Alleluia! Plans for the New Faith House Orphanage have officially begun! It was so exciting to watch men with their fancy rulers and big posters sit down together and begin drawing site plans! It was even more exciting to watch them as they went to the Lord, before every meeting, to make sure they were following what God wants for Future Generations International Missions and not what we all think will work.
Happy New Year! I hope this finds you starting your new year off fantastic and still holding on to those oh’ so popular new year’s goals. 😉
Chase and I are excited for what 2017 will hold and ready to be back in the field. Our time in the states was far from anything we could have expected. We definitely experienced some serious heart-break, but nothing can over shadow the joy we have experienced becoming parents! Zero words can explain our love and thanksgiving we have for our Sweet PE. We are smitten and everything that transpired in 2016 does not hold a candle to the arrival of our precious daughter! God has taught us so much about love and grace while being parents to PE.
Our family started off the new year by getting PE’s passport applied for and can I simply say, babies take the most adorable passport photos!! But, maybe I am a little biased! 😉
Our goal is to move to Haiti February 27th. A lot still needs to be accomplished for us to move into our rental house. What things you ask? Well, one main thing that needs to be done is power still needs to be ran to the house. Some other basic maintenance needs to be done and a biggie for me, a hot water heater needs to be added. Call me pampered, but I like to shower with hot water! Please be praying for the house to be ready and for other housing to be available if it is not ready.
Chase and I have had an over abundance of conversations about how much we miss our Ugandan family and friends. But, we cannot deny how God continues to encourage us and show us we are supposed to go to Haiti. While we still have some fundraising ground to make up gaining monthly supporters, we have NEVER been this far ahead in our fundraising. God continues to show his faithfulness to us through people giving so selflessly. A huge shout out to everyone who has given to our fund and for believing God can use us broken people to grow His kingdom. Please pray for more people to join our monthly support team.
The next few weeks are going to fly by and I pray we cherish our remaining time in the states. Here are a few exiting events coming up that we want to share with you and invite you to join us…
Thank you to every single one of you who has helped us during our time in the states. The body of Christ is alive and moving and I am so thankful for each one of you who has showered us with love and encouragement!
My goal is to keep everyone more informed this year through our blog. My apologies for my absents from blogging, but I have been over consumed loving on Sweet PE and I make no apologies for that. 😉
Have a great day friends! I will leave you with these sweet three-month old pictures of PE to hopefully brighten your day with a toothless smile!
Today we wanted to take the time to recap what has lead us to our “today” of moving full time to the mission field in Haiti. We are beyond thankful for those that have and continue to be an enormous encouragement on this journey God has us on! It all started last December…
In December of 2015 we humbly accepted an offer to join For Life Ministries as missionaries in Haiti (to read more about this decision visit this blog post- For I know the plans. Less than one-month later God answered our nine-month prayer and we found out we were expecting our first child! We are still rejoicing to this day that He is entrusting us to be parents and our prayer is to raise this child up in the ways of the Lord where ever he places us. With that said, we have confidence knowing God’s timing is perfect. While we know this is going to be challenging, we are clinging to what God has called all believers to do, “go and make disciples of all nations.” He does not say, “but if you have children stay in the comfort of your culture.” There is no but, just a command to go. Therefore, we will go and continue trusting God with everything in us knowing He has opened a door for us to use the gifts He has given us to glorify His name in Haiti (1 Peter 4:10).
While we are blessed to be able to provide a safe home for our child, we have faced the brutal reality that not every child brought into this world knows what it is like to have a safe and loving home to call their own. Tomorrow morning in Haiti, a child will wake up before dawn to cook food she will never eat and wash beautiful clothes she will never get to wear. She will buy food from a market and fetch water from a well, all for a family that is not hers. All for a family that will probably treat her as an object only good for serving their endless needs. She is just one of the more than 300,000 children in Haiti, known as restaveks or domestic slaves. These children will never know how much God loves them. They will never know that God created them for a purpose. They will never know unless God’s people go and tell them. Therefore, we will be moving to Jacmel, Haiti to partner with Faith House Orphanage. This orphanage exists to spread the gospel by rescuing orphans and restaveks in Haiti. The orphanage also provides a Biblical based education opportunity to the community and has a growing church. We are humbled to be God’s vessels to share the love of Christ with as many restaviks, orphans, children and adults as possible. If we can teach just one person that God loves them and that He sent His only son to die on the cross for all people, it will be worth us packing our family of three in suitcases and humbly going.
Once our funds are raised, our new family of three will move to Haiti in January of 2017. Our goal will be to share the gospel while working with the orphanage.
As we move forward we continue to ask you for your prayers as we prepare for the arrival of Piper Eleanor (due October 3rd), for God to provide faithful financial supporters, for God to open doors to share about Haiti with church groups, and for God to be glorified as we journey through this process. If you would like to schedule us to come share with your church, small group, or any other organization please email us at kimmey@forlifeministries.org.
We praise God that 20% of our monthly financial goal has been met! Thank you to everyone who has partnered with us monthly or has generously donated a one-time donation. Please be in prayer for others to join our team to help us meet our goal. If you would like to become a monthly supporter or make a one-time donation, please follow the steps below or feel free to call the For Life Ministries office to set it up over the phone (256-203-2997).
Online Donation Steps
1. Go to http://forlifeministries.org/know_one.html
2. Scroll down until you see the Barbrey family photo
3. Click the “donate button” below our picture
4. Follow the steps required for donation payment
**If you would like to make a recurring monthly donation, please select the recurring billing box in the upper right hand corner on the payment form.
We are officially one month away from Piper Eleanor’s due date! We are so excited and cannot wait to meet her! Chase packed his patience and my camera with him for an early morning venture to Town Creek Park in Auburn, Alabama. I am not a great model and anyone who has witnessed my pikiness with photo’s understands what he was up against. So thankful he has patience with me! 🙂 He did such a great job and I cannot wait to share these with Piper one day. Here are a few of our favorites.
The Barbrey Tales 