$100

Sometimes, God can be ridiculous. T paid for all the airline tickets for Cameroon (16 peeps), England (12 peeps?) and Hungary (26 peeps) and maxed out all the churches' credit cards. Hmmm... As a little surprise, God raised the stakes for us and added a $100 surcharge for jet fuel onto each ticket (minus Kt and Em). Hmmm.... seriously, at this point, there would be no doubt that it's a God thing, making it to our goal. I'm kind of wondering if we'll also get slammed with a baggage charge!

Off the subject of money, T and I hammered out the final details on what the team is teaching at the conference - Running the Good Race. We've divided the week into some different themes (based on one of our team member's recollections of Pilgrim's Progress - very loosely based once we got our hands on it!) to Complacency (having to rely on God's strength, not our own - Samson), Humiliation (letting God use us even when we feel "silly" - Jonah), Despair (connecting with other members of the body - Paul and Silas in jail), Servants Heart (serving those in need - The Good Samaritan) and finally the Reward (heaven, reaching our goal, Paul's life as a missionary). I think we've finally connected all the pieces, so our last tasks include adding more substance and coming up with some good games - one more meeting, so it must happen there. You can pray for our team (pray, pray, pray!!)!

It's really a race we are running to get to Hungary, (Cameroon and England)... I'm not leaving out New Orleans (they returned Sunday!) or Baltimore (they are there right now!). Both of those teams have met their goals in support. The Hungary team is getting there, but we still have a way to go and two weeks to get there. TWO WEEKS! Crazy.