You guys! We’ve hit our first financial goal in getting to Kenya and we are super, super excited to share it with you! Ready?!
We have raised enough funds to cover all of our one time costs!
This is HUGE! Obviously we could not be celebrating this milestone without all of our supporters, so we send out a ginormous THANK YOU to every single one of you who have already joined us financially. We want to give you each a giant hug! Also, Sam has a message for you…
Now, what does this mean exactly? Let me tell you. It means that all of the things we need to pay for just one time, not every month, have now been covered through financial gifts. Curious to know what some of those expenses are? Here are a few…
Plane Tickets & Moving Expenses. Getting over to Kenya and then back again after two years.
Legal Fees & Papers. So they actually let us into the country. That would be nice.
Furniture. Beds. A kitchen table. A few things that make a house a home.
Trainings. We’ve already spent one week in training at our mission’s headquarters and we’ll spend one more week there this summer. Then, right before we leave for Kenya, we’ll study as a family for four weeks at a cross-cultural training facility in Colorado Springs.
Language School. We plan to attend a 2-3 months of intense Swahili language school as soon as we arrive in Kenya. This will be vital to the long-term work we will be able to do there and the relationships we will be able to build.
So what’s next? Now we continue doing what we’ve been doing. Visiting churches, meeting with friends, speaking with small groups. We love sharing our story and our vision for what we’ll be doing in Kenya. With that, we invite people to pray about joining us financially. We won’t be paid by the hospital in Kenya, so we need to raise everything for our first two years there before we leave. That can be done two ways. The first is through one-time gifts. The second is through pledging a specific amount each month. We currently have 28% of our monthly budget pledged.
Our next major goal is to reach 50% of our monthly expenses pledged. Why 50%? That is when big things happen. First, we can register for our last two trainings. Second, we will be eligible for health insurance through our mission organization. We are currently paying for insurance ourselves, as Pete is working as a freelance ER doc. Being on the mission’s health insurance will take a pretty big burden off our current budget, allowing us to pay Pete’s medical school loan faster, something we want to have finished before leaving for Kenya.
We are thrilled to share this news of having our one-time costs covered! Thank you for trusting us to be good stewards of these funds. We look forward to sharing more updates in the near future!
Do you know of a group, church, or family who would be interested in hearing more about what we’ll be doing in Kenya? Please use this contact form to send us an email.
Want to learn more about making a financial contribution to the work we’ll be doing in Kenya? Click here for information and click here to donate! Thank you!
Photo Friday is a little glimpse at our week in pictures. To see more, follow @TheMangoMemoirs on Instagram!
