amazingly beautiful. This was a moment I (Tara) have been waiting for for 2 years! It was a perfect visit and we walked around the park for 4 hours seeing the falls from many angles. We also went to stay in a village and stayed in a hut for the first time. We got a tour, ate local food, and DeWayne got taught some language by a drunk guy!

We next traveled to the capitol of Zambia- Lusaka to visit a fellow student (Stephanie) of one of our training schools. It's been great visiting with her. We will meet up with her later in the trip to see the ministries she has been involved with and start debriefing her from her time in Zambia.
Tomorrow we will be traveling to another city to visit Elizabeth, a Zambian teacher I (Tara) used to work with at the orphanage a few years ago.

That's all for now! Thanks for bearing such a long email! We appreciate your prayers!

The Bunchs

Tour of Cape Town

Today we went to Cape Town with Sarah and she showed us around the area that we have not seen being here at the base in Muizenburg. There is a lot of rich folk and plenty of European type development. The view in this part of South Africa is amazing!


We stopped by a beach near by and saw penguins.












We took a wrong turn into a subdivision and saw baboons on the side of the street chillin. One was eating yogurt until the dogs came and chased them onto the roofs.